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"Learn to grade" (or "How I am getting spanked on the message boards across the stree

RYKRYK Posts: 35,772 ✭✭✭✭✭
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One thing that really irks me, that I wish I could respond to, is being told that one (presumably meaning me) should "learn to grade." While that is easy to say, and everybody says it over here all the time, it is not easily achieved. It is not like learning the alphabet for my five year old son, nor is it like learning human anatomy in medical school. Grading is subjective, an art, not a science. One person's AU-58 is another's MS-61, and neither person is necessarily right or wrong. Experts get slapped down by the grading services all the time. They also slip doggy coins into unrealistically high grade holders all the time. Telling me to "learn to grade" is like telling my five year old son to learn right from wrong or asking a medical student to learn when it is right to "pull the plug."

Comments

  • I hear you. Its something that also has to devolp over time, it cant just happen. You need experience and time.
    Scott Hopkins
    -YN Currently Collecting & Researching Colonial World Coins, Especially Spanish Coins, With a Great Interest in WWII Militaria.

    My Ebay!
  • fishcookerfishcooker Posts: 3,446 ✭✭

    When I see that phrase, it's almost never for the good of the hobby.


  • razorface1027razorface1027 Posts: 4,242 ✭✭
    I'm only surmising that this is the very reason why, supposedly I'll add, they at PCGS have several graders grade a coin because of this fortay being so subjective. image I guess they find a mean then give it the grade.
    What is money, in reality, but dirty pieces of paper and metal upon which privilege is stamped?
  • Hey, I hear ya! I think what they should be saying and it would be more to the point is simply this "we all need to learn how the graders at PCGS or NGC grade". And that is tough because sometimes they change graders and then all bets are off again. Or they change something. Oh well. image
    In an insane society, a sane person will appear to be insane.
  • jeffnpcbjeffnpcb Posts: 1,943
    Consider the source. I leave well enough alone when it comes to giving an opinion on a grade from pictures or scans. Express no grade value when responding to the coin. You can talk about your likes or dislikes, but never win in a round of forum shots that are posted. I have too many questions expressing a grade unless it is in a poll and I don't have to respond unless to comment on the quality of it!
    HEAD TUCKED AND ROLLING ALONG ENJOYING THE VIEW! [Most people I know!]

    NEVER LET HIPPO MOUTH OVERLOAD HUMMINGBIRD BUTT!!!

    WORK HARDER!!!!
    Millions on WELFARE depend on you!
  • coinlieutenantcoinlieutenant Posts: 9,305 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Good post Robert...

    There are gross misgrading errors but on a one grade difference, sometimes two, you can split hairs..

    John
  • RussRuss Posts: 48,515 ✭✭✭
    It's been a couple weeks since I looked in over at sleepy hollow. I see it's the SSDD. On the plus side, it just took me about five minutes to catch up on everything new that's been posted since I was there last. image

    Russ, NCNE
  • jomjom Posts: 3,385 ✭✭✭✭✭
    RYK: My apologies if you took my post wrong. image My response was meant in a general sense, not to you directly.

    My only point was if NGC is "allowing" dealers to capitalize on over-graded coins then PCGS allows buyers (dealers or collectors) to capitalize on under-graded coins. Misgrading, whether it's over or under graded, is still a disservice to the market. Saying a TPG is somehow "better" because they undergrade is absurd. Consistant grading is really the only thing that matters.

    jom
  • spy88spy88 Posts: 764 ✭✭


    << <i>It's been a couple weeks since I looked in over at sleepy hollow. I see it's the SSDD. On the plus side, it just took me about five minutes to catch up on everything new that's been posted since I was there last. >>



    Russ, I understand your post is just in fun but look at it this way...

    I came from a family of 8 kids and rarely was afforded the individual attention all of us needed as we grew up. Maybe that's why I appreciate the NGC forum more then PCGS. Too many times, I have lurked here just to watch as "hyenas attack a kitten" or one of their own. Too much like my dysfunctional personal family. Sometimes we bite each other, but we never tear each other to shreds!

    David
    Everything starts and everything stops at precisely the right time for precisely the right reason.
  • RussRuss Posts: 48,515 ✭✭✭


    << <i>Too much like my dysfunctional personal family. >>



    Hell, my family is the paradigm for dysfunctional. Entire teams of psychologists study us and shake their heads in wonderment. Many a Doctoral thesis has been written about us - most of which received a failing grade simply because the Professor thought it had to be fiction. Probably why I fit in here so well. image

    Russ, NCNE
  • BearBear Posts: 18,954 ✭✭
    Hey, shredding is good for the ecology. All Forum members should be periodically shredded.

    We dont savage people arbitrarily, we have a secret lottery to determine whose turn it is to

    be enlightened thru pain and suffering. We are probably the nicest sadists that exist on the planet.image
    There once was a place called
    Camelotimage
  • spy88spy88 Posts: 764 ✭✭
    Russ/Bear

    imageimageimageimage
    Everything starts and everything stops at precisely the right time for precisely the right reason.
  • MyqqyMyqqy Posts: 9,777
    Since this short thread has wandered in various directions and left me confused (including the notion I'm getting that I'm being advised to not learn how to grade), I feel compelled to say that the ngc boards have better icon dudes than the pcgs boards....
    image
    My style is impetuous, my defense is impregnable !

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