Split Grading - An Idea That Would Drive Collectors Mad

Interesting
One idea is to put the split grades somewhere on the grading tab but have the overall grade of the numismatic item still in the center.
Like:
AG-3 reverse,
G-6 obverse,
But the net grade would be a G-4...
Just a thought

I believe the original ANACS Photo Certification services (while still owned by the ANA) used split grading

Correct. The American Numismatic Association Certification Service originally used split grades. My second edition of the Coin Collectors Survival Manual (published 1988) goes into detail explaining the split-grade system. They stopped split-grading in 1989 when they transitioned from soft plastic flips to rigid plastic slabs, and just before the ANA sold off ANACS in 1990.

This website shows some examples of early ANACS certificates, with split-grades: https://oldslabholders.com/anacs-ce...-generations

I think one of the key issues leading to the demise of "split grading" is how, exactly, do you determine a book value for a coin with a split grade. Grade on the lowest side? Split the difference? Be biased towards one side? There was no agreement on the issue. The book I mentioned above opines that 80% of the coin's value should rest with the obverse grade, so a coin graded MS-65/62 (with the obverse always the first number in a split-grade) would be 80% of the MS65 price, plus 20% of the MS62 price. I don't know if the TPGs today still operate on the 80:20 net grade formula.

It's all way too complicated; giving a coin a single net grade makes it much easier for investors (who were the primary beneficiaries of the early slabbing companies) to look up the value of their coins in a simple easy-to-read price guide, without needing to do maths. And trying to make a "simple price guide" for split-graded coins would have been excessively complicated, with hundreds of price entries for every single date-mintmark combination; a Redbook-equivalent "complete price guide for US coins" would need an entire bookshelf of books.

The adjectival grade should reflect the state of preservation of the coin after it left the mint, and should not differ from obverse to reverse. Split grading is an attempt to compare the appearance of each side of the coin, rather than a technical grade for the side. The result usually is a net grade, which is an attempt to capture the state of preservation. The chief exceptions are for buried or sea-treasure-clumped coins or for coins used as jewelry, including rings, money clips, and belt buckles, where only one surface of the coin is exposed to wear, and that wear is abnormal.

The issue is that our eyes don't just see the physical wear on a coin. They also see the die state, die clash polishing, and strike quality. Current grading practices are in the infancy of accurately measuring the factors affecting a coin in hand.

With the advent of increasingly high resolution photography and greater computer processing speed and capacity, it eventually will be possible to recreate a digital lifespan for each die pairing. This will eventually allow digital grading capable of measuring the die state (from 100% theoretically to zero), die polishing from each stage where the dies were polished, and strike quality for the specific date, mint, denomination, and die pair. This, in turn, will eventually allow a 100-point pinpoint grading scale with accompanying measurements of the related factors. (Yes, this will require artificial computer measurements, but on a closed-loop system, rather than the slop we see today with its hallucinations. This will be more on the model of specialized research search engines that only search a defined database.)

We aren't anywhere near that capacity now. And it's a fair question whether coin collecting as a hobby or business will even exist when this becomes feasible.