Just For Fun! How Would You Grade These Coins?

Toning is environmental damage, the TPGs only no-grade environmentally damaged coins when the effect is active or it has caused material damage to the coin in excess of what is normally expected for the given grading.

The material damage from those tone spots is microscopic. The toning on the 1949 has actually caused more material damage than the spots on the 1938.

I'm confused. When trying to establish grade on pennies, I have been looking at what I assumed to be "wear marks" down the roos tail, on the rump and the cheek. I always thought these were indicators, and look at these points when trying to establish a grade. Am I to assume that based on OP's last photo, that these are not indicators of wear?

At Shanow
HeHe
There IS a hidden agenda here
In reality in layman's terms the first 2 coins made MS63RB from NGC the third coin made the same grade from PCGS.
Just look at the coins and you will see instantly that the third coin is Crap ,Regardless of the grade given by PCGS or the "Weak Strike" argument given.
Don't know what is going on here but by Crikey it IS interesting

I suspect an agenda too.

OP has asked to compare two Melbourne mint strikes with a Perth Mint strike. This has the potential to confuse inexperienced detail graders who are unaware of the strike differences between the Melbourne and Perth mints.

The Melbourne mint strikes were photographed at high contrast while the Perth Mint strike was photographed at low contrast - this dulls lustre, makes detail appear less bold and adversely affects the eye appeal on the Perth Mint strike. This has the potential to further confound graders who don't take into account the imaging method.

The obverse photo of the Perth Mint strike was omitted for some reason. The obverse may have made it more obviously an uncirculated coin.

Perhaps OP can post the PCGS number of the coin so we can look up the PCGS photos.

If somebody, anybody decides to use APCGS to grade their coins and are content with the results then who are we to criticize.
They and they alone will discover any plus or minuses if and when they move the coins on.!
Living in South Australia I am fortunate to be surrounded by several people who are extremely knowledgeable in the art of grading which perhaps taints my point of view.
I find it amusing after two years that I still don't know who owns and or grades for APCGS, despite many attempts to discover the facts on many forums. Surely an Australian owned company would offer full disclosure to help boost their customer base.

My 'agenda' was to invite people to comment on the great differences between the three coins, despite the fact that they all had exactly the same grading.

My observations over the last year or so led me to become increasingly sceptical about the two major grading companies, and if you look at American forums discussing them, there is considerable dissatisfaction afoot there for various reasons I won't go into here because they relate to the grading of American coins.

I did not set out to 'promote' APCGS - in fact the opposite, because the stimulus for this thread was the fact that the APCGS guy told me that one of my most perfect coins was not in a 'mint state' and therefore would not receive an MS grade. I therefore wanted to learn more about what a mint state actually was and in that context I was horrified when I saw that the third coin is regarded by someone at the PCGS as being in a 'mint state.' (It seems to me that it most certainly is not.)

However, when the issue came up I took the position that there should be an Australian company grading Australian coins. I think it stinks that we have to send our coins to the U.S. and pay a small fortune for the privilege of being told pretty much the same thing a capable Australian grader would be able to say. So I didn't come here to promote APCGS, but I have ended up being more pro-APCGS than I was when the thread began.

What I find myself wondering now is whether, for example, the Dutch get their coins graded by a Dutch company or whether they also send them to the PCGS and the NGC. The Germans? The French? It would be interesting to know what views prevail on this subject in Europe.

Are we really going to start an argument here?

As someone who frequents both the Canadian and US section let me tell you that each forum has atleast one TPG criticizer...(Will not name names)....

IMO...

It is very hard to differentiate in the grades ok?
Any guess by any member is an educated guess to their own abilities and anyone can make the point that all 3 are of the same grade. Lots of different factors are evident here. First, one of the coins is toned. I'd like to use the example of Morgan dollars here:




Both are graded exactly the same, yet the splotchy toning makes each coin look vastly different.

Secondly, weak strikes.

The coin that many are calling AU or gVF even may as well be MS. Actual wear caused on a coin is a result of circulation and a coin that is struck weakly due to dies even with very weak details is considered MS (Hence the definition of mint state).

Just my Three Cents (Pun intended)..