Is The Age Of A Coin A Factor In Grading?

Well, you couldn't compare the two because one is a Peace dollar and the other is a silver eagle.
Age isn't directly a factor, like they wouldn't be easier on grading a 20 year old dime than a 40 year old dime, but different coins have different grading standards that aren't necessarily determined by age.

As far as I understand it, the age of a coin does not increase or decrease the leniency in grading (with certain exceptions). A coin either shows wear due to circulation, or it doesn't, and the amount of wear directly correlates the grade of the coin. The exceptions mentioned apply (as far as I know) only to early large cents and Half Cents where the shear rarity of the coins and the rather poor condition of most surviving specimens can and have been taken into account on grading (and have raised grades).

How proper that is is open to interpretation, on the one hand it can increase value of a coin, on the other hand the coin that's been given an over-inflated grade can be somewhat damaged or show more wear than it should, and since the grading standards (although mostly standardized in America), can still differ between grading companies (i.e., one company over-inflates a grade due to "age" [rarity], whereas another doesn't and can affect resale of a coin if the grading company that doesn't has more customer-following than the one that does); as well, the grading scale used in America is (I've read) weaker than the grading scale used in Germany or other countries.

Where ancients (or even medieval) coins are concerned, in addition to poor die quality is the fact that they were hammered coins on largely imperfect planchets and can show cracks in the planchet and can be grossly off center (as well as some coins appearing to be clipped when in reality they're haven't been, or vice-versa)

As zxcccxz said:



Even within the same series, different coins are known to have been weakly or strongly struck, have metal flow problems, etc.

Take your Peace dollar and compare the obverse and reverse, noting where the metal had to flow:


It's no wonder the bird's body is somewhat weaker than would be expected, given the flow into Liberty's face. But that's not WEAR. And knowing the difference is the experience you are paying for - comes from handling 1000s of coins.

Do the same thing with the ASE:


Different places to look, plus newer, better technology - leads to higher expectations.

Not different standards due to age per se, but different standards due to different coins and technology.

Bstrauss3========================





YES

YES

YES

Age really does not matter although although certain dates within a series might be struck far weaker than the surrounding dates. A 14-D Lincoln is a great example. This coin will not match any of the other "D" mint coins from 1911-16 in terms of quality of strike. But then if you were grading an uncirculated coin you the primary factor is the eye appeal of the luster. The only time you really take age in to account is you have to look at what time a country went from the old punch presses to more modern minting methods. In the U.S.A. 1840 is about the dividing line. American coins struck before that year may have an uneven strike so you could have a coin that's a technical Fine but parts of the coin look only Very Good on certain parts of the coin. In this case you generally look at the overall presence of wear and a coin like this will still grade Fine. Now of course whether or not it will bring average Fine money or maybe a little bit less or even more less than that is the factor of market desire but not grading technicals. Pre 1840 Large Cents are great examples of this.