This little quote from 1868 seems relevant.
There will always be “ grumblers” at every Coin Sale; a class who examine, critically, every piece catalogued “very fine,” “proof” or “uncirculated,” in the hope of being able to discover some little blemish or tinge of a blemish on the surface of the coin, and woe betide the unlucky author who perpetrated the written description of the coins.
At the Randall Coin Sale it seems there was present some “fault finder” who has
expressed dissatisfaction at the terms used in describing coins. The word “gem” seems to have been a bugbear to some dissatisfied attendant at the late sale, and another objects to the word
“ uncirculated” in toto —the latter being of those literal translators, who think that the sole act of taking the coins fresh from the dies, and passing it to another, forever settles the question against the use of the term “uncirculated.”
Of one thing, we feel assured, the sale was a success, and every collector thus far heard from expresses unqualified satisfaction with the coins purchased at this sale.[1]
[1] “The ‘Gem’ Coin Sale,” Mason’s Coin and Stamp Collectors’ Magazine. December 1868. 107.