@jmlanzaf said:
Seems kind of obvious as the grade between "about good" and "very good".
This is not funny to me. It’s logical.
I was only half kidding.
The OP's question is unanswerable and a little silly. You can't look at the one grade name in isolation. If you change good to "crappy", then all the descriptors around that also change. "About good" becomes "more crappy" and VG becomes "less crappy". And what have you accomplished?
If you look at the descriptors as a whole, they are a very logical progression.
As a group, it is quite logical and easy to understand once you are familiar with it. Go ahead and make VF into "Good" because that's your preference and then you get a new set of descriptors but the coins all look the same.
If VF is now Good, then is XF=Very Good? Then AU is now, what? Extremely Fine? Or do you jump from "very good" to "about uncirculated"?
I found my January 31, 1879 Haseltine auction catalog that includes Mickley coins. The grade descriptions include fair, very fair, good, very good, fine, very fine, barely circulated, and uncirculated. So the grade "good" has been around a long time in the US.
Consider that Sheldon collected early copper by die marriage, and many of these varieties exist only in circulated grades. The "good" grade has most details visible, and is a good coin to an early copper variety collector. The Sheldon grading scale works very well for early US coins.
For collectors of 20th century series that can be completed easily in MS, the good grade has little use, especially in the Registry world. Even for lowball sets, a G4 coin is a poor choice, and a P1 is a good choice.
For early copper and other early US series, the explanation of the grade "good" is self-evident. This G4 1794 half dollar was good enough for Eric Newman, JA, and myself:
Robert Scot: Engraving Liberty - biography of US Mint's first chief engraver
The one trouble with using that 1794 half dollar as a typical example of a G-4 is that you have to compensate for the uneven strike on the right side of the obverse and reverse. The obverse would pass for a Good, but without some further analysis, the reverse looks like an AG. I had to mentally flip the coin "head over heals" in my mind to come to the conclusion that the dies were out of alignment in the press when the coin was struck.
Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
I don’t see coins that are G04 to G06 as crummy coins lol. These are collectible coins which are circulated and in demand from collectors seeking that issue or type and fill the hole nicely. Besides whether G4 or MS70 it all adds up. For many issues G04 may be all the collector can spend, why insult them?
Perhaps it's time to create a whole new grading scale. Create a scale that gives details coins a true grade so they can be valued accurately for collectors and dealers alike. At that point the "G, VG, F, etc." could just be eliminated.
... So how and why did the early hobbyists accept and adopt the term “Good” for coins universally thought of as right next to the bottom tier on the grading scale?
Surely it wasn’t merely a sales technique.
When I was starting out, the fact that Good was worse than Fine seemed counterintuitive to me.
Comments
…the grade of Bad is when you don’t own the coin…it’s all upwards from there
I was only half kidding.
The OP's question is unanswerable and a little silly. You can't look at the one grade name in isolation. If you change good to "crappy", then all the descriptors around that also change. "About good" becomes "more crappy" and VG becomes "less crappy". And what have you accomplished?
If you look at the descriptors as a whole, they are a very logical progression.
Poor<Fair<About Good<Good<Very Good<Fine<Very Fine<Extremely Fine<About Uncirculated<Uncirculated
As a group, it is quite logical and easy to understand once you are familiar with it. Go ahead and make VF into "Good" because that's your preference and then you get a new set of descriptors but the coins all look the same.
If VF is now Good, then is XF=Very Good? Then AU is now, what? Extremely Fine? Or do you jump from "very good" to "about uncirculated"?
I stand corrected
or, "good enough for me"
"The OP's question is unanswerable and a little silly. You can't look at the one grade name in isolation."
I disagree. I think that I answered it by giving the historical perspective of how and when the grading terms developed over time.
Of course you do.
but poor will never be good for nothing
I found my January 31, 1879 Haseltine auction catalog that includes Mickley coins. The grade descriptions include fair, very fair, good, very good, fine, very fine, barely circulated, and uncirculated. So the grade "good" has been around a long time in the US.
Consider that Sheldon collected early copper by die marriage, and many of these varieties exist only in circulated grades. The "good" grade has most details visible, and is a good coin to an early copper variety collector. The Sheldon grading scale works very well for early US coins.
For collectors of 20th century series that can be completed easily in MS, the good grade has little use, especially in the Registry world. Even for lowball sets, a G4 coin is a poor choice, and a P1 is a good choice.
For early copper and other early US series, the explanation of the grade "good" is self-evident. This G4 1794 half dollar was good enough for Eric Newman, JA, and myself:
The one trouble with using that 1794 half dollar as a typical example of a G-4 is that you have to compensate for the uneven strike on the right side of the obverse and reverse. The obverse would pass for a Good, but without some further analysis, the reverse looks like an AG. I had to mentally flip the coin "head over heals" in my mind to come to the conclusion that the dies were out of alignment in the press when the coin was struck.
It's simple, a good coin is still good for commerce which is the original intention of most coinage.
I don’t see coins that are G04 to G06 as crummy coins lol. These are collectible coins which are circulated and in demand from collectors seeking that issue or type and fill the hole nicely. Besides whether G4 or MS70 it all adds up. For many issues G04 may be all the collector can spend, why insult them?
Perhaps it's time to create a whole new grading scale. Create a scale that gives details coins a true grade so they can be valued accurately for collectors and dealers alike. At that point the "G, VG, F, etc." could just be eliminated.
>
When I was starting out, the fact that Good was worse than Fine seemed counterintuitive to me.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
"Serious question. Why the use of “Good” as a grade for crummy coins?"
Because when it looks like this.....
This is good.....