ANA's Grading class - Day 2

rmorgan

I was asked to provide a recap of Day 2 for the ANA class on Coin Grading.

Bob started the morning with a Q&A for any issues we wanted clarified.

A good amount of discussion sought to clarify “market grading” versus “technical grading.” Bob used the analogy of a home and real estate value. “Market grading” is like a realtor looking up the recent selling prices of similar homes in a neighborhood. “Technical grading” focuses more on the quality of the house regardless of its neighborhood. Steve, a market grader, tends to arrive at a higher stated grade, whereas Bob, a market grader, will be more critical and arrive at a more conservative grade. Bob pointed out that the early copper group likes to break large cents out of slabs and apply the EAC grade (a more conservative assessment from technical grading). Looking at the Heritage Auction catalog, one often sees both a PCGS grade and an EAC grade.

Then Bob showed us some pre-made videos of certain coins being rotated in the light. This allowed us to see several things:
• The reflective effect of luster, and how this reflection changes as a coin degrades.
• Reflection of light off of proof versus the luster effect.
• Die polishing lines, why they occur, how to detect them, and why mint grades can have them.
• Hairlines and cleaning – how they differ from die polishing lines, and how to detect them.
• How lighting angle changes what we see. A 2D photo can be used to hide a flaw.
• Eraser marks
• Observing worn-die characteristics
• Coin hits versus wear (hits don’t downgrade as much as wear does)

Whether or not this info is new to an attendee, it was certainly nice to see these things illustrated on the screen with discussion led by the instructor.

The last 2/3 of the day involved two more sessions of hands-on grading. Today’s coins were more challenging. Several “problem” coins were thrown in as well as several tokens and foreign coins (ones we have not seen nor had books for reference). And I think well over half were either MS or details. And we had a much larger percentage of gold. In these rounds we were given only 60 seconds per coin.

From my perspective, we should have had more time, not less. In contrast to day 1, we were asked to screen for various issues with a coin, not just providing a grade. The effectiveness of a hands-on exercise is that we directly engage with these coins, handling with them as we study a variety of details, look for issues, and arrive at a thought-out assessment. The more we had engaged with a coin, the more effective it is for us to hear the instructor’s comments. As it was, we examined each coin for under 60 seconds and the instructor later described each for an average of 5 minutes. I realize that PCGS graders turn over coins in about 30 seconds, but we are students seeking to develop grading abilities. I would have benefited more if I had more handling/assessment time.

Another thing worth mentioning… After the instructor pointed out issues on a coin such as polishing or harsh cleaning, etc, I would have liked to have gotten a second chance to examine that coin now that I knew what he pointed out.

Don’t get me wrong, I learned from these two exercises. I do think I would have learned more if I would have had more hands-on time – both before and after the leader-discussion of each coin. I left that as my suggestion on the class survey. I hope they consider the suggestion.

This class was a “fundamentals” class. ANA does provide “intermediate” and an “advanced” classes for those who are ready for those. We were told of two opportunities for the intermediate class to be held in late summer.

jedm

Very interesting thanks for taking the time to do the write-up.

TurtleCat

I took the ANA grading class back in 2003 or 2004 when they were in Charlotte. It was led by a couple of NGC graders at the time. Nice guys, too. It was right around when full band became a designation on holders. Anyway, it was very helpful and just having all those coins available to look at was wonderful. I learned a lot but I was a bit too confident. We had early access to the show before the public so I tried my hand at buying a bunch of raw coins and getting them slabbed to see if I was grading well enough. The results were a bit below by estimates

Have fun at the classes!

ricko

Thank you for your excellent evaluation of the class.... I hope comments were passed on to instructors... feedback such as this is very valuable to them. Cheers, RickO

davewesen

I took a similar class a few years ago in Portland, OR. There is a lot of information given during those 2 days. I should have spent the money I on the class before making what turned out to be bad coin purchases. It is not as extensive as the 2 week classes during the summer, but I have not been able to justify cost/time off yet. I probably should go for another 2 day refresher course though.

RockyMtnProspector

Had Steve Feltner for my intermediate grading course at ANA Summer Seminar in 2018 and he was incredibly helpful.

Starting as a mostly technical grader I was able to see both technical and market aspects and became much better overall.

SurfinxHI

excellent. Thanks for the synopsis!

Hemispherical

Thanks @rmorgan for your informative post on the grading class.