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Posted 08/03/2010 06:52 am
Quote:
You are correct in stating that strike quality will not directly affect the grade but it can indirectly affect it by causing someone to misgrade a coin in a negative way and not take the entire coin into consideration. These early date coins also had another strike against them- the dies were hand engraved and hand punched so there was a tremendous amount of variation in the design from die to die.
I am glad you mentioned that you have a copy of the ANA Grading Standards, every collector should have it in their numismatic library The beginning sections make for excellent reading and help to give insight into the skill of coin grading. The pages relevant to this discussion are pgs. 20-22 with particular attention paid to the last paragraph on pg 22.
You are correct in stating that strike quality will not directly affect the grade but it can indirectly affect it by causing someone to misgrade a coin in a negative way and not take the entire coin into consideration. These early date coins also had another strike against them- the dies were hand engraved and hand punched so there was a tremendous amount of variation in the design from die to die.
I am glad you mentioned that you have a copy of the ANA Grading Standards, every collector should have it in their numismatic library The beginning sections make for excellent reading and help to give insight into the skill of coin grading. The pages relevant to this discussion are pgs. 20-22 with particular attention paid to the last paragraph on pg 22.
I re-read the section you mention, and I understand what you're saying, but we're not talking about a mint state coin here. It does say, in effect, that weakness of the strike can affect a grade in a mint state coin, but in a negative way. It does not mention improving the grade because of the weak strike, which is what the OP implied earlier in the thread ("Third, because this coin is older the grading standard is a little lower putting this at a Good") If you read the section on the Draped Bust Dollar (pages 252-255) it does mention in the last paragraph (as it does for ALL coins minted during this time period) about "Nearly all coins minted before 1836 have weak spots other than those noted, and are sometimes alternately graded on the basis of eye appeal, strike, and surface quality." This now makes it VERY subjective, open to interpretation. Opinions will always vary.
Comparing the ebay photos to those in the book, and considering the rim damage, the coin (in my non-expert opinion) falls somewhere between AG and G. But this would be simply my interpretation of the guidelines. I am sure others will disagree. Is this what is meant by "VERY conservative GOOD"? Did he mean that the coin was very good, or is it just below Good, or it did it just make the grade at Good? See where this can be a little misleading? I'm referring to someone reading the ad for the first time, I know he explained himself here. Given the vast number of people who frequent ebay, and the number of scams that populate that site, you should expect that some smart-*** is going to comment. This is why I don't do ebay.
