Insider

The grading room is where coins are graded. It is quiet, dark, and has uniform (as much as possible) conditions like your light, desk, chair, etc. There are also other graders involved. I've been grading coins for free at shows since 1973. I don't care if a non-collector or famous dealer hands it to me for an opinion. There is absolutely no pressure at all. Remember, my opinion and $2 will buy the bottled water at the show. The coin get's the same examination but I would rather talk about the coin with a very knowledgeable numismatist. The ONLY time I feel pressure is trying to hit the exact grade on an ICG slab with a covered label because I'm not the finalizer at that service.

I've explained this before: I don't work at NGC so I don't know the reject rate for crossovers. Every service wants the best coins around in their holders. That's why we won't cross "junk" in any TPGS holder. I'm sure that many ANACS and ICG coins get crossed but several customers tell me that after one of our coins does NOT CROSS in the ICG slab, it crosses when sent back raw at either top service. I have wanted to publish these emails and letters on our website but why make waves. IMHO, ALL things considered, NGC is the #1 TPGS. However, it is my opinion that a lower rated service is #1 in customer service, cost, and turnaround time. So, why should the #1 TPGS, the #2 TPGS, and CAC for that matter want to prove that the two faster, lower priced, customer-friendly, second-tier major services can actually grade coins correctly in most cases? Nevertheless, a coin is worth more money in a top TPGS slab with a sticker. It beats me why someone would not try to cross every second tier slab. BTW, in many cases, I get to see the "fails" in ICG holders. Most of the time, they are called "cleaned." Since a large majority of vintage coins have been cleaned in some way in the past, this is the easiest way to reject a cross. When the ANA Grading Guide lets coins with continuous hairlines to still be graded low MS, you can imagine how much wiggle room is allowed for improper cleaning!

I have found that the lower the grade, the closer EVERYONE who sees the coin will agree. Best Example: We get "raw" submissions from a former top grading service finalizer. He puts minimum grades on the flips. We agree with 98% of his grades UNTIL MS. Then he is usually one grade higher than our standards. He is also very liberal with faults on any coin. "The coin is over a hundred years old; you should expect problems so they should not count for much." Try that with the dealer you sell your "gems" to.

LOL, my opinion and $2 will get you a bottle of water at the show. I'll bet it has carbon spots.

Good Point. I guess a lot depends on what we know and what we think we know. Anyone here spend several hours using an electron microscope to look at flow lines and other characteristics on the surface of coins? One coin in one metal is not enough either.

Multiple kinds of metal flow??? My drill Sargent told us to "keep it simple ..." Whenever I have been fortunate to be around a bunch of really educated and knowledgeable "scientific" folks discussing a particular subject I am usually both astonished and frustrated at how they can turn a relatively simple operation - let's say looking at a coin's surface - into an unnecessary and confusing mishmash of fanciful possibilities due to possible influences associated with whatever. Simple folk might just agree the coin looks dull.

Makes no difference. NEWS FLASH: When you send a coin to a TPGS in a slab for cross or upgrade, THEY KNOW WHAT THE OTHER SERVICE GRADED IT! Show me any TPGS slab. I'll either agree with the grade (much of the time); point out what they missed or chose to ignore; or explain the coin's actual condition of preservation (technical grade) and then tell you why the coin's "market grade" was assigned.

I would bet that the person who graded that Walker has seen just a few dozen more early walkers than you. Nevertheless, since both of us are admittedly strict graders, I may have graded it 63 also - the first time it was sent in and if I were at the table when it was in the NGC slab as a 63. Wink, wink. Not any more. Only an ignorant collector or one who needed money would let a dealer steal a correctly graded coin in ANY SLAB including the fly-by-night services that occasionally get it "right." Savvy collectors and dealers know there are bargains in non-top two TPGS slabs. As you point out, the coins usually sell for less money! Additionally, when I worked for PCI in the early 1990's, dealers would come to our table at every show to brag about all our red label (problem) coins they cracked and got straight graded. Buy the coin and not the label makes good sense. As best I can remember, the last time I was in Dallas was in the mid-1980's. I was teaching a coin seminar at SMU.

Before I post anything, what exactly would the scientists be looking for on a coin?

My final post in this thread as it is no longer funny. If you cannot see what's on the rock faces...that explains why you cannot see what's on the surface of your dime. I'll post this again to make sure you DO SEE THIS: "With altered surface coins, you will usually find contact marks with exactly the same surface as the rest of the coin." Your dime has these because it has an altered surface. Goodbye.

I'll try to make this clear. NO MAJOR TPGS gives a second thought about how the others grade a coin. However, for a collector, it matters a lot. BTW, grade inflation is alive and well in the ENTIRE coin market. News Flash, one reason the first grading service in the US at INSAB went out of business was because they were too strict and did not evolve with the "changing market grading standards" after PCGS and then NGC were established.

I don't have any idea who you are but you are not showing much knowledge about what has been going on for decades! Grade auction? Grade auction? Grade auction? Why don't you research the history (what grade, what TPGS holder, and when slabbed) for many of our "famous rarities!" PS AFAIK neither NGC or ICG uses part timers to grade coins at shows for the public.

Who cares! Ever hear of GRADFLATION? Thousands of coins previously graded AU are now MS. Thousands of MS coins also got an MS bump. Coins once graded and cracked out ARE RAW. Anything goes and they must stand on their own. In case you did not know, anyone can find examples of over-graded, under-graded, and correctly graded coins by EVERY TPGS. Most under-graded coins eventually get fixed. The market makes sure most grades are OK; however, over-graded coins are still out there. It should not surprise anyone that many coins get different grades BEFORE being finalized, slabbed, and checked. I'm a tough "technical grader." I'm going to guess that my grade on a coin gets changed 8% to 12% of the time. Commenting on your "gem" is rather useless except to reveal some of the things involved with grading a coin. One more thing, no grading service wants to put another service's junk into their holder. If the ICG grader told you the coin was a 64, chances are he was correct. I GRADE COINS. I DON'T GRADE STORIES OR LABELS from ANY SERVICE including the one I presently work at!

More likely a polished coin. Most new to coins prefer the look of a heavily polished XF over a frosty Uncirculated coin.

Well IMO, we are lucky to have all those self-deceiving numismatists in the marketplace and at the TPGS. Much better today than in the "Wild West" when most folks were raped, robbed, and rolled over until dead.

Admitting a mistake is very easy and hopefully you learn from them. However, making a mistake can be both very costly and VERY embarrassing. Consider Authenticators as heart surgeons. Mistakes matter. Reputations matter too.

Ditto. "LIKE!"

I've used up my "likes" for today. How silly. Hey Roger, I want to see the NGC Forum rise out of the grave and eventually topple the PCGS forum. I'm glad to see you and Mark posting over here.

Until computer grading, you will not get a valid calibration. As to a small sample, after you get out of the house and teach over a thousand students your opinion will mean much more to me. I once told a group of this country's well-known numismatists that I could take a photograde book and a large cent down to the streets of NYC and the majority of them would grade the coin XF because it matched a photo. They would have no idea how the professionals had graded it - from VF to AU and all had a valid reason for their opinion!!!!! Sample-Wample. Starting with one to as high as you wish to go, the results would be the same because the people would be random with no pre-knowledge of grading or value. The round, brown lump of metal looks like the image in the book!

NUTS! Any knowledgeable collector knows when a coin looks like a Proof. LOL. I'll bet there is no definition of a "Scratch" either! As for this: "'Proof' is a verifiable objective quality." I guess you have not examined many coins struck in nickel. Knowledge is often accompanied with change. I've been told that coins with only a Deep Mirror obverse are worth more money so the term OBDM started to be used to describe these coins. Both the dealer and the collector can benefit from this change. BTW, do you consider Mr. Hansen a collector? Is Hansen a collector?

Actually, it is not a presumption. While the % may be "off" most students have no trouble picking out semi-PL coins. In the grading room all it takes is a light and a finger. Anyway, I believe the Morgan dollar literature may contain some useful measurements. Again, only experience and the TPGS Gods" can differentiate between the depth of mirror needed for various dates to get the designation so measure all you want and you'll be wrong some of the time. BTW, I'm in your camp. I love measurable STANDARDS that take out the wiggle room.

I disagree. I have found that 98% in a class of students can easily tell a PL from a semi-PL after instruction. It is harder to teach PL vs DMPL. Unfortunately, they will still be ignorant because of "DATE GRADING" of PL coins and commercial values. That come from experience.

I'm sure (?) you know what a mirror surface looks like. I do, and ever since I was a YN, we knew that coins with a mirror surface that were mot manufactured as Proofs were called Proof-like because they had a mirror surface like a Proof. Coins that were not Prooflike but were arguably close were called Semi-Prooflike. As you point out, there is some subjectivity involved - less among knowledgeable and experienced numismatists. There is a larger problem with PL coins. Many obvious PL coins of certain dates are not given that designation (even though their depth of mirror is the same for a common PL) because they would be too valuable. Those coins need to be borderline DMPL to get the PL designation. It makes me want to pull my hair out as "any non-numismatist on the street" could see the coins have the identical dept of mirror.

Think about it. The spots on the rim possibly occurred after the coin became hairlined. BTW, all the TPGS use the word: "Cleaned" to describe all types of imperfections that have ruined the surface (n various degrees of harshness) by chemical or mechanical treatment. Sometimes both. This coin was NOT SCRUBBED, The impairment can best be seem as a cloudy, whitish patch in the left obverse field.

This can be done safely: Service X called my 1754 Guinea counterfeit. I sent it to service Y and they slabbed it as genuine. Furthermore, IMHO, ANY TPGS that is not willing to admit to making a mistake is LOW RENT. When I joined the ANA's service and discovered a state-of the-art 1857 $3 that the best dealers in the country claimed was genuine we had a recall of several of the same counterfeits that had been given certificates previously. Then we published the "new" fake. Look, it is very embarrassing to call a counterfeit genuine! I have been told that I should never admit to doing that as it would hurt my reputation. Well, I've missed a few before, usually because of inattention but that's the reason more than one authenticator looks at the coins. My most embarrassing "miss" happen at NGC. While in the NCS Lab a grader brought me a copper pattern. I looked at the coin, stuck it under the scope at low power, declared it genuine, sent him on his way, and went back to conserving coins. The entire encounter took less than a minute including the time I walked over to the scope at my desk. About two minutes later another grader brought the same coin in. Apparently, he was asked about the coin first by the grader who brought it to me and he had said it was a fake. Of course I felt like he was wasting my time - I'm the authentication expert - but I walked back to my scope, raised the power and studied the coin for about two seconds and said it was n obvious counterfeit. I didn't hear another thing about it but I guarantee the guys lost a great deal of faith in me.