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 Replies: 11 / Views: 1,715 |
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Valued Member
United States
487 Posts |
I'm sitting down at the desk tonight putting some coins into their 2 X 2's as well as practicing my grading skills. I'm confused by the term About Uncirculated and Uncirculated. The change you get from the cashier at the local convenience store is technically circulated. But if you get a quarter that has full luster as well as good strike with few bag marks can that be labeled as uncirculated as well? Can you help me.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
797 Posts |
As I understand it (and I am real new at this), a coin that has not been circulated could be called uncirculated (gee imagine that), but the amount of bag marks/dings it has would be the determing factor on how high it grades as far as "mint state" grades. I think "mint state" and "uncirculated" are the same thing. A coin that is AU would have only trace wear which would occur on the higher points of the coin. As the amount of wear and tear gets worse the grading gets lower and lower. Hope that clears it up a bit. That is my way of thinking...some real pros can probably give you a better description.
Edited by spaceace
05/21/2010 10:22 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7123 Posts |
AU is a grade range it begins at 50 and ends at 58, the amount of wear that is present on the highest details of the coin determine where it falls in the AU grade range.The wear goes from barely noticeable to easily seen within the spectrum.
Knowledge of the series and the high points of the design are needed to readily identify minor wear on the coins.
a coin with no wear but with other distracting characteristics would be consider UNC beginning with the very minimum no wear but with several distracting marks in focal areas as well as perhaps several in other areas, the grade range for UNC is from 60 to 70, each having its own set of standards either published or personal or both.
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Valued Member
 United States
487 Posts |
Spaceace,
Here's the situation, I got a 2004-D Washington Texas quarter just yesterday in change. The coin shows a slight loss of luster, but I mean slight. It has one my newt bag mark on the Obverse side (Washington's chin) and the field on the reverse around the state of Texas shows one small bag mark. Other than that I would come to the conclusion it would be classified a high of uncirculated. And we are talking a five year old coin! Trying to get a grasp on grading coins. Your explanation helped. Thanks!
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Rest in Peace
United States
1729 Posts |
The best advice I can give you is to look at the guides to grades printed in the Red Book. Having said that, how some coins can receive UNC-66 grades and be slabbed with humongous bag marks on them is beyond me. "Mint state" is a rather vague sales term, IMHO. "Uncirculated" is a definite grade based upon appearance, as Metalman has pointed out. |
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Valued Member
United States
487 Posts |
Thanks to metalman as well. Need all the help I can get when it comes to grading coins! Going to book mark this thread for future reference.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1659 Posts |
The terms "circulated" and "uncirculated" actually refer to whether or not a coin has wear, not whether or not it has ever been used in a transaction.
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Valued Member
United States
424 Posts |
 You can obtain unc coins in change. The store opens a roll they got from their distributor, they break open the roll, and give it to you...technically circulated, but unc in grading respect. "my newt"...funny   |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1882 Posts |
Quote:
"Mint state" is a rather vague sales term, IMHO. "Uncirculated" is a definite grade based upon appearance, as Metalman has pointed out. I see it the other way around. You may have a coin in your hand that looks like it is in mint state, but you have now way of knowing if it ever circulated. So to me it is more accurate to call a coin "MS" rather than "UNC". Rastatodd, if you see a break in the luster, from rubs, it should be an AU coin. To me it is harder to see on the newer, clad coinage (specifically dimes, quarters and halves). They are much more resilient than their silver predecessors. There is nothing wrong with a nice AU58 coin...they are often times as attractive as a high end MS coin. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2600 Posts |
Steve is right IMHO and there is money to be made if you can accurately play the slider market.
Jim
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Valued Member
United States
148 Posts |
You re right, change coins can be called unc, in reality is usually limited to ms60-62.
Remember that in the minting process, the coins are also technically in circulation,
soon after the strike, the coin can be bagged, put in a roll, and in between just pushed on the table, sorting machines, sometimes even washed, dried, cleaned from machine grease etc...
So if you are a grader, you have to grade it by the coin appearance, and not its past experience, simply because it wont show.
my best advise is that sometime you can buy very affordable slabbed coins due to very low grades. and if you manage to build a set say, au55, au58, ms60, 61, or whatever for a certain issue, you'll have a killing jump start for grading. in the long run it will pay itself many folds, and in my experience, you might end up liking this set more then much much more expensive coins you'll handle down the road...
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Valued Member
United States
258 Posts |
Quote:
The terms "circulated" and "uncirculated" actually refer to whether or not a coin has wear, not whether or not it has ever been used in a transaction. The above quote is very true. Aside from coins from mint sets or proof sets ALL coins are "circulated" even if you just removed them from the mints wrapping paper. What really complicates the world is when you have a mint state coin you know never circulated graded at au because of extensive bagmarks. I have seen this in some graded slabs. A different way of looking at things is this. There are two standards. First of all you have a grading standard that goes from 1 to 59 (although 58 is the only one used). Then you have a second grading standard consisting of 11 grades of ms 60 to ms 70. I will tell you right now I have seen some VERY UGLY coins graded ms 60 - 65. Technically speaking they were in the grade because there was no evidence of wear but then again you have nicks, scratches and discoloration that makes it for an ugly coin. Just visit a local coin shop or show that has lots of slabbed coins by pcgs, ngc or anacs and look at a wide variety of them. You will learn a lot that way. Here is a great write up about grading mint state coins. I liked it so much I purchased the book which I HIGHLY recommend. http://www.coingrading.com/intro1.html I wish I had known all these things when I was a child starting out with coins. Unfortunately I was not exposed to them at that time other than buying bank rolls and I put most of them back in circulation because I did not know any better...  This book allowed me to learn grading better. I like his "formula" and have used it with my customers where we BOTH grade a coin seperately and then compare notes. I have found that customers and I almost always agreed on a grade using this formula and even when we did not it was always very close. Additionally with a little explanation of why I gave a coin a little higher credit in one of his catagories I have always been able to convince the customer of it's validity. I DO NOT like photograde as I think they put multiple coin photographs in the wrong place in several instances. In that periodical I am totally convinced that several coins which should have graded higher were lower and others that were lower should have been higher. I may be wrong but I think someone was not very careful when putting a coin with the correct grade. They had the right "grades" but they got them out of order. Sincerely, John Leckrone Edited by 925dealer
05/25/2010 07:49 am
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Replies: 11 / Views: 1,715 |
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Posted 05/21/2010 11:05 pm
