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 Replies: 10 / Views: 1,299 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
812 Posts |
It appears that Coin World has discontinued my favorite article in the Coin Values magazine, 'Making the Grade.' This had color photos of a particular series of coins, with text descriptions (very similar to the text in ' ANA Grading Standards,' but the pictures were bigger, and in color, and there were often more grades covered: G-6, VF-30, etc.) I don't know how many other forum members subscribe, or particularly care if they do ... but I'm UPSET! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1247 Posts |
Making the Grade is based on Halperin's book including the photos. If you kept all your CoinValues issues I would think you have most of what's in the book by now or you can always get the book. I had a copy of it when it was first published back in the 80's and thought it was pretty good. Of course I had a lot more faith in grading back then. Today I just view "market" grades as Frankengrades bumbling through the village. Still, if you have faith in it all, it really is a pretty good book. At least the one I had was. If you email CoinWorld, they'll tell you what's going on. Maybe they just skipped it in this issue for some reason? |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
812 Posts |
I've not read the Halperin book, but I've gotten the impression that it focuses on Mint State grading. My interest is in old circulated coins. A book with good pictures showing F-12, F-15, VF-20, VF-25, VF-30, VF-35, EF-40, etc would be something I would gladly invest in. Does the Halperin book do this? If not, does anyone know of a book that does?
Coin Values had a sentence in the intro bidding farewell to 'Making the Grade' and introducing 'First Grade.' Maybe 'First Grade' will start going into detail, but the first article was ultra-generic and provided no really useful information (ex. "having a good light source is important when grading coins").
I've saved all my old Coin Values issues, but there are still a lot of coin series that have not yet been covered. I suspect I will end up not renewing my subscription.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1247 Posts |
Try the original Photograde book from 1970. The photos are against a black background and look, IMO, better than the the later books. It's also hardcover. You can probably find one on ABE. It's a good book. The only thing is gradeflation exists for circulated grades too. What Jim Ruddy called EF40 in 1970 might be called EF45 or maybe even AU50 today. Good luck in any case: Circulated coins=  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1231 Posts |
maybe CoinWorld took it out until they go to the new format with the smaller pages and more color. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
812 Posts |
Here's the response from Coin World: ========================================================================== Because you have been a Coin Values subscriber since the first issue, you probably are aware that the Making the Grade column had presented virtually all of the design types for U.S. coins. We are in the process of editing those columns for presentation in a comprehensive grading guide book that will be available by summer 2008. The reason we did that was because we are constantly having new readers subscribe and they missed the earlier issues. Rather than simply repeat what had been published earlier (which would not be useful to readers like you) we launched a new grading column with Michael Fahey -- one of the nation's most respected professional graders, as author. Michael will be exploring aspects of grading not covered in Making the Grade. His introductory columns have been necessarily basic because of the many readers who are very new to grading. Very quickly I think you find that First Grade, too, will offer valuable information and insight regarding grading. ========================================================================== I guess I'll just have to wait and see. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1247 Posts |
I'm looking at the Oct issue of CoinValues right now for Capped Bust halves. They start out with AG-3. If they do the book the same way it should be pretty decent and more practical than rooting through magazines. I'll definitely get a copy of as long as it has the circulated grades in it.
Still, I believe everyone needs a copy of older grading standards that were accepted by collectors in that day. We need it to see what was compared to what is and to decide if it is acceptable. IMO, nothing was ever more acceptable to coin collectors than Photograde. In 37 years it has never gone out of print.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1327 Posts |
I bought the Book "Making the Grade" By Beth Deisher. It is a spiral book that is the same layout as the artile in coin value and is put out buy Coin World. I really love the book one of the easist and best book to grade coin with in my opion. It was requimended to me by my local dealer he think it is very user friendly and is layout nicely. SO I bought it and has been very useful. one of the top three must have books Here is a link to the book at Amazon.comhttp://www.amazon.com/Making-Grade-...p/094494549X |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1541 Posts |
Does it have circulated grades? And reading one of the reviews at Amazon I felt it includes modern coinage but not seated series and other older type coins? If this book covers all US types in circulated grades with pictures I'll go for it. |
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Member
United States
3242 Posts |
It look ICG has payed off coin values to up there grading I guess HSN has bailed on them
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Pillar of the Community
United States
812 Posts |
I imagine I'd get the 'Making The Grade' book if I hadn't saved all the Coin Values, even though the "25 most popular series" it covers doesn't overlap very much with the 25 series most popular with ME. I hope the book coming out in the Summer of '08 is all inclusive. If it follows the format of the Coin Values articles, it will do a thorough job covering circulated grades of the non-modern series. By the way, the e-mail response I received from Coin World was from Beth Deisher. |
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Replies: 10 / Views: 1,299 |
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Posted 10/28/2007 7:04 pm
