The subject of grading classic US commemorative coins comes up fairly often here on CCF; a recent thread asked if there were any on-line grading guides for classic US commemoratives.
Rather than burying my response to such a general question in a coin-specific topic, I thought it would be best to start a new thread so that the discussion (and link) can be more easily found.
James Halperin, one of the most respected coin graders in the country, wrote a fantastic book about the grading of
US coins back in the mid-1980s; its title is
How to Grade US Coins. The volume discusses the roles that surface preservation, strike, luster and overall eye appeal have in determining a coin's grade. It is a book that, if studied, will greatly improve a collector's understanding of how to assess the grade of
US coins.
One of the innovative aspects of the book was Halperin's introduction of a color-mapping approach to illustrate the highest points of a coin's design and therefore the areas that will almost always show wear first. Rather than simply describing an area susceptible to wear or using an arrow to point to the general area (as others had), Halperin mapped the coin's surface and applied a zone of color to illustrate the full high point / wear area. His approach was most extensively applied to the grading of
Morgan silver dollars, but he created maps for all US coin series, including the classic US commemorative coins. (The current
Coin World grading book is a new incarnation of Halperin's work.)
The book does not provide images of each numerical grade for each coin in the series, but it does offer a way for a collector to very easily identify the high points of each coin (obverse and reverse) and thus establish if a given coin shows signs of wear.
I have provided a link to the commemorative coin section of the on-line version of the book, but I would strongly recommend that folks read the entire on-line volume in order to get the most from Halperin's insights. Third-party grading services have moved away from strict technical grading and adopted what is today described as market grading - a looser grading approach in the opinion of many. It's important to note that Halperin's book was published well before this shift in grading philosophies, so it offers a more strict interpretation of grading characteristics.
You can view Halperin's maps for classic US commemorative coins here:
Halperin's High Point Maps for Classic US Commemorative Designs(Note: You'll have to scroll the page a bit for the commemorative section.)I hope the link proves useful for those interested in enhancing their grading skills.
Posted 10/09/2017 2:46 pm
