GRADING SAINTS

GOLDSAINT

Can some of you Gold collectors please give me a little advice on Grading the $20 Saint. I have a few of these that are doubles all graded by NGC. I would like to trade them for other dates at an upcoming show. Many of these are graded MS 63. Some have stronger strikes than others, some have more bag marks. Which should be kept if they were to go to re-submittal to PCGS.

BillJones

Well grading Saints is not much different from grading silver dollars. Marks, copper spots, weak luster are all negatives. Absence of marks, bright luster (but not cleaned) and eye appeal are plusses.

The crack out and regrade game may not be what you think. First it’s a waste of money to do it on common dates because the rewards (about $100) on a Saint from going from MS-63 to 64 is not enough. Regrades and crossovers cost money and there is a probability that you will get the same grade back or even lower. And the chances of jumping from MS-63 to MS-65 are not great. If you can do that, then it would be worthwhile.

For rarer dates it can pay off, but remember that the graders know the spreads on rare dates too. They don’t hand out high grades on better dates like popcorn. It’s for that reason that you will see more conservative grading on rare dates than what you might see on common dates. As a matter of fact I’ve found that some MS-63 Saints that were much better than coins in MS-64 holders. You just have look at them carefully.

I don’t think that the graders spend much time with these common coins that have bullion as a part of their value base. Therefore getting common dates regraded can be like a crap shoot. Also for common date Saints, it really does not matter if the coin is in a PCGS or NGC holder. They trade at the same levels.