The real purpose of grade this coin threads.

smprfi

Have you thought of the real benefit of these threads?I have. I always hear you can't really grade a coin from a pic because it is difficult.It doesn't show everything a coin has to offer.
Yet don't most of us buy coins off of web sites based on pictures?
These threads help us sharpen our skills on grading coins based on pictures.Don't we need to hone these skills just like we do if the coin were in our hand?I know I do.

dwood

What he said....

I agree completely, and it does help hone skills. I sincerely appreciate the efforts of stujoe and the others who make these posts. They've definitely helped my grading skills (or lack thereof), and they're loads of fun and information.

stujoe

I always think you are grading the picture rather than the 'real' coin (just like when you buy from a picture online). Even so, sometimes the results are very interesting and accurate when compared to the real coin.

I don't have a lot of slabbed coins in my grading challenge because I don't have a lot of slabs so I have to rely on others for them to use. However, here is an example:

Example

A Morgan Dollar. That picture is decent. Not perfect but pretty good. That coin happens to be in a PCGS-64 holder. The spike (33% of the 200 plus voters) hit it the exact same as PCGS did. Another 33% were within a point (63 or 65).

That is 2/3 of the voters who hit it within a point of the grade PCGS gave it when PCGS had the advantage of seeing the coin in person, puting a glass to it, rotating it, etc, etc. I am not sure you would get any different grade results if you handed that exact coin to 200 random coin collectors and said "Grade It".