Will this Pillar dollar straight grade?
Alltheabove76
Posts: 1,514 ✭✭✭
I have limited experience with these and TPG. Would this grade?
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Alltheabove76
Posts: 1,514 ✭✭✭
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Try the world coin forum.
Young Numismatist • My Toned Coins
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In fairness, this was a very commonly circulated coin the US in the 18th century!
My Early Large Cents
I’m not even sure authenticity
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I'd like a weight. But, if real, it would straight grade.
26.9 grams
My Early Large Cents
There seems to be a ''hole'' in the large crown. Under the cross area.
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This one is a counterfeit, but I knew that immediately because I saw it in person.
I think that the piece in the OP is genuine and would get a straight grade.
Compare to this similar date I had:
Looks like a C/S right of center on the rev, and a corresponding raised bump on the obv. that should preclude a straight grade, but I have seen a few that slipped into holders.
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Good eye!
Lots and lots of these with chops, could very well be a single small chop hidden on the shield..
There’s a chop under one of the lions as well
My Early Large Cents
I like having choices - like if I just want a grade on something - a firm decision - not this wishy washy "details" or "countermarked" garbage, I know where to go, feels reassuring somehow
On a circulated coin that is nearing 300 years old there should be a lot more forgiveness. A grade that represents the market and peoples expectations of that grade. This coin is XF all day long. Microscopic marks do not change that. if it was a Morgan Dollar, thats a different story.
My Early Large Cents
yeah, I donno, some coins almost always come beat up and messed with like 1790s large cents, but I have an impression that it's not too hard to find an undamaged/unchopped XF/AU/UNC, I wouldn't be happy buying this straight graded without mention of the chops at least
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It may or may not grade. That is never a factor for me. I’m not a fan of all the hidden marks on the obverse.
Why send this to ANACS? Might as well be raw.
Latin American Collection
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I think authenticity is more important than grade in this case.
Have you seen counterfeit Pillar Dollars in recent ANACS slabs ?
Is there proportionately more counterfeit Pillar Dollars in ANACS slabs than other slab brands ?
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You could get the same guarantee by sending it to NGC or PCGS and so much more liquidity.
Latin American Collection
I completely disagree. A chop is a chop is a chop. Should be a no-grade every time. Especially given that there are multiple. I highly doubt ANACS even saw them.
ANACS definitely just missed the chops, which demonstrates why you don't send these kind of coins to ANACS.
I think it’s a wonderful piece, I think there should be a chop-mark certification…maybe there is, but I haven’t seen one. Something similar to the countermark certs you see on so many Latin American coins.
It shouldn’t carry a normal straight grade, I’ll bet ANACS didn’t even notice them, they’re easily overlooked.
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ANACS missed the chops. They're small enough , so I understand it. PCGS has missed chops in the past, too. Nice honest XF.
8 Reales Madness Collection
Here's a straight graded PCGS 8 Reales. How many chops can you find?
8 Reales Madness Collection
Humans grade coins, mistakes will happen. That’s not the point of the statement about how chopmarked coins shouldn’t be getting straight graded.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that chops are damage and should not be given a straight grade.
8 Reales Madness Collection
Why not? PCGS does it. Except the marks on my coin are not even visible to the naked eye.
My Early Large Cents
Because it’s damage. Someone with no government authority is violently punching some kind of mark into the coin, sometimes multiple times. Just because there is some kind of design involved in the punch doesn’t make it any different than if someone put a drill mark in a coin to test it… they are essentially accomplishing the same task for the same purpose.
PCGS only does it on US trade dollars, nothing else. And they shouldn't be doing it on those.
I agree. This is what TPGs should do. A grade is a measure of wear. It should not incorporate an opinion on anything else. Chopmarks should be mentioned on the label (as above) but not given as a fault. That is a matter of opinion.
Chopmarks are made through using the coin for what it was intended. They are not at all like someone drilling it. If you call chopmarks 'damage' then wear is also 'damage' and all coins should be rejected.
Seems there is a significant component missing from this discussion. We need to look at the intended purpose of Trade Dollar coins in general. And as part of trade, coins were chopmarked as part of commerce in the Orient. Chop marks, to some degree, are to be expected for those coins that circulated there. I do not see this as pmd as contemplated within the traditional numismatic meaning. PCGS notes whether the coin was chopmarked and opines with a grade. I completely agree and endorse this approach.
The OP coin looks fine-
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A lot of hairs can be split over this. What is damage and what isn’t? Where is the line drawn?
Are these damage or reissued or legitimate recertification? Or reminting?
Where is the line for you? All of these are technically “messing with” the coin, changing it in some way.
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I dont think you need a line. Just describe the coin. Don't categorise it as 'details' or not.
I spy three. One in the C one in the crown one on the right pillar.
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1 more inside the D in IND and the best placed one of all - king's eye
8 Reales Madness Collection
I totally forgot the eye!
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So many parts of this argument are incorrect. Grade is not always solely about wear, if that were the case only one MS grade would exist.
A drill or test cut serves the same purpose as a chop, it’s just not as aesthetically pleasing.
Wear isn’t damage, it’s a natural result of a coin circulating in commerce, and doesn’t require deliberate action to occur. You’ll probably argue that a chop is somehow a naturally occurring result of commerce, but it isn’t.
Someone has to deliberately do that just like a test cut, edge file, drill mark, etc. THAT is damage.
And where do the "Adjustment marks" fit? I have seen a lot of coins with these that get straight grades.
Adjustment marks are a natural part of the way planchets are made. Their presence on a finished coin are usually the result of insufficient strike. They are grade limiting, but not damage.
It's not incorrect. It's an opinion, as is yours. Grade is, of course, about wear, and always was. To address the obvious problem that wear is only one aspect of a coin, TPGs try - unsuccessfully - to shoehorn a load of other factors into it. That doesn't work. But regardless of that, it is the concept of 'straight grade' that is the problem I'm talking about.
Your view that wear 'doesn't require a deliberate action to occur' is not even true. How do coins get from one place to another? The deliberate acts of passing on coins, chucking them in tills, bags, pockets and piles of other coins, and dropping them on the floor. Perhaps using them as paperweights. Or pocket pieces. I'm sorry, but you could not tell if a coin was worn down by being passed around in transactions or by being used in a game of shove ha'penny, by being flipped around in bored person's fingers, or as a pocket piece rubbed for luck. So why is 'wear' a special case?
Ironically, the only passive changes to a coin are those that get classified as 'environmental damage'. That isn't a deliberate act, so why is that 'damage'? Oh, and we have to exempt toning, of course. That is 'nice' damage that doesn't get called damage. (We all know it isn't necessarily nice, while environmental damage can be attractive, but toning is 'nice', not damage).
The idea that more than one MS grade exists is, I agree, ludicrous. The problem there is the Sheldon scale, which ties itself in knots trying to think of 100 differences between coins to provide miniscule incremental value differences that no-one can actually see or agree on for any particular coin. Originally, there were three grades - good, fine, and uncirculated. (Well, four, if you count 'only fit to be melted down'). It is the likes of Sheldon that started down this mistaken road.
And yes, a test cut is also part of commerce. Of course it is. Indeed, I would not even classify a drilled coin as 'details'. It simply needs to be described as holed, with a grade. Many, many coins were holed for historically interesting reasons, and many of those reasons are to do with using the coin.
Take that 8 Reales above as an example of the futility of drawing this line - it straight graded with chops. You would say it shouldn't. But what about the 8 Reales stamped with George III's head? Are those damaged? They were official mint products. As has been mentioned, you also have restrikes. Do they count? Why or why not? How do they differ from countermarks? (I'm sure you will lose your mind when you learn about the coins holed by the Royal Mint for the Great Recoinage in 1696).
Obviously, with a name like Top50SetBuilder, you are heavily invested in the grading system, so I would not expect you to agree.
The fact that grading encompasses more than just wear is not an opinion.
Wear isn’t a deliberate action. It is a consequence of the coin’s intended purpose. People wear coins, but that isn’t the intent. The use of coins is the intent. Wear is an unintended consequence.
Environmental damage and corrosion are oftentimes not deliberate. But there is an aesthetic nature to coin collecting and grading. All else being equal, obviously a coin that looks like Swiss cheese is less desirable than an example without extensive pitting.
TPGs are doing just fine… they seem pretty successful to me.
The 1790s British Dollars that you reference are easily explainable, as are the recoining pieces that I supposedly can’t comprehend. Those are government issued counterstamps or mutilations that were done with legal authority and purpose. As such, it is completely acceptable to grade them. The are no longer 8 reales or their undertypes at that point. I don’t think the distinction is that hard to differentiate in your examples, or many others.
You are right about me being heavily invested in the grading system though, I’ll give you that.
We definitely see preservation and the collecting of coins quite differently.
Adjustment marks occur before the striking process even happens.
You said it yourself: countermarks like the George III bust are official mint products. That makes them not damage, they are akin to overstrikes. Chopmarks are not official mint products, they are privately applied. That’s the difference. What’s more, not only are chopmarks not official, but their origin is completely untied to particular eras or issuers. They cannot consistently be authenticated in any objective way. Countermarks can.
The rest of your argument is similarly silly, for various reasons. Just because you don’t possess the eye or discrimination to discern the difference between a 63 and a 67 does not mean others do not or should not care about that difference.
If the George III countermarks are not damage, then the holes made by the mint for the 1696 Great Recoinage are not damage. Neither is a cut halfpenny, cut by the mint. Would they straight grade, then?
My arguments aren't silly. Telling me I "don't possess the eye or discrimination" is simply an insult. But I can tell you, no-one on here can tell the difference between adjacent grades. Many times people will post a coin saying 'guess the grade' and the guesses are all over the place. And in the end, most people disagree with the one given by the TPG.
I have no idea what coins you’re referring to, but if they can demonstrably be proven as of mint-made origin, then sure. If they are just holed and cut coins then there’s no way to prove that they are original - anyone can make a hole or cut a coin. There are holed countermarks that are straight graded, like Holey Dollars, because those can be authenticated.
Again, speak for yourself. I can easily tell the difference between adjacent grades, and am decently accurate in GTG games (although grading from photos is inherently flawed) and quite accurate in hand. I have confident opinions about whether I feel a coin is a 62 or a 63 or a 64 or a 65 when in hand, with clear distinctions between those grades. And yes, I have noticed that people on this forum are generally not good graders - the average collector isn’t.