MS67,68 and 69 Wheat Lincoln's

clackamas

Other services, ANACS and NGC both will grade a wheat Lincoln above MS67 if it meets the proper criteria. With PCGS MS67 is the ceiling, why? There have only been 40 ms68 wheats graded and 14 of these are Stewarts 1919's that were graded at the same time and nearly all of the 68's that I have seen are in old green holders. With memorial lincolns there is ~3:1 MS67/68 ratio but on wheats the ratio is 149:1. Honestly, is it that PCGS simply does not grade lincolns MS68 or 69? Are there simply no wheat lincolns that meet the standard? IMO PCGS MS67's. at least today should be 68's, and a huge portion of the (recent) 66's should be in 67 holders. Whats your reasoning on this?

Thanks

Brian

homerunhall

I believe that the Memorials graded 68 by PCGS are the same quality as the Wheaties graded 68...the obverse is the same design and the coins I've seen look the same to me.

I believe the differences in the quality ratios for the two types is attributable to two things. First, in general, the older a coin is the less likely it is to find super high grades. Wheaties are older than Memorials, hence less 68s. Second, in general, Memorials in grades of 65 and below are not worth the grading submission fee, so we don't get many in below 66 quality. Many Wheaties are worth significant money in 64 and 65 grades and some are worth significant money in circulated grades, hence we get more lower qualit Memorials.

As for the other grading services, I believe their standards are somewhat looser than ours. All I can say is we have our standards, they are published in our grading book, and we try to grade coins as high as we possibly can based on those standards. If the other guys want to be looser, there's not much we can do about it. We certainly can't change our standards to match theirs, because A. that wouldn't be fair to everyone who's already bought PCGS coins, and B, it's just not the right thing to do.