How would YOU Net Grade this coin?

braddick

Let's say you have an 1893-S Morgan dollar with strong XF40 details. It also has ONE of the following problems. What would you then give the overall (NET) grade to the Morgan?

-light cleaning. Morgan still has light, gray surfaces, some hairlines.
-pronounced cleaning. Hairlines and the coin is unnaturally bright.
-polishing.
-tooling. Morgan has reingraved breast feathers and a nick in the hair detail (obverse) has been corrected.
-two gouges on the obverse.
-small drill hole over the date- date is still decernable.
-rim has been filed.
deep scratches. Both obverse and reverse.
mutilated. Morgan can be made out as to type/date/mint- but the coin has been severely damaged.

You don't have to net grade them all, but pick a few. I'm looking forward to your opinion then on the overall 'grade' (value) of this Key Date.

coppercoins

That it's a key date should matter not one bit. All coins should be graded on the exact same scale to the same merits.



<< <i>light cleaning. Morgan still has light, gray surfaces, some hairlines. >>



- Drop a grade point - if it would have been a low EF (technically not XF if using the ANA standards) it should NET VF-25.



<< <i>pronounced cleaning. Hairlines and the coin is unnaturally bright. >>



- Drop a grade level - low EF to low VF. NET VF-20.



<< <i>polishing. >>



- Considering this is more severe than the previous example, drop two grade levels. Now NET F-12.


All the rest is damage to some degree - would require a peek to determine the severity of the NET drop. Mutilated? If it has EF details, I'd probably go to VG-8...possibly G-4 depending on the amount of mutilation.

airplanenut

Another option:

Melted

fcloud

Cull it and send it to fcloud!

braddick

coppercoins- You raise a good point, but isn't it easier to grade a Key Date vs a common one (sort of)? The XF 1893-S may be worth $7,000.00 and all the way down to $400.00 for a cull.
The 1881-S is worth $7.00 in XF and $4.00 (or melt) in cull.

The process of assigning a grade (read: value) would then be easier on the 1893-S.

coppercoins

Actually it's rather simple - separate the "value" from the "grade" because they actually are two different things. Grade the coin without prejudice to its value - place a value on the coin according to its grade. I think way too many "key" coins are overgraded JUST because they are "key" coins.

Given it were possible, take a 1921D Morgan and an 1893S Morgan that were identical in hits, tone, luster, strike, etc....they should have identically the same grade. The date and mint of the coin shouldn't play any part in it. For instance, "O" mint dollars were usually weakly struck - okay, then they can't make 66 unless they aren't "typical". "CC" dollars typically have a lot of bag marks....okay, those don't get 64 unless they are "unusual".

Try an experiment....grab any two Morgans, same date, same slabbing company, but have one of them be the most common and least valuable for the date, and have the other be a "CC". Look at the date side only of both having someone else cover the label. Consider it to be "all else equal" and grade them. You'll see that all things aren't equal. The less common coins are usually overgraded if considered on the same standard as the common coin.

Thing about it is, people tend to create grading standards for particular parts of a series because the coins are too hard to find by the real grading standard. Well, to me that's why they are worth thousands...because they ARE hard to find.

braddick

Interesting point, and I've heard that before. It isn't just grading the coin but grading the coin knowing its characteristics.

nwcs

I understand the technical grading discussion, but I would think that for a key coin the market grade will always be more influenced by being a key than by not being a key.