Toughest series to grade

RLinn

Which series do personally find the hardest to consistently grade and why? For me it is the Peace $ because of the large number of weak strike issues involved that vary by date.

nwcs

Peace dollars, followed by gold coins, lincolns, and roosevelts.

HuliganRS

Franklins...

Monstavet

It seems silly, but I have a hard time grading Roosevelt dimes. They just don't seem to wear as much as you would think even when circulated.

agentjim007

Anything I'm trying to sell according to dealers. It's never as good as I think.

rkfish

Of the series I have knowledge, it is without a doubt Peace Dollars!

littlewicher

I concur that Peace Dollars are probably the hardest to grade.

jhar

I vote for Buffalo Nickels

littlewicher

Buffalo Nickels are also a hard series. I can never accurately grade them, unless they're G or AG.

keets

half dimes and silver three cent pieces. maybe not hard to grade in the sense of wear, strike, etc. but the small size of the coins means for me at least that i have to use a loupe or a glass of some kind to get a good look at the detail. i figure that means a grader would need to do the same thing so those small coins get looked at closer than larger ones.

al h.

cointagious

the pros have trouble with 2 issues. the buffalo nix, especially the branch mint pieces from the mid 20s and all hi grade 2½ indians. these two types probably have the lowest crack out rate.

vega1

I'll go out on a limb and say 3 cent silvers... Or maybe its just me.

RLinn

<< <i>Anything I'm trying to sell according to dealers. It's never as good as I think. >>


LOL I thought I was the only one.

BillJones

Many early U.S. coins (1792 to 1807) are hard to grade because of the uneaven strikes and hand made dies which made coins even within the same year markedly different.

Among modern coins, Standing liberty quarters are the toughest because many of them with struck in AU and sometimes only EF (only kidding). But the missing parts of the design force you to grade by surfaces more than sharpness.

ccex

My vote for the toughest series to grade goes to silver 3 cent pieces: not much design detail to start with, plenty of weak strikes, and tiny. Other series I don't collect seriously because I can't grade them include Buffalo Nickels, Peace Dollars, and Standing Liberty Quarters.

I'm happy sticking with Barber coins for now -- probably the easiest series to grade (although a few of the O-mints were struck with XF detail, but these are easy to learn about).

Placid

Slq's for me.

jtryka

Anything modern above MS-64. Otherwise, Indian Half and quarter eagles, classic head gold between F and AU, Peace dollars and Indian Eagles due to strike issues, and then buffalo nickels.

dorkkarl

3c silvers in the modern area are extremely tough, agreed. but try grading massachusettes silver. for maximum laugh, compare grades on slabbed mass silver cert'd by the same co.

K S

jom

$2.5 and $5 Indians. No contest.

jom

boiler78

I agree with jom 100%. 2-1/2 and 5 indians followed by slq's a distant second.

construct

Quarter and Half Eagle Indians.

steventheyn

2.50 and 5 indians and moderns above MS or PR68.

RGL

No contest ... Indian Head/Buffalo Five-Cent/Nickels (whew!) by a wide margin. Lousy strikes on branch mints (strictly MS coins without full horns), compromised luster on MS coins, hard-to-detect AUs ... a nightmare for those not familiar with this classic.

Elcontador

Can't comment re the gold, as I don't collect it.

Agree with Bill Jones' line of thinking, and re classic coins, I think the toughest series to grade is Capped Bust Halves. I've seen some 65s with such incomplete detail in Miss Liberty's curls, that I just shied away from the series. This is why I bought a Reeded Edge Half instead, as they don't have the striking problems of the Capped Bust series.

Also agree w Bill re SLQs as being the toughest 20th century coin to grade due to incomplete strikes for many dates & mint marks.

Whitewashqtr

1933 Double Eagles!! Just dont see too many around.

keets

i've seen SLQ's with full head detail and weakness at the date and vica versa. how do you account for that? improper die alignment or what?

al h.

Dave99B

Frankys.

Dave

mnmcoin

Buffalo Nickels for me.

morris <><

ARCO

Washington quarters and franklins. for the quarters an MS looks pretty much like a F12 to me. Just a bunch of flat, blandness.

Tyler

mrcommem

Gold dollars, especially Dahlonega and Charlotte issue, followed by all type two gold dollars. Most are poorly or incompletely struck, and it is difficult to distinguish wear from a poor strikes.

clackamas

Buffs, Au/Bu is near impossible especially with strike problems.

jom

Clackamas: I'll show you how to do it because it's actually quite easy once you see it....thing is the strike problems are not in the same area of the coin (at least on the reverse) where the first area of the coin begins to wear.

jom

Cam40

Thats the thing about Buffalo Nickles that keeps me from going more into this series.
Tough to grade and prices are all over the place.
I see it as an experts series.You gotta know what your doing or you get ripped fast.

Surprised no one said Mercs.
Its a real tough one for me.
Lincolns are perplexing to grade.
Washington Quarters aren`t easy to grade sometimes,especially the early ones.
Easy ones I think are Morgans,Most modern Halfs,,,,Well,Ok.....
All the big silver ones are easy.

Cam40

IHC....Those little coppers are even harder to grade than Lincolns.Copper is difficult to accurately grade I think.

wallstreetman

Without a doubt, $2.5 & $5 Indians, that incuse design is tough!

BillJones

Hi Keets!

The Standing Liberty quarters that you describe with full heads and weak dates probably came from the Type 2 pieces that were minted from 1917 to 1924. The date area on those coins was set too high from the surface of the coin. As a result the date was sometimes weak because it was poorly struck, and it wore off very quickly. In fact there are some VF quarters, probably from the end of that run in 1923 and ’24, that are dateless!

The mint tried to fix the problem in 1925 when they recessed the date to a lower level, but striking problems persisted until the end of the series. One interesting fact is that nearly all of the “obscene” Type 1 1917 SLQs were fully struck. If the design had been left alone it probably would never have had the production problems that plagued it and caused the early demise of the type.

1956Quarter

Franklin Halfs. ALWAYS misgraded, and tough to find truly nice.

This would be followed by Peace Dollars. Also very tough to grade, always incorrectly graded and hard to find truly nice.

TheNumish

Morgan Dollars---Just kidding

Peace Dollars, Standing Liberty quarters

Still can't figure out the difference between a fine and very fine on early date walkers.

on the Dahlanega and Charlotte coins I grade it as I see it and then add a grade.

dorkkarl

a sarcastic twist on this thread:

toughest coin to grade?

one that's already in plastic.

K S

RLinn

<< <i>one that's already in plastic. >>


Oh my! Would anyone actually be influenced by someone else's opinion?

jom

Karl: Great point there...I totally agree.

jom

gmarguli

The experts will tell you that the hardest to grade are $2.50 & $5 Indian gold and coins usually struck with mushy details (S mint Buffalos).

I believe that PCGS grades Franklins the most inconsistently, so I guess you could call that a hard series to grade.