An interesting series of events occurred at the last annual meeting of ACC/BHCC concerning the grading of coins. The usual discontentment expressed by many members about the current state of books on grading coins was the main topic. One member had read that Liberty Nickels “should have full kernels on the corn in the wreath to grade extremely fine”, and yet after searching at several coin shows he found a few dozen nickels graded XF and even AU but couldn’t find a single one with full kernels. Much to his surprise, he later found that even in uncirculated grades, Liberty nickels often do not have “full kernels”. More to the point, kernels are not even full on many PROOF Liberty nickels that are specially struck twice in order to bring out the detail for collectors. Several members were using terms to describe the current grading books, such as “too vague”, “overly simplified”, “excessively generalized”.
Member Dorothy McCormick stated that her grading book reads, “All I have to do is compare my coin with the coin in the picture.” She stated, “That is ridiculous because all it illustrates is one coin for each grade. I have forty-three Morgan Dollars, each graded MS 65 by the Professional Coin Grading Service. But not a single one looks exactly alike because most of the O mints are poorly struck to various degrees and the S mints are really sharp with nicer luster to various degrees. I’m tired of the bulky slabs and am going to break them out and put them in a nice album.”
Another member, Jason Stuart, stated that all the grading books give an “elementary cookie cutter approach to grading coins.” When asked what he meant by “cookie cutter approach”, Mr. Stuart stated that he is a specialist in Buffalo Nickels. He further stated that many dealers and collectors over-simplify the grading of these complex coins by naming some arbitrary and random part of the coin, such as the horn on the Buffalo, and declare that the coin has to have a “full horn” to grade VF. Nothing could be further from the truth”, he notes. “Most D & S mints in the teens and nineteen-twenties are not even STRUCK with a full horn to begin with. Are we going to call weakly struck AU and uncirculated coins with full obverse details ‘Fine’ because some person decided long ago that if it can only grade above Fine when it has a full horn or full liberty? What about the overall percentage of detail all over the rest of the coin? Grading circulated coins by an isolated area such as Liberty on a scroll or headband or a ‘full horn’ is just as illogical as grading circulated Standing Quarters by Miss Liberty’s head detail or Mercury dimes by the lines in the bands. Of course not, most Standing quarters were never struck with full heads, and most Mercury dimes were never struck with full bands. To demand that a coin has to have certain features in order to grade a certain grade is cookie-cutter thinking and is an embarrassing and amateurish way for dealers or advanced collectors to approach grading coins.” After much healthy debate on the topic, it was decided that ACC/BHCC should get together a “grading committee” to publish at least three pictures of each coin in every grade in RCM, and allow members and readers of RCM to add feedback so that a more exacting consensus can be obtained as a better guide for grading coins. It was generally agreed that grading coins will never be an exact science, but we could get closer in GENERAL agreement when we give many examples of each coin in each grade, rather than a dogmatic command or rule that a coin has to be graded by an arbitrary part of it’s design. It was also noted that often there can be honest and legitimate disagreement between buyer and seller pertaining to a grade of a coin. Grading can involve the psychology and subjective tastes of people with different levels of experience and legitimate viewpoints. Often disagreements can be resolved when we realize that sometimes a seller may be overly optimistic and a buyer can be overly critical. As one of many examples, MS 65 coins are referred to as "Gem" but in no way does this term mean that the coin is perfect or anywhere near so. Most members report that they have never seen a perfect coin, and an MS 65 is a full 5 points lower than the perfect grade of MS 70.
When
buying and selling coins, one must keep in mind that many issues are virtually
non-existent in fully struck condition, even in the highest possible
uncirculated grades of MS 68 and MS 69. Up until a few years ago, all dies were
made at the mother mint in Philadelphia and these dies were transported in
limited quantity to the “branch” mints such as San Francisco, New Orleans
and Denver. During most years,
these branch mints had to stretch out their limited supply of dies to the
maximum, so the coiners would purposely allow a slight space between the obverse
dies and reverse dies to minimize wear. This resulted in extremely weak strikes
and almost no finer details on major parts of many coins. Also, because the mint was interested more in commerce
than art, very few older coins are nicely struck and almost all have at least a
few bag marks. So even with the
precaution of spacing dies apart to avoid quick wear, what few dies the mints
had, quickly wore down resulting in flatly struck coins NOT wear on the coin
itself. So how does one tell the
difference between strike and wear? Weakness
of strike is usually confined only to central or isolated areas, leaving the
rest of the design fully intact in most cases.
If there are isolated flat spots on the highest part of the coin, yet
some other areas of the coin are sharp and complete and NO breaks in
luster/toning and NO slight traces of wear on other parts of the coin, the coin
is Uncirculated. By nature, wear
occurs evenly and uniformly all over coins, not just one or two areas.
Buffalo nickels do not just wear on the horn nor on Miss Liberty's head
detail on Standing Quarters and Saint Gardens' Double Eagles, nor just on
Diamond detail on Indian Cents, Feather and hair detail on Bust and Seated
coins, Wreath Detail on half cents, large cents, half dimes and Seated Dimes,
Miss Liberty's hair detail and the Eagle's feather detail on many Morgan and
Peace Dollars, Wheat stalks on Lincoln cents, lines on Mercury Dimes, the hand
detail on Walking Liberty Halves bell lines on Franklin Halves, steps on
Jefferson Nickels, etc.. All of
these areas mentioned above on these type coins may be weak, fuzzy or
non-existent due to weakness of strike, while all other detail in the coins
overall design may be much sharper and bold.
Listed on the following pages is part one in a twelve-part series on grading
coins. This will culminate in a
book on the subject, featuring three coins of each type in each grade.
Reader feedback and photos are appreciated and Contributors will be
acknowledged in print.
Current
growing list of Contributors and other research sources:
James Allen, Mark Austin, Charles Baker, Q. David Bowers, David Carter, Coin
Universe Auctions, Robert Dupont, R.D. Drysdale, RD Rare Coins, James Halperin,
Heritage Auctions, Dr. Steve Jacob, Dorothy McCormick, PocketChange,
Jason Stuart..
Beverly Hills Coin Club
9903 Santa Monica #951
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
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email info@bhcoinclub.org
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