A little help please---yes, again.

[jesbroken]

To make this short, while working on a book I was expecting to try to get printed next year, a lightning strike wiped out my hard drive, mother board and a couple of other items, but most important it destroyed my back up external drive and I lost a year's work. Luckily, I still had my old backup drive, which had not been used for a little over a year, but stopped a total catastrophe of 4 years of work, photos, etc being lost. I replaced the computer and hard drive and have been working nonstop trying to gather back the info that I lost. Luckily, all my permissions to use photos and print material were on my old ext. hd. so that catastrophe was averted. Just for your info, I sent the both hard drives to experts who did all they could to retrieve the info, but to no avail.

I am also putting up a web page that I am designing myself(used to do this overnight many moons ago, but now relearning flash, etc.) and I need some advice. One of the chapters in my work piece concerns tpg grading of U.S. coins and I have a sample below of an idea I have and would like your opinions as to whether it would be useful or not. This particular one will be concerning tpg photo comparisons for Mercury Dimes in mid to upper MS grades(64-68). Here are the MS65 and MS66 as an example of what I will put on my website(Coinz n Stuff). I would truly like your opinions so let them fly.

Thanks for your help.

Jim

 

 

[Walkerfan]

I don't know how accurate it would be due to the subjective nature and variation of grading but it would surely be an interesting comparison. If someone did that with Walkers, I would take it with a grain of salt but I would be very anxious to look at it and read about it.

 

Bottom line, yes or no answer--IT'S A GOOD UNIQUE IDEA!

[SkyMan]

I'm sorry to hear about your loss of data! Best of luck on completing the project!

[jesbroken]

Thanks Sy and Wf for your quick replies. After a reply ats I feel I had better qualify my endeavor by saying that I, in no way, wish to place any tpg in a bad light or say one is better than another. My goal was simple(I thought), and that is most coin collectors and dealers have little problem discerning the different grades for circulated coins, as it is a pretty quick study, but the middle to upper MS grades are much more tricky and opinionated. I foolishly thought that by comparing the three top grades via a photo chart, one might better take their coin and study its likeness to these professionally graded items. I randomly picked the coins without spending any time discerning ones attributes---only its grade. I felt by studying the fields for marks, nicks and different toning aspects of the top three, one might be better educated to make a decision about their coin and thereby become more proficient at grading uncirculated coins. Also, this comparison would allow one to see how strike plays a role in its grade. I'm sorry I didn't make this clear--I've spent so long flipping the idea around I did not think about explaining my intent. Thanks to Bochiman for pointing this out.

Jim

 

edited for spelling

[coinman_23885]

It's a good thought; however, there is such much variation even within the same numerical grade, that I'm not sure that your comparison would be valid. Certainly looking at one coin from each company wouldn't achieve statistically significant results.

[James_OldeTowne]

Unfortunately, those "photo comparisons" for grading purposes are absolutely not useful. The lighting conditions are different, the resolution much, much too low for any practical use, and the coins themselves are of vastly different character (toned vs. white, well struck vs. average strike, etc.).

 

Incidentally, I've found NGC, PCGS and classic ANACS to be extremely close to one another in their grading standards for Mercury dimes (and Roosies, for that matter). Any noticeable variation between individual coins is virtually certain not to reflect any sort of trend.

[Conder101]

I agree with James completely

[physics-fan3.14]

So sorry to hear you lost all that work!

 

I also agree with James - if you want to do a useful photo comparison, you need to standardize the images: same camera, same resolution, same lighting, same conditions. None of those images are really that bad, but they are all different.

[messydesk]

Probably violating protocol here, but I posted the following response ATS. I'm reposting here unedited for a broader base of reactions to my reaction, which I assume the OP wants, anyway.

 

---

 

I see a noble cause that will frustrate you and the end users given your current approach, and perhaps even deliver a misleading message that one grading service is always better than another. I've read here several times that Mercury dimes are prone to being rather erratically graded. In order to show a comparison among the grading services, you'll have to search for a typical coin for that grade for that grading service. You can't just pick one and go with it. Another problem is that as there are multiple dimensions to a coin's grade, you'll have to show these in your photos. Strike, luster, eye appeal, and surface preservation can be combined in various ways to arrive at the same grade. One thing you're accidentally showing here is the fact that a 1920 Mercury dime is probably the ideal type coin (along with 1918) due to the freshness of the hub giving needle-sharp details on a well struck coin. A totally hammered 1944-D will never have the same amount of detail, but this shouldn't count against its strike qualities.

 

Now to fix your approach.

 

I think what you do want to show is the fact that there is no single typical coin for the grade (the shortcoming of PCGS' Photograde) and that TPG Mercs are not fungible. One exercise I find useful is sitting at auction previews and comparing coins of neighboring grades, trying to internalize the difference between grades. It takes several coins in each grade to do this. More useful than a comparison chart between grading services would be something that duplicates this experience, to the extent possible on the internet. Perhaps you'd be better off showing pictures of, say, 12 coins for each grade. Have 8-10 be typical (i.e., "CAC-Greenable"), along with a couple high- and low-end coins. Show them all on the screen at once and invite the user to try and determine which are which. Have mouse-over text or a pop-up box explain your assessment of each coin. I would love to have a seasoned expert in a given series giving me commentary on each coin while doing my auction preview exercise, and if you can effectively simulate this, you'll have people knocking down the doors to your website to experience it. All photos should be shot in the same manner and be larger (and/or zoomable) so that a comparison can be done. The user will theoretically be more able to buy the coin and not the plastic after doing this, obviating the need for comparison of the grading services' products. This will also make your product seem more credible, and mitigate accusations of preferring one flavor of Kool-Aid over another.

 

Once you've done this for Mercury dimes, you'll have a framework in place for other coin types, even those for which you don't have the expertise. Other experts could easily supply you with material for other popular series, and all you'd have to do is plug in the pictures and commentary.

 

I could keep writing ideas on how to do this, but then my two cents' worth would turn into a requirements specification.

[James_OldeTowne]

More useful than a comparison chart between grading services would be something that duplicates this experience, to the extent possible on the internet. Perhaps you'd be better off showing pictures of, say, 12 coins for each grade. Have 8-10 be typical (i.e., "CAC-Greenable"), along with a couple high- and low-end coins. Show them all on the screen at once and invite the user to try and determine which are which. Have mouse-over text or a pop-up box explain your assessment of each coin.

This is virtually a perfect description of a project I've been wanting to do for years. In fact, I have a box of common, cheap coins that I've been selecting as part of an ideal "population" for just such a "grading comparison" webpage.

 

This turned into a terrific and meaningful thread, in my opinion.

[messydesk]

Great! Sounds like time to get started with your project.