Many times when I give a grade I do a split grade; meaning I give it a "technical" grade and a "market" grade. I get questioned on this enough that I thought I would share my learing experiance and see if others have had the same.
My long time buisness partner was an ANACs grader way back in the day, and then went to NGC. All told he had seven years experiance as a grader.
When I came to the shop my experiance in grading came from my Grandfather who had begun collecting in the 1920s. When the
ANA standards came out he was an ardent supporter.
When I was asked to grade my first coins for the, then, boss, he looked at them and made the comment "Oh, you are a technical grader". When I asked what he meant by that he said " There are two types of grading; surface preservation and eye appeal/perception. A technical grader will look strictly at surface preservation. If the coin is exactly as it came from the mint with no surface dings whatsoever, it is an MS 70 even if it has a lousy strike, because it's surface preservation is prestine. On the other hand a market grader will, at best, give that coin a "five" rating ( MS-65), UNLESS, it is just a natural blast white, in which case it may, may bet a "six" rating."
One day a man walks into the shop who had been a fellow grader with my partner and my partner (we'll call him Ron. He really likes his privacy) thought it a good time to give me an education. HE took several coins and asked me to grade them in my "old school" way. Then passed them to his buddie who gave them his grades, with Ron as well giving them his grades.
The two of them lined up fairly well, but not in lockstep. Mine were all at least a point off. The other grader looked at me and said "oh, you're a technical grader aren't you?"; and reaffirmed Ron's earlier comments on the subject.
I'm curious if anyone else was brought up like this? Meaning you look at surface preservation where every coin starts off as a 70 and you deduct for marks, blemishes and carbon spots?
*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***
Posted 02/14/2021 10:02 am
