20 Cent Piece For Grading

I just looked at the double dime grading guide that was linked on this thread. The difference between the pieces graded EF, especially the EF-40, is huge.

One of things that has long bugged me about the grading services is that they are often correct to conservative when it comes to AU and Mint State coins, but they really have played fast and lose with the circulated grades. In other words, "the little guys" have gotten short changed with degraded grading standards.

The first Twenty Cent Piece I ever bought came from the New York Gimbels Department Store in 1964. That coin was graded Fine, and it had four letters of the "LIBERTY" visible. The Brown and Dunn grading book said all seven should be visible, but that was too strict. The letters on the double dime are RAISED which caused them to wear faster. Therefore the Gimbels grade was really accurate.

Since then it's been all down hill with the grading of these coins.

This was the one in mid town Manhatten that was next to Macy's. When I was Gimbel customer, I mostly bought from the Philadelphia store that was on Eighth and Market.

That marked my first trip to professional coin dealer. Prior to that I had been buying coins from my mother's cleaning lady and other similar sources.

As for stamps, the Gimbels concession (The Coin and Currency Institute rented the space; it was not run by the Gimbels management), was the largest stamp dealer in the world at the time.

I use to use Brown & Dunn to grade with but those days are long gone. The TPG's have really loosened the standards but that's where we are now. I checked slabbed VF-30 and also slabbed EF and AU 20c coins on ebay after this thread was started. I really believe the TPG's would have this one in an EF slab.