Congratulations on a cool coin - despite the cleaning it is still a piece of history! The tiny parallel lines on OBV and REV show someone in the past rubbed this coin with something that damaged its surface (even a facial tissue can do this). A lot of people who do not know better think a shiny coin means a valuable coin without realizing its easy to tell when a coin has original mint luster instead of being polished.
As to coin grades - the amount of wear of the details is important to collectors since coins with little wear are closer to the condition they left the mint (called "mint state").
In the last few decades of the 1900s, a few companies started up with a brilliant idea to make money from the coin hobby (nothing wrong with that). They decided they would offer a coin grading service. A lot of people enjoy slabbed coins. But always remember what you will see here commonly on CCF - buy the coin - not the slab.
Losing money while using the companies is very easy to do without understanding facts behind them. Don't just assume these companies are using a verifiable method/data to grade coins, and also understand the company opinions can be questioned and they make plenty of errors.
Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for life. Here is some beginners fishing tackle. Its worth your time to read.
Following is info concerning the actual nature of grading companies that can help people make better educated decisions.
Thinking of Slabbing? Make sure you understand the Facts...its easy to lose money without understanding.1. The grading companies are not a way that the majority of people, even those with a great deal of experience who know what they are doing, are going to be able to use in order to make huge personal profits. Many people start using grading companies thinking they will find a way to finance their hobby, but they learn a hard lesson quickly.
2. Watch online videos where a knwledgeable dealer gets coinc back from the grading companies. Note even people who live, eat, breath, and deal coins for a living
cannot accurately predict 100% what grade the companies will give. And...the "fault" (not really a
fault) is in a widespread
mistaken perception people get from being exposed to all the slabs being sold nowadays.
Coin grading companies are a business out to make a profit - this is why they exist. They use a system where allegedly three, (but in reality its normally two graders - read the guarantee carefully) look at each coin and give an opinion. The company videos showing the process make you believe this is a relaxed paced process of studying each coin. In fact one PCGS video shows a number of guys sitting around a table discussing what they think a specific coin should be graded as (on youtube somewhere - sorry no link). Uh uh.
If you take a PCGS graded coin slabbed as MS64, break it out, and resubmit it to PCGS,
you are never guaranteed the same grade again. The slabbed coin might come back MS62 (extreme and a bad day for graders), 63, 64, 65, 66 (extreme and a great day for you!). This is b/c the process is all subjective: No scientific/verifiable standards or methods are used.
But..this is all hearsay without proof. So...
[URL="http://goccf.com/t/346174#65533;]Grading the Coin Graders[/url]
Here is another good read from someone there at the start of the grading companies:
[URL="http://goccf.com/t/130186]Hobby negative impacts from slabbing companies[/url]
3. People also seem to think grading companies will examine a coin to see if they can find an error and then slab it as such. But again, they ONLY GRADE coins. The companies will NOT try to find and ID an error for you. You must FIRST ID the error yourself, CHECK to see if the company you want to use recognizes that specific error, PAY them to verify the error on the label, and then you may or may not actually get what you pay for! The companies have a bad reputation for attributing errors correctly.
[color=#8000FF]You don't have to throw in the towel over these companies[/color]...but education about the reality of them will put you on the right pathway to dealing with them in a legit way without losing money in the process.
And.if you just like to collect slabbed coins for what they are, which makes losing/making money from slabs irrelevant, then of course enjoy them!" &
Posted 12/31/2021 10:47 am
