When was the grade of 70 first used?

[CarlWohlforth]

I was wondering what year MS or PR 70 was first used by NGC and PCGS? I'm pretty sure they didn't give those grades out from the beginning...

[MunkyMan95]

There was a time when there were no 70's?

[gmarguli]

PCGS did first on MS coins. There was a PF70 (Statue of Liberty $5, I believe), fairly early, but that was the only PCGS PF70 for a long time.

 

NGC was several years later.

[123cents]

I read where a 1986 Silver Eagle was the first coin to receive a MS-70 grade by PCGS in 1987.

[Houston Investor]

Wow - the pop of 70's has sure exploded since 1987.

[rexcat]

Because I never cared to own any MS70 or PR70 coins myself I can only comment on what I’ve seen at shows and read in magazines like Coin World at a casual level over the years, but it really seemed to me that after ICG was incorporated and started pooping them out like no tomorrow, coins in PCGS and then NGC slabs started appearing but in far less numbers. I don’t remember seeing any 70 grades ten years ago. I‘m guessing PCGS and NGC needed to provide registry assemblers top pop plastic. I want to say though this is just my thoughts on ultra high graded coins, we all are different in what we carve to own and any coin collecting is good coin collecting.

[WoodenJefferson]

Wow - the pop of 70's has sure exploded since 1987.

 

A. verticle Schuler coin press

B. specially prepaired, cream of tarter polished planchets

C. highly polished (frequently changed out) dies

D. multiple strikes

E. hand operated placement/retrieval tongs

F. no contact with other widgets

G. special packaging

 

equals MS-70 and PR-70 widgets (gold,silver,platinum...even a clad or two hit the magical 70 and 1 copper coated zinc Lincoln)

 

(also the Mint has produced more of these widgets from 1986 onward)

[CarlWohlforth]

I see PCGS started grading coins in 1986 and NGC in 1987 according to Condor101's fine book on the history of slabs. So, judging by the comments above, it seems the first few 70s trickled out shortly after. If the first 70s were given out in the late '80s that is much earlier than I expected.

 

Does anybody have a collection of PCGS population reports? Did NGC publish population reports? I'm thinking I would like to review them to see what I could learn about the history of 70s from them...

[WoodenJefferson]

I see PCGS started grading coins in 1986 and NGC in 1987 according to Condor101's fine book on the history of slabs. So, judging by the comments above, it seems the first few 70s trickled out shortly after. If the first 70s were given out in the late '80s that is much earlier than I expected.

 

Does anybody have a collection of PCGS population reports? Did NGC publish population reports? I'm thinking I would like to review them to see what I could learn about the history of 70s from them...

 

NGC Pop Report

[CarlWohlforth]

Thanks for the link, but I know about the current online NGC pop report.

 

I want a collection of printed population reports for various dates going all the way back to when 70s were first given out for both PCGS and NGC. That way I could see when the first 70 for each type was given out and I could try to see if I could identify any trends.

 

I know PCGS printed (on paper) population reports. I'm not sure when they started. I only have one (dated 4/2002). I haven't seen any printed NGC pop reports.

[gmarguli]

NGC prints pop reports.

 

I own a PCGS one from the very early 1990's, but no idea where it is.

[Conder101]

I'm slowly building a set of pop reports. I think a close examination will reveal a lot of interesting things. I haven't looked to see when 70's first started, but i would be surprised to find that they began as early as 1987. In the early years it was difficult to get the services to grade ANYTHING over 65. When a coin graded 67 or 68 it would make it as a news story in Coin World.

 

One reason I started building my pop report collection was because I eventually like to do a study to see how the percentage of each grade submitted changes over time.

[gmarguli]

The 1989 Constitution $5 gold was the first coin to get the MS70 grade in quantity.

[mr3holesinone-migration]

Carl, I have a printed NGC population report from, I believe, the late 1980s. If I remember correctly it was printed in a landscape format (horizontally) and had a white paperback cover. Ummmm, now that I think about it I hope I'm not describing a PCGS pop report, . I'll have to see if I can locate it.

 

 

While I think it is a nice tool to have on hand, I don't think you can say with any degree of accuracy that the pop reports are accurate. There has been way too many crack outs and it is impossible to determine the actual populations of any coin.

[CarlWohlforth]

mr3holesinone -- if your report is from the late '80s it is likely that there are very few 70s if any listed in it. Also I don't think many people crack out 70s; after all they can't be looking for a higher grade. So I think any 70s you found there would be an accurate population. If you do find it please let me know what you learn. Thanks!

[mark]

Very interesting question. I have a PCGS Population Report from July 1997. (It's got a greenish-white cover and is printed in landscape mode.) At the start of the report, they have a grading summary for regular issue coins. Excluding "Pattern and Modern Issues" there are 0 MS70 and 0 PR70 listed in the summary. However, there were relatively a lot of "70" grades in "modern issues." As suggested, these seem to appear primarily in the modern commemoratives. It seems as if the 1994-D Capital dollar (with 56 MS70s) and the 1992-W Columbus 5 dollar (with 54 MS70s) were the most common at that time. Eyeballing the report, PR70s seem a much harder grade at that time.

 

Mark