Here's a research project, who started this market grading business?

[Kurtdog]

Now don't go abstract on me, I'm not looking for a history lecture. Suffice it to say, it started about 30 years ago, with the ANA. Who was on the Board of Governors of the ANA back then? Who was the Chairman? There's a start. I want to know who in the ANA started this. I want names, if you're up to it. The kids in my kid's coin club are the inquisitive type, what can I tell you? They want to know who was behind this. Then, well, you can go, .

[physics-fan3.14]

Market grading, by its very nature, is attempting to put a grade on a coin based on its value. This idea really started with Sheldon, in his book "Penny Whimsy."

[BillJones]

If you define "market grading" as a lower set of standards than the grading used by collectors for say condition census lists (often maintained by Early American Copper members), I'd think about B. Max Mehl. Mehl did use "inventive grading standards" for his retail sales that were frankly more liberal than the standards many advanced collectors would have used at the time. Years ago I saw some coins that Mehl and sold in their original envelops, and by my reckoning "commercial grading" standards had been applied.

 

Beyond that I'd say that over graded for marketing purposes has been around for as long as coins have been bought and sold for more than their face value. But B. Max Mehl has often been called the inventor of mass numismatic marketing.

[RWB]

Sellers "invented" market grading. Not Peter Sellers, but those selling coins whose goal was to squeeze as much money out of a sale as possible. Look in any hobby publication and you'll see such sellers on nearly every page. Their activities go back a century before Max Mehl made it "normal."

 

The same applies to almost anything that is bought and sold - from pork bellies to diamonds.

[Conder101]

Are you asking who started "market grading" where the grade assigned is based on how much the coin will sell for, or who started the TPG service idea that started with technical grading?

 

If you want to know about who started the TPG's then you are looking for Virgil Hancock and Abe Kosoff. They began pushing for the creation of a serivice that would examine and authenticate coins. This began in 1968. In 1970 they had pushed it to the fundraising and arm twisting point where they were trying to raise $50,000 to start up the group called ANAAT. They were successful by the end of the year and but it took awhile to get staff and equipment together. The authentication service, now called ANACS, started operation in April 1972.

[Kurtdog]

Who was on the Board of Governors when the ANA adopted these standards?

[Conder101]

The ANA published the official grading guide in 1978, find a copy of the Numismatist from that year and it should list the board members and officers.

[Kurtdog]

That's a good idea, thanks. That sounds about the right time for the standards, too, as they had to come in a little before the TPGs.