Posted 11/25/2020 11:31 pm
Yep macmercury, looks like someone took the time to scan them all to the Internet Archive. Though it looks like many of the pages are not the best scans. I do recall finding the grading descriptions on pages 37-38 of the Mercury dime book on the DLRC website a few years ago, and then they were gone...I then went ahead and bought the hardcover book around that time.
Something you may find of interest (not sure if you have this Mercury dime book or not), I do see some discrepancy with David Lange's grading descriptions as compared to PCGS's Photograde.
Interestingly he does acknowledge that for Mercury dimes he found that "the reverse of the Mercury dime wore more rapidly than most grading standards suggest...When graded by conventional standards, most circulated coins will have a split grade such as Fine on the obverse and Very Good to Fine on the reverse. In numismatic shorthand this is expressed as F/VG-F."
I find this interesting. PCGS (and NGC) grading seems a bit more forgiving than his descriptions, and I'm assuming they must follow ANA standards (I don't have the ANA guide book). For example, Lange says of a VF-20 reverse "the horizontal and diagonal bands are complete but flat at their centers"; I usually see incomplete horizontal bands on TPGd VF-20 specimens...and of an XF40 reverse "the diagonal bands are three dimensional"; I usually see flat but complete diagonal bands on TPGd XF40 specimens.
Anyway, this is a very useful book in general, and I'm sure the other ones are too, for other various US coin series.
Something you may find of interest (not sure if you have this Mercury dime book or not), I do see some discrepancy with David Lange's grading descriptions as compared to PCGS's Photograde.
Interestingly he does acknowledge that for Mercury dimes he found that "the reverse of the Mercury dime wore more rapidly than most grading standards suggest...When graded by conventional standards, most circulated coins will have a split grade such as Fine on the obverse and Very Good to Fine on the reverse. In numismatic shorthand this is expressed as F/VG-F."
I find this interesting. PCGS (and NGC) grading seems a bit more forgiving than his descriptions, and I'm assuming they must follow ANA standards (I don't have the ANA guide book). For example, Lange says of a VF-20 reverse "the horizontal and diagonal bands are complete but flat at their centers"; I usually see incomplete horizontal bands on TPGd VF-20 specimens...and of an XF40 reverse "the diagonal bands are three dimensional"; I usually see flat but complete diagonal bands on TPGd XF40 specimens.
Anyway, this is a very useful book in general, and I'm sure the other ones are too, for other various US coin series.
