UNC ancients with no grade breakdown?

[mumu]

Ive seen some ancients with just MS grades as opposed to others which do a surface 4/5

Strike 5/5

 

et cetera. What is the difference? Are the MS coins a bulk submission? Ive also seen some with a total of 4 breakdown items and sometimes just 1? So kind of makes me think not bulk. What is the deal with the grading on these? I did look on NGC explanation of ancients grading and didn't get any additional info out of it.

[brg5658]

I believe part of what you're seeing has been the "evolution" of the grading of ancients at NGC over many years. Originally, I believe they only assigned a grade like "MS" or "AU" or "XF". Then they went to a system of 2 attributes for surface and strike -- but only for some submission levels. I've not seen a 4 component system like what you mention...care to provide some links/examples?

 

I thought they only did numeric values for the 2 attributes of strike and surface. They do sometimes assign stars (usually for color) and "designations" to the grades like "Ch XF" for choice XF. Or, depending on the particular style of the die used, they will sometimes designate a coin as having been struck from a die with "fine style" -- which in my pediatric understanding of ancient coins implied to me that the coin was particularly well detailed, where others are well known or exist with very rough and indistinct die details.

 

 

[JKK]

I'm just happy if the dealer has identified the ancient correctly. Half the time, turns out he was wrong.