Continued discussion on FBL Franklins

airplanenut

Recently, it has been said many times that NGC grades FBLs much more strictly than PCGS... is this futher proof?
auction

Look at the picture in the right column of just the bell lines- look at all of the ticks they have and the marks through them, especially the dig on the left part of the upper set of lines...

I think PCGS made a boo boo on this one...

Jeremy

LucyBop

The bottom lines which PCGs focuses on look good to me, the tick in the other lines may not cause this to lose the status at NGC, the few NGC ones I have have plenty of bagmarks on the bell and the lines. This 59d looks like a typical ms64fbl type coin to me. Not a bad price either.

FC57Coins

I agree with Lucy - there's nothing wrong with this coin for this grade by PCGS standards or even NGC I would think. The question is whether you would be willing to buy it and that's all a matter of taste at that point. Remember that the bell lines point to how well the coin was struck. This particular coin looks to have had a decent strike, but then fell into the wrong area of the hopper where a lot of other coins landed on it. I think the grading services will give it an FBL rating as long as the lines are not so impaired that you lose the sense of what FBL should be - a few tick marks on the bell, and even one noticeable hit are usually ok in MS64FBL.

Frank

Gilbert

I would like to see some images of NGC designated FBLs. I've noticed throughout the threads on this topic, no one has offered any up, or, I've just missed them. Does anyone have NGC FBL halves they could image? If not, maybe NGC isn't as stringent as they infer they are.

IrishMike

Gilbert, I haven't hear anyone from NGC say they are more stringent on grading, what I have heard them say is that they use a standard different for PCGS. To be honest having owned FBL's in both slabs I have noticed much difference. Here is a picture of a 63 NGC65FBL that I sold.

Gilbert

Gilbert, I haven't hear anyone from NGC say they are more stringent on grading, what I have heard them say is that they use a standard different for PCGS.

IrishMike,

I didn't mean to infer, and I don't think I said anything about grading; only the FBL designation.

Anyway, that is a very nice looking reverse WITH bold bell lines. I can only imagine what the obverse must look like to be graded only 63 with a reverse that LOOKS to be relatively unscathed AND so well struck. What year is it?

IrishMike

63D. Gilbert I was referring to how they look at FBL's when they issue the designation, not the grade. Sorry for the confusion. It was graded MS65 not 63.

LucyBop

I thought the same thing and wanted to show some images of a NGC fbl and PCGs fbl to show that they can and often are very much the same, but I am terrible at taking pictures of coins. Just plain rotten!