Die Polish Lines

I am far from being any good at grading but I think there are two parts to grading a coin. There is technical grade and then there is eye appeal. A coin that grades out at MS69 with polish lines is technically a 69, even the lines will be 69 but to me the lines take away the eye appeal of the coin. I hope I am explaining myself right
John1

Sorry I was wrong - the coin I saw did not get a 69, it got a 67.




Well, according to PCGS, the grade we see on the slab is referred to as the "final grade" which DOES account for eye appeal (for all coins).




So this brings up a related issue... I don't see why toning is included in the grade at all when that part is like 95% a matter of taste and opinion (and varies a LOT). For example, some of their pictures of good/positive toning to me look bad. Grading is always an "opinion", I understand, but whats the point of grading toning? Can you really say, for just one example, that a tan color is better/worse than a white coin? And even if/when you can say a coin clearly has above average toning what is the point of including it into the grade? We don't need a professional opinion on what color or toning is best, lol.

If anything a plus (+) or minus (-) should be used to designate a significant positive/negative eye appeal consideration, but that's it. A star (*) could then replace the old plus (+) to indicate above average technical details. This would separate the subjective/eye appeal grade from the final grade but all of the same information would still be provided. I'm not claiming it would make the slab grade 100% reliable (we'd still have to evaluate the coin ourselves) but it would improve consistency by reducing the highly subjective part of the grading process. Which is what everyone wants right?

People say "buy the coin and not the holder" for reasons like this... weakly defined or highly subjective grading criteria are difficult to evaluate and introduce all kinds of variance. This would be a way to reduce that variance among graders.