Awesome Vintage Coin Grading Tool

[Mr. Smith Guesser]

The Rotagrader:

 

on eBay

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rotagrader-vintage-coin-grader-tool-Advanced-Product-Dev-Corp-rotating-pictures-/171580065561?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27f2f80719

(not my listing)

 

[RWB]

The difficult part was getting all the coins into that little plastic holder...also, it was a little pricey.

[Conder101]

Interesting, I've never seen one of those.

[RWB]

Imagine how big it would have to be now with all the micro-grades and + / - / * and ?

[DWLange]

I collect things relating to the history of the hobby, and I have several of those. I also have a large collection of Scan-O-Matics (yes, they can be collected by varieties), and I recently acquired a Numis-Scope, which I've desired for a long time. This is like a Scan-O-Matic for big boys, since it's made of heavy steel and appears to be indestructible. It isn't working, but it looks cool on a shelf.

[Mr. Smith Guesser]

The listing description says " A must for any series collector vintage 60's coin grader it grades by pictures of the different coins in three grades for each coin it has Indian cents Lincoln cents V nickels Buffalo nickels Jefferson nickels Barber dime Mercury dime Roosevelt dimes Barber quarters Walking Liberty quarters Washington quarters it has pictures of the coins in G-F-XF condition comes in original box not too many of these around"

 

I wonder why the designers chose those grades. If you had to pick only three grades to put into a contraption like this, wouldn't uncirculated be one of them?

[Mr.Mcknowitall]

The listing description says " A must for any series collector vintage 60's coin grader it grades by pictures of the different coins in three grades for each coin it has Indian cents Lincoln cents V nickels Buffalo nickels Jefferson nickels Barber dime Mercury dime Roosevelt dimes Barber quarters Walking Liberty quarters Washington quarters it has pictures of the coins in G-F-XF condition comes in original box not too many of these around"

 

I wonder why the designers chose those grades. If you had to pick only three grades to put into a contraption like this, wouldn't uncirculated be one of them?

 

They were the more popular coins to collect at the time, due to affordability and size. Most collecting at the time was circulation based collecting, and a younger generation of collectors. Mint Unc. examples of coins were more expensive, and more often that not were acquired via Mint Sets. Such Sets, and 1/2 dollars and dollars, were not economically feasible for many to acquire. The other factor was the limitation of size required in order to not make the devices unwieldy.

[GBurger717-migration]

That is really neat. I seen a machine that you put a coin or roll of coins in and looked into it. It was like a microscope. I wish I picked it up at the yard sale cause it was a really neat piece of coin history.

[TonerGuy]

Very cool.

[DWLange]

I seen a machine that you put a coin or roll of coins in and looked into it. It was like a microscope. I wish I picked it up at the yard sale cause it was a really neat piece of coin history.

 

That sounds like the NumisScope. It's a pretty hefty piece of steel, and it does look like a microscope.

[johnny9434]

Interesting, I've never seen one of those.

thats a first for me as well.

[physics-fan3.14]

I've never even heard of these before.

 

Where did they get the pictures? What were these based on (standards wise)? How do they compare to today's grades?

[DWLange]

The grading was pretty simple (AG, G, VG, F, VF, EF and UNC). The tool in the original post dates from 1961 or so, and there were no numbers back then. The standards were probably in line with the Brown & Dunn grading book, which used line drawings to illustrate each coin type across various grades.

[RWB]

B&D was easier to use than the follow-on Photograde.

[CaptHenway]

The listing description says " A must for any series collector vintage 60's coin grader it grades by pictures of the different coins in three grades for each coin it has Indian cents Lincoln cents V nickels Buffalo nickels Jefferson nickels Barber dime Mercury dime Roosevelt dimes Barber quarters Walking Liberty quarters Washington quarters it has pictures of the coins in G-F-XF condition comes in original box not too many of these around"

 

I wonder why the designers chose those grades. If you had to pick only three grades to put into a contraption like this, wouldn't uncirculated be one of them?

 

Reaching over to the book shelf, I see that my 14th edition Redbook (copyright 1960) prices Washington quarters in Good, Fine, Ex. FIne, Unc. and Proof. So, they just used the circ. grades listed in the Redbook.

 

You didn't haver to grade Uncirculated coins, because they were all the same!

 

TD

[Conder101]

I wonder why the designers chose those grades. If you had to pick only three grades to put into a contraption like this, wouldn't uncirculated be one of them?

And as James Ruddy explained in Photograde the pictures allow you to see the amount of wear the coin has sustained, a picture of an uncirculated coin in effect would show you a picture of nothing. And with the resolution of most printed pictures back then (non-photo) you couldn't tell an AU coin from an Uncirculated one anyway.

[bsshog40]

Thats pretty cool. I've never heard of it or the ones that David has.