Grading, What's Your Method?

IMO the only grading guide worth anything is Photograde 1970 issued in hardcover.--and still found on ABE's. The photos in the 1970 edition stand out better because they have a black background. Photograde only goes up to AU. Anything without wear or rubs back then was obviously Unc. I don't think James Ruddy in 1970 figured Uncirculated would become the Tower of Babel that it is. Which is fine by me. I refuse to embrace the suck. I will no longer buy uncirculated coins and for the most part won't by coins at all. I prefer tokens and medals, the grades of which don't require me to: "wheedle a precarious moment's favor from men who held guns."--- see below.

"He did not know whether the impossibility of acting had given him the sense of loathing, or whether the loathing had made him lose the desire to act. It's both , he thought; a desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving. If the only goal possible was to wheedle a precarious moment's favor from men who held guns, then neither action nor desire could exist any longer. Character Hank Reardon/Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

I use Photograde for my circulated coins - a dog earred 1972 version. Sometimes I also use the ANA Standards book - again an early copy. For uncirculated coins I sometimes use the huge Heritage Auction archives. They give you large detailed scans of coins slabbed by the major TPGs - mostly ANACS and NGC. That helps me follow trends in grading by the big boys. Of course looking at tons of coins first hand - like at shows, club meetings and at dealers gives you a feel for what is accepted for a grade and who is over grading, what various methods of past cleaning look like, and commonly found damage. It is a long learning curve. ebay is a poor learning tool for grading. Almost all the coins are somewhat over graded and some large dealers, like Ernie, will consistently over grade by two to three levels. Venturing into buying from ebay requires the collector to bring his own expertise, and to o0nly bid on listings that have good scans or pictures and a return policy. Another good way for me to sharpen my skills is to pit myself against the vast experience on this website on the Practice Your Grading Skills topic on this community. I also use it to get second opinions on grade before I buy. Invaluable!

Colin

The standard works across the board if you consider the softness of different metals, the likelihood of tarnish and discoloration, and the size of the coins. These things change some of the variables from one series to the other.

PCGS published a book of their standards some time ago - Coin Grading and Counterfeit Detection. It's far better written and illustrated than the ANA grading guides, but I do not believe it's in print any more. The main differences between their standards and the ANA standards are that there is a lot more leniency in MS grading under PCGS standards, and they also insisted on changing the abbreviation for Extremely Fine from the ANA "EF" to "XF". Many people (including dealers) adopted the "XF" abbreviation and use it regularly, even though all of the ANA grading standard guides specifically note that using "XF" is not correct.

Other than that the standards are almost mirror images of one another. All the same numbers and grades are used, as was originally authored by Sheldon - the 70 point grading system.

All of the third party grading companies use the 70 point system to one extent or another. Many of them have consistency problems, and a few of them are way too lenient on grading. Some others just guess at the grades. Over the years PCGS has gained a foothold on the market that will likely never go away, primarily because their standard is one of the more consistent in the business.