Posted 01/24/2012 9:44 pm
The guy who grades those so called "lower grade" coins does not know the history, the connection if you will of those coins. They are the ties that bind one generation to another. The generational fabric made seamless, perhaps not realized by this generation of collectors. Most grading is done for the value aspect of knowing how nice the coin is. And some, well some is done for the sheer pleasure of realizing that while it might not be the shiniest, mintest version of that coin out there, perhaps someone in one's not so recent past had some foresight to pick up that coin one day and say "you know, I like the look of that coin. Maybe I'll hang on to it" So that you, 50, 60 or sometimes even more than 70 years later can look at that same coin and see the beauty that someone close to you had seen before you.
My Father passed away a few years ago, and my mother passed away this past summer (2010) In going through their things I found a few coins that my Dad had put aside. He wasn't a collecter at all. But the coins that I found were a 68 Nickel "silver" dollar (they changed over to nickel for business strikes the year I was born, 68) and a Proof set of the year I was born. I never thought my Dad was the sentimental type to buy something like that to mark an occasion, but I guess that I was wrong. I again underestimated my Dad.
Needless to say, I had a hard time continuing to go through their stuff that day.
What I guess I'm trying to say, is that no matter what grade a coin comes back as, the grade is never on the history of the coin.
Because only the coin and you will know the history between you and it.
My Father passed away a few years ago, and my mother passed away this past summer (2010) In going through their things I found a few coins that my Dad had put aside. He wasn't a collecter at all. But the coins that I found were a 68 Nickel "silver" dollar (they changed over to nickel for business strikes the year I was born, 68) and a Proof set of the year I was born. I never thought my Dad was the sentimental type to buy something like that to mark an occasion, but I guess that I was wrong. I again underestimated my Dad.
Needless to say, I had a hard time continuing to go through their stuff that day.
What I guess I'm trying to say, is that no matter what grade a coin comes back as, the grade is never on the history of the coin.
Because only the coin and you will know the history between you and it.
