Most important is the obverse. That has nothing to do with the grading. When coins were first issued 2600 years ago, the reverse was just an incuse punch mark to help bring up the detail on the obverse.
What makes a coin legally a coin is that it's value is gauranteed by the issuing authority and not necessarily have a stated value. Witness British coins, such as the highly respected Gold Sovereign. Some sort of statement of authority was found on the obverse, (quite often a king's image), a convention not necessarily followed after the Middle Ages, for a variety of reasons.
When grading, the side that has the lowest grade is the grade that is declared by most TPG'ers.
I think that is a bit unfair. I think it is also unfair when the obverse may be a few grades below the reverse, and yet the coin gets the poor obverse grade. Both sides should be graded and stated.
I simply ignore the TPGraders, and grade each side of every coin in my collection. If the grade is very close on both sides, (most often), it gets a single grade.
Obverse generally carries more weight than the reverse. Some commemorative, ATB/State quarters are exceptions. Whatever side they put in the slab facing forward as the default is the side that generally carries more weight.
When it comes to grading, the obverse is the usually the more important side. In addition to the exceptions mentioned by basebal21, I think the 1922 no D cent die pair 2 might be another.
I don't know if this is the reason but I have a hypothesis why the obverse carries more weight. This hypothesis applies best to when viewing coins in person but I think it still works to some degree online. Whenever you go to coins shows and browse through a dealer's inventory, you will notice that most coins are placed with the obverse side up. If you have a coin that has an ugly obverse but nice reverse, it oftentimes gets rejected immediately and given no consideration. A coin that has the opposite situation will more often be requested for a closer inspection even if it's eventually rejected. A coin that is at least considered will have a higher probability of selling and a higher probability of selling implies a higher market value. In the world of market grading, a coin that has a higher market value is usually given a higher grade. Even online a picture of the obverse is usually the first picture. So that is my hypothesis and perhaps those more knowledgeable that I can comment on it.
Thank you, everyone, for your responses. I see some suggestion that grading favors the obverse with coins that have notable obverse varieties. That seems to be highly subjective "grading" to me. (Note: this does not concern ancient/medieval coins)
Coins have two primary sides. I assume you all know what they are. When circulating coins are handled, it is impossible to handle them by only one of those sides. (that would just be pushing it)
Considering blanking, minting, bagging, rolling and circulating: how does one side matter more than the other if the grading criteria were not biased? In the case of Morgan hoards, in bags, how does one determine which side is more important in a grade? Is a composite grade not even a thing? I am beginning to lose all faith in this "grading system" as applied. This is just another nail in the coffin of TPG reason, sorry.
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It is possible for coins to be more badly worn, damaged or otherwise circulated on one side than the other; hence the need for split grades. You can have a coin with no obvious detracting marks on one side, and a big bag mark across the devices on the other. Or consider Canadian coins from those noxiously damaging mint packaging they used to use int he 1960s and 1970s; they often have one side pristine and flawless, with the other side covered in splotchy toning.
Way back when the first TPG, ANACS, began in the 1980s, they used split grading on every coin they graded. So your coin might be given a grade of "AU-55/50", which would mean they graded the obverse at 55, the reverse at 50. To arrive at a "net grade" for the entire coin (so you could look the price up the catalogue), the convention was (and still is, for coins that would warrant a split grade) that 70% of the grade derives from the obverse. Thus, an AU-50/55 would net grade to AU-50, but a coin graded AU-55/50 would net grade to AU-55.
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Quote: In the case of Morgan hoards, in bags, how does one determine which side is more important in a grade?
Morgans are always the face barring actual real one sided rainbow monster toning on the reverse or maybe some obscure VAM. The reverse of Morgans are almost always pristine.
Quote: Is a composite grade not even a thing? I am beginning to lose all faith in this "grading system" as applied. This is just another nail in the coffin of TPG reason, sorry.
Just because one side is favored doesn't mean the other side is ignored. It's no different than a hit on a focal area being worse than a hit hidden in the letters on the reverse.
This went on LONG BEFORE TPGs even existed. People blame the TPGs for far to many grading things that existed before they ever did
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Posted 01/17/2019 05:51 am
