Stupid Question About Grading

Justin

I collect graded baseball cards also. The highest grade for a card is PSA (sister company of PCGS) Gem Mint 10. PSA uses a scale of 1-10. Why is the highest grade PCGS uses 70 and not 100 or 10? What is the lowest MS grade? MS10? MS1? I find this quite confusing.

DaveG

Justin,

Please remember, there are no stupid questions, except the ones you don't ask.

Coin grading used to be by verbal categories: About Good, Good, Very Good, Fine, Very Fine, Extremely Fine, About Uncirculated, Uncirculated.

About 15-20 years ago, this system was married to a 70-point system created by Mr. Sheldon for large cents. The number is preceded by PF for proof coins and a two letter abreviation for circulation-strike coins.

The grading scale now goes: AG-3; G-4, G-6; VG-8, VG-10; F-12, F-15; VF-20, VF-25, VF-30, VF-35; XF-40, XF-45; AU-50, AU-53, AU-55, AU-58; MS-60, MS-61, MS-62, MS-63, MS-64, MS-65, MS-66, MS-67, MS-68, MS-69, and MS-70.

There are grades below AG-3: Poor-1, Fair-2; MS-60 through MS-70 are for uncirculated coins.

nwcs

It definitely is confusing. There's a long history to the numismatic grading system. If you buy the ANA Grading Standards book (available most bookstores for $14), it'll give you the long history of how it evolved. Basically, it started with a book by Sheldon which had coins graded by value with the poorest being $1 and the most perfect being $70 and others in between. 60-70 are for mint state and the rest (below 60) are for circulated states. Common grade points are given names such as a 4 being Good. The lowest is Poor (1) and the highest circulated is About Uncirculated 58 (highest state of circulated, sometimes used for uncirculated that was handled too much or mistreated).

I could go on, but the book is the best way to get started. It's an interesting read, too, believe it or not. About 4 pages worth.