I think for AU and lower - probably wil be able to be done
for MS coins?
let me count the problems to overcome
1- ANA guidelines are not very definitive for uncirculated coins 2- luster will be extremely difficult to evaluate 3- eye appeal will be very difficult to evaluate 4- coins with toning will probably through off the grading 5- can strike be defined?
having said all that - if someone has lots of time or lots of money and a very competitant group of developers (hardware and software) - it will probably be like computer chess games - they can beat most people, but not all the people all the time
will there be a laser measuring stuff? computer generated comparisons? will they be able to differentiate proof from PL from DMPL.....
Why do companies try an convince you they can make a brain? $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.................Take the $ out of the equation and a lot of BS would dissapear from the world as we know it!
You can fool man but you can't fool God! He knows why you do what you do!
The problem is going to be strike. It was tried in the 90's and the company went bankrupt. The device would also make re-submissions a thing of the past and put all the graders out of business. You would still need to use a human to decide the grade point advantage or disadvantage due to aesthetics.
All American Coin & Jewlery Co. 6024 N. 9th Ave #5 Pensacola, FL 32504 HTTP://WWW.AACoinCo.Com
Show me a device which can tell me about eye appeal and you will have built the best mouse trap. The optics, lighting, environment would have to be of astronomical proportions for $2500. I don't think so---YOU can't replace the human eye, brain, and esthetics with a machine. Tell me about cryogenics later so I can freeze myself for six hundred years, then thaw me and replace my aging skin with something out of the future----LOLOL
No machine will ever be able to judge eye appeal. However, maybe this thing could put a stop to the many SLQs which are slabbed as being FH when they do not qualify for this designation.
"Vou invadir o Nordeste, "Seu cabra da peste, "Sou Mangueira......."
Most of what we call eye appeal can be quantified. All of what we do to grade coins can be programmed into a computer. Unfortunately computers do not have the optical capabilities to accurately assess the condition of all the coins which exist. They could grade most coins with a very high degree of repeatability (which is essentially the definition of consistency) but a few of these would not jive with current standards and making them do so would be beyond the present technology. There would also be some coins which would not be accurately graded and would grade differently from time to time.
Moderns would actually be much more easily computer graded than older coins. Many of the largest stumbling blocks will be the centuries the coins have had to be able to hide their grades and to have their surfaces change in subtle or dramatic ways.
I went through a bunch of '68 proof sets today and saw no 70 coins, nor were there any 69's. ...and none of the 68's were cameo. There were only a few hundred though.
I cannot believe what I am hearing! People...this IS the 21st century! There is technology out there that just a few years ago people could only imagune. I've been saying for a long time that such a machine will do away with human error -total wrong gradings- as is the case with EVERY grading service at one point or another. With such close mindedness we would all still be living in caves or in bamboo huts wondering how to start a fire! Tecnology is here...NOW! Look at your cell phones, your Global Positioning satellites that allow SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE to find you if you're stuck in the mud in the thickest of woods. Such lilliputian thinking...incredible! The ones that would be dead set against it would obviously be the grading services themselves as there would be no more need to submit/ re-submit/ re-submit-Presidential review until you actually BUY the grade you want! They would lose a lot of money and a lot of graders would be out of work! This reminds me of the very same argument conserning the use of robotics to build the cars we now drive that run forever versus the ones that we built by human hands, headed for a complete overhaul by 65,000 miles-at best- or the scrap pile! I am not nor have I ever been a follower. I'm laying money right now that before we die off this thing comes to fruition with human beings handling the aesthetics(eye appeal) end of it all. Think about what you're saying and all the things that we now take for granted such as MRI's etc etc. It IS coming-like it or not! JMHO
It will never work. Go flip through the Legend site and think "eye appeal". Why is one 65 coin worth 2x another one?
Then there are problems with strike. Think about 26-D Buffalos. Do you really think the market is ready to accept downgrading an Unc to VF? You might get the 1% of collectors with sharply struck 26-Ds behind you. The other 99% will continue to happily trade their PCGS/NGC coins among themselves and ignore what some upstart grading service has to say.
The only thing you could possibly move on to a computer would be some quantitative measure of a coin's reflectivity - I think this would be really good for modern Proofs & I think the market would accept it. It is also very easy to measure - put a light source on the coin & measure what comes off it. As I have mentioned the idea here I will claim "prior art" in case anyone tries to patent it
<< <i>I cannot believe what I am hearing! People...this IS the 21st century! There is technology out there that just a few years ago people could only imagune. I've been saying for a long time that such a machine will do away with human error -total wrong gradings- as is the case with EVERY grading service at one point or another. >>
The technology may be here, but grading is unfortunately an "Art" not a science. THe technology you're referring to is more mathematical in nature than it is a subjective appreciation of the aesthetic "look" of a coin. Technology and mathematical based digital technology cannot tell us why a Rembrant is a great work of art and why is is aesthetically pleasing, nor can a computer progam, but the human eye and the human brain can - unfortuantely (or perhaps fortunately) our human brains assimilate visual data differently so what you may find aethesticlly pleasing, another may not. There is no machine yet invented, and I would make a good educated guess that no machine ever will be invented, that is able to quantify what is aesthetically pleasing to all human beings. THat's why we will always obtain great pleasure certain aspects of life, such things as the selection of our mate, what art give us pleasure, the music we enjoy and other sensorary pleasures.
<< <i> With such close mindedness we would all still be living in caves or in bamboo huts wondering how to start a fire! Tecnology is here...NOW! Look at your cell phones, your Global Positioning satellites that allow SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE to find you if you're stuck in the mud in the thickest of woods. Such lilliputian thinking...incredible! >>
While this may be true when it comes to technologal inventions that replace or make more efficient tasks such as transpotation, building machinery, consumer goods, and even the creative arts such as television, the reproduction of sound, etc., technology will not compose great music, write a novel, nor paint a picture. As "grading" involves in addition to technical merit, an attempt to quantify visual and aesthetic appeal, the grading machine will not replace the human eye and the human brain which attempts to assimilate those 2 very different elements into a quantifiable number. In many aspects, grading is the equivelent of judging a beauty contest, so when a machine is able to determine "Beauty" and then make a definative determination of which ALL humans ALL agree to the exclusion of ALL other possible variations or outcomes, at that time a machine will be able to grade coins.
<< <i> The ones that would be dead set against it would obviously be the grading services themselves as there would be no more need to submit/ re-submit/ re-submit-Presidential review until you actually BUY the grade you want! They would lose a lot of money and a lot of graders would be out of work! This reminds me of the very same argument conserning the use of robotics to build the cars we now drive that run forever versus the ones that we built by human hands, headed for a complete overhaul by 65,000 miles-at best- or the scrap pile! I am not nor have I ever been a follower. >>
While the grading services might object to such a machine, as long as humans are the ultimate judge of what they find pleasing to their eye, they have little to fear. Robotics to build cars is a quantifiable endeaver - the real question is: Will robotics be able to paint the Mona Lisa, not reproduce it or copy it, but create a work of art such as that or a sculpture like a Michelangelo? To a lesser degree, grading coins is an "attempt" to quantify with a "number" something that requires an aesthetic appreciation, and in itself is not quantifiable. Exactly what does MS67 mean? by itself, a number as it relates to something that has an aesthetic appeal means nothing - the Human mind has to equate that number to something the it understands it to represent. Between the defination of what MS67 means, to the human understanding and acceptance of that number as representing something that it (the human being who looks at the coin) and then that person makes his or her own assessment that the number corresponds to his acceptance of a certain standard that is defined by terms which themselves are not mathematically quantifiable. It is precisely because the terms which define a certain quality are NOT mathematical (eye appeal, luster, depth toning and color, PL surfaces) that different graders assign different number grades to the same coin, and the same reason why some coins "upgrade" and some are assigned a lower grade when resubmitted: different graders, different eyes, different days, different results.
<< <i> I'm laying money right now that before we die off this thing comes to fruition with human beings handling the aesthetics(eye appeal) end of it all. Think about what you're saying and all the things that we now take for granted such as MRI's etc etc. It IS coming-like it or not! JMHO >>
Well you're certainly correct that humans will judge the aesthetics, but I don't think a machine that can count "marks" will be able to translate that into a grade, because the number of marks (or the lack thereof) is only 1 aspect of the overall assigned grade. Someone has to assimulate all of the other non-quantifiable aspects of the coin to translate that into a number grade which itself is defined by non-mathematical terms.
THat's why I respectfully disagree with your opinion that machines will be able to grade coins in our future brave new world.
I would agree that when a machine is able to write a novel like "War and Peace", or "The Old Man and the Sea", can compose an original symphony like Beethovan's 5th, paint an origianl work of art like Rembrant's the "Night Watch", that then and only then will a machine be able to grade coins. - Of course us humans who look at the coins might not agree with the assigned grade, but hey, What's new?
JMHO
Collecting eye-appealing Proof and MS Indian Head Cents, 1858 Flying Eagle and IHC patterns and beautiful toned coins.
“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.” Mark Twain Newmismatist
<< <i> cannot believe what I am hearing! People...this IS the 21st century! There is technology out there that just a few years ago people could only imagune. >>
Heh Heh.... I say it will never fly.....
I believe the proper machine to hold a coin with a vacuum chuck, rotate it at different angles while inspecting it in different light sources observing for hairlines, ticks, hits, toning, overall appeal would probably be a machine that runs in the 400 hundred grand range...
Guess what? At Intel I've used some of the most advanced anaylitical equipment in the world, one in particular comes to mind. Its called a MIC. With this state of the art machine, we still wound up rotating a wafer on a chuck and visually inspecting it with the good ol human eye.......
We were in the buisness of looking for defects in the .07 micron range...
Be Bop A Lula!! "Senorita HepKitty" "I want a real cool Kitty from Hepcat City, to stay in step with me" - Bill Carter
Newmismatist: How is a machine grading a coin with 100% consistency on which individuals disagree on the grade inferior to people grading a coin with 98% consistency on which indi- viduals disagree on the grade.
Certainly the technology doesn't exist yet to get 100% consistency, but it will. If there's any- thing to "eye-appeal" which isn't quantifiable it will most likely prove to be an emotional re- action which will vary among individuals anyway.
This is likely to happen in the not very distant future.
<< <i> Newmismatist: How is a machine grading a coin with 100% consistency on which individuals disagree on the grade inferior to people grading a coin with 98% consistency on which individuals disagree on the grade. >>
Is consistency the same as determining what is beauty, what tastes good, and what looks good?; all of which require input by the individual person and then assessment by the human brain and then thought as to whether the input is liked or disliked.
100% consistency could be 100% wrong 100% of the time, but it certainly would be consistent.
<< <i> Certainly the technology doesn't exist yet to get 100% consistency, but it will. If there's anything to "eye-appeal" which isn't quantifiable it will most likely prove to be an emotional reaction which will vary among individuals anyway. >>
I certianly disagree with that: Adding machines and computers can "count" (add, subtract, multiply and divide) numbers with 100% accuracy 100% of the time. The only time they are wrong is when the fingers inputting the data hit the wrong key.
<< <i> This is likely to happen in the not very distant future. >>
Theoretically yes, depending upon how one defines "not very distant future"
However, I would agree that you realistically could develop a machine to be able to determine the level of wear on a coin, so I would agree that a machine could be programed to determine the level of wear (definable loss of detail) and like the machine that Lucy mentioned that would cost $400K or so, it could tell you the number of microns that have worn off of a particular coin and the resultant "grade" that had been pre-programed into the machines database and yep, it would be 100% accurate because it was measuring something quantifiable. But could that machine quantify the other aspects of grading? So in a hypothetical sense, I would concur that a machine could be developed that could very accurately determine wear (the quantifiable amount of metal worn off of a particular coin, either by measurement or by comparing digitized images of the loss of detail to a database of the various stages of wear.
However, the grading that I was specifically referencing is the grading of Mint State and Proof coins and in those coins there is no "wear" to measure, nor loss of detail to compare to. Once you eliminate the perfect coin, all other uncirculated and proof coins (that likewise have not seen circulation) you would be left with a machine trying to quantify a virtually unlimitied number of variations as to the combination of marks, strike, luster, toning, mirror v satin surfaces, hairlines, etc. and eqate those non-qunatifiable characteristecs into a number defined by words (lost of adjutives) that themselves are not quantifiable. It would be like tryong to have a machine tel you what you think food tastes like, and then explain why you like (or dislike it) -
But when it comes to grading anything above MS/PR62, grading will in all probablility be done by humans. We might use technology to assist us, but the human brain wll assess what the human eye sees.
Collecting eye-appealing Proof and MS Indian Head Cents, 1858 Flying Eagle and IHC patterns and beautiful toned coins.
“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.” Mark Twain Newmismatist
<< <i> We might use technology to assist us, but the human brain wll assess what the human eye sees >>
There is a phenomenon known as blind sight. The optic nerve runs from the eye to the mid-brain or the reptillian brain and then to the visual cortex in the back of the brain. If the nerve is cut between the visual cortex and the reptillian brain then the individual will not experience vision. He will not be able to tell you the color or shape of an object and will for most purposes be totally blind. However if you toss him a ball he'll catch it and not be able to tell you how. Activities which are very basic to human life can still be in reaction to visual stimulation of the eye, but the seer is aware of none of this.
Imagine if you will a super computer in place of the reptillian brain and various optics view- ing an object at various light frequencies some of which may be well outside of human vis- ion. All you need now are some good light sources and a way to communicate with the brain. This is just a fanciful way of saying that while a computer may never be able to experience sight or to love one coin more than another there is no apparent reason that it can't do those things which machines have always done best; repeat the same operation until an operator causes the function to cease. That grading is a far more complex operation is of little concern to the computer which is merely following a flowchart in machine code.
I must say Newmismatist and Lucy-both of you make good points....but then so do I along with several others here. That's the beauty of this forum- this nation....we have the right to agree to disagree. Neither of us is ultimately right as just the opposite is true as well- neither of us is ultimately wrong. There have been more advancements in "Technologies" just in the past few years that it truly boggles the mind. Look back at the 20th century and how far mankind came compared to all the centuries before, put together! Star Trek was way out when it first came out yet look at how eerily technology parallels a TV show-of all things. Was Gene Roddenberry some kind of visionary? Take, for example, some of the TV Commercials we see. We're in someone's back yard as they Bar-b-Que and suddenly we are zooming out and see the city, the State, the nation the planet. There IS such tecnology. It is used in recreating a face for a long dead cadaver. To think that this precise technical grading machine that can measure the tiniest of discrepancies, that can make a hairline look like a canyon-is an impossibility is, with all due respect- simple-minded! No, a computer cannot sense or have emotions - only human beings can and therein is the problem and the root cause for inconsistency from day to day-depending on a human being's emotions. This is not acceptable when one grade can make huge differences in premium. I concede the point that at some point -probably the final stage, this should be reserved for "The Human Factor". This type of grading will prove to be cost effective, much more reliable and there will be much faster, accurate technical grading WHICH IS AFTERALL why we submit coins at a fee to begin with, otherwise we could buy our own plastic - formulate our own opinions gradewise and be in business. This way we are paying for another person's opinion. I don't want an opinion- I ALREADY HAVE ONE. I want an accurate grade the FIRST TIME. One that will hold up from day to day-week to week etc OR we have all been made fools of and wasted tons of money! Don't you want to know what your rare coin truly grades against the specs or are you content to continue re-submitting until FINALLY someone agrees with YOUR opinion? Isn't the reason we submit coins for grading and certification to ascertain it's true grade? Point taken....point made.
Todd, good luck with your project. I just don't feel that even if all goes well the collector would ever accept the practice of machine graded coins. Sorta' takes the compassion out of it. JMHO
Comments
There's no way to grade coins without the human element.
for MS coins?
let me count the problems to overcome
1- ANA guidelines are not very definitive for uncirculated coins
2- luster will be extremely difficult to evaluate
3- eye appeal will be very difficult to evaluate
4- coins with toning will probably through off the grading
5- can strike be defined?
having said all that - if someone has lots of time or lots of money and a very competitant group of developers (hardware and software) - it will probably be like computer chess games - they can beat most people, but not all the people all the time
will there be a laser measuring stuff? computer generated comparisons? will they be able to differentiate proof from PL from DMPL.....
6024 N. 9th Ave #5
Pensacola, FL 32504
HTTP://WWW.AACoinCo.Com
I don't think so---YOU can't replace the human eye, brain, and esthetics with a machine.
Tell me about cryogenics later so I can freeze myself for six hundred years, then thaw me and replace my aging skin with something out of the future----LOLOL
<< <i>Take the $ out of the equation and a lot of BS would dissapear from the world as we know it! >>
-and humans would still be living in caves wearing bear skins (sorry bear).
Andy makes alot of great points here. Considering the source of this 'device', I smell alot of hot air.
<< <i>and humans would still be living in caves wearing bear skins >>
Exactly!
"Seu cabra da peste,
"Sou Mangueira......."
can be programmed into a computer. Unfortunately computers do not have the optical
capabilities to accurately assess the condition of all the coins which exist. They could grade
most coins with a very high degree of repeatability (which is essentially the definition of
consistency) but a few of these would not jive with current standards and making them
do so would be beyond the present technology. There would also be some coins which
would not be accurately graded and would grade differently from time to time.
Moderns would actually be much more easily computer graded than older coins. Many of
the largest stumbling blocks will be the centuries the coins have had to be able to hide their
grades and to have their surfaces change in subtle or dramatic ways.
I went through a bunch of '68 proof sets today and saw no 70 coins, nor were there any
69's. ...and none of the 68's were cameo. There were only a few hundred though.
Given enough time there will be computer grading.
Then there are problems with strike. Think about 26-D Buffalos. Do you really think the market is ready to accept downgrading an Unc to VF? You might get the 1% of collectors with sharply struck 26-Ds behind you. The other 99% will continue to happily trade their PCGS/NGC coins among themselves and ignore what some upstart grading service has to say.
The only thing you could possibly move on to a computer would be some quantitative measure of a coin's reflectivity - I think this would be really good for modern Proofs & I think the market would accept it. It is also very easy to measure - put a light source on the coin & measure what comes off it. As I have mentioned the idea here I will claim "prior art" in case anyone tries to patent it
<< <i>I cannot believe what I am hearing! People...this IS the 21st century! There is technology out there that just a few years ago people could only imagune. I've been saying for a long time that such a machine will do away with human error -total wrong gradings- as is the case with EVERY grading service at one point or another. >>
The technology may be here, but grading is unfortunately an "Art" not a science. THe technology you're referring to is more mathematical in nature than it is a subjective appreciation of the aesthetic "look" of a coin. Technology and mathematical based digital technology cannot tell us why a Rembrant is a great work of art and why is is aesthetically pleasing, nor can a computer progam, but the human eye and the human brain can - unfortuantely (or perhaps fortunately) our human brains assimilate visual data differently so what you may find aethesticlly pleasing, another may not. There is no machine yet invented, and I would make a good educated guess that no machine ever will be invented, that is able to quantify what is aesthetically pleasing to all human beings. THat's why we will always obtain great pleasure certain aspects of life, such things as the selection of our mate, what art give us pleasure, the music we enjoy and other sensorary pleasures.
<< <i> With such close mindedness we would all still be living in caves or in bamboo huts wondering how to start a fire! Tecnology is here...NOW! Look at your cell phones, your Global Positioning satellites that allow SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE to find you if you're stuck in the mud in the thickest of woods. Such lilliputian thinking...incredible! >>
While this may be true when it comes to technologal inventions that replace or make more efficient tasks such as transpotation, building machinery, consumer goods, and even the creative arts such as television, the reproduction of sound, etc., technology will not
compose great music, write a novel, nor paint a picture. As "grading" involves in addition to technical merit, an attempt to quantify visual and aesthetic appeal, the grading machine will not replace the human eye and the human brain which attempts to assimilate those 2 very different elements into a quantifiable number. In many aspects, grading is the equivelent of judging a beauty contest, so when a machine is able to determine "Beauty" and then make a definative determination of which ALL humans ALL agree to the exclusion of ALL other possible variations or outcomes, at that time a machine will be able to grade coins.
<< <i> The ones that would be dead set against it would obviously be the grading services themselves as there would be no more need to submit/ re-submit/ re-submit-Presidential review until you actually BUY the grade you want! They would lose a lot of money and a lot of graders would be out of work! This reminds me of the very same argument conserning the use of robotics to build the cars we now drive that run forever versus the ones that we built by human hands, headed for a complete overhaul by 65,000 miles-at best- or the scrap pile! I am not nor have I ever been a follower. >>
While the grading services might object to such a machine, as long as humans are the ultimate judge of what they find pleasing to their eye, they have little to fear. Robotics to build cars is a quantifiable endeaver - the real question is: Will robotics be able to paint the Mona Lisa, not reproduce it or copy it, but create a work of art such as that or a sculpture like a Michelangelo? To a lesser degree, grading coins is an "attempt" to quantify with a "number" something that requires an aesthetic appreciation, and in itself is not quantifiable. Exactly what does MS67 mean? by itself, a number as it relates to something that has an aesthetic appeal means nothing - the Human mind has to equate that number to something the it understands it to represent. Between the defination of what MS67 means, to the human understanding and acceptance of that number as representing something that it (the human being who looks at the coin) and then that person makes his or her own assessment that the number corresponds to his acceptance of a certain standard that is defined by terms which themselves are not mathematically quantifiable. It is precisely because the terms which define a certain quality are NOT mathematical (eye appeal, luster, depth toning and color, PL surfaces) that different graders assign different number grades to the same coin, and the same reason why some coins "upgrade" and some are assigned a lower grade when resubmitted: different graders, different eyes, different days, different results.
<< <i> I'm laying money right now that before we die off this thing comes to fruition with human beings handling the aesthetics(eye appeal) end of it all. Think about what you're saying and all the things that we now take for granted such as MRI's etc etc. It IS coming-like it or not! JMHO
Well you're certainly correct that humans will judge the aesthetics, but I don't think a machine that can count "marks" will be able to translate that into a grade, because the number of marks (or the lack thereof) is only 1 aspect of the overall assigned grade. Someone has to assimulate all of the other non-quantifiable aspects of the coin to translate that into a number grade which itself is defined by non-mathematical terms.
THat's why I respectfully disagree with your opinion that machines will be able to grade coins in our future brave new world.
I would agree that when a machine is able to write a novel like "War and Peace", or "The Old Man and the Sea", can compose an original symphony like Beethovan's 5th, paint an origianl work of art like Rembrant's the "Night Watch", that then and only then will a machine be able to grade coins. - Of course us humans who look at the coins might not agree with the assigned grade, but hey, What's new?
JMHO
“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.” Mark Twain
Newmismatist
“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.” Mark Twain
Newmismatist
<< <i> cannot believe what I am hearing! People...this IS the 21st century! There is technology out there that just a few years ago people could only imagune. >>
Heh Heh.... I say it will never fly.....
I believe the proper machine to hold a coin with a vacuum chuck, rotate it at different angles while inspecting it in different light sources observing for hairlines, ticks, hits, toning, overall appeal would probably be a machine that runs in the 400 hundred grand range...
Guess what? At Intel I've used some of the most advanced anaylitical equipment in the world, one in particular comes to mind. Its called a MIC. With this state of the art machine, we still wound up rotating a wafer on a chuck and visually inspecting it with the good ol human eye.......
We were in the buisness of looking for defects in the .07 micron range...
"Senorita HepKitty"
"I want a real cool Kitty from Hepcat City, to stay in step with me" - Bill Carter
disagree on the grade inferior to people grading a coin with 98% consistency on which indi-
viduals disagree on the grade.
Certainly the technology doesn't exist yet to get 100% consistency, but it will. If there's any-
thing to "eye-appeal" which isn't quantifiable it will most likely prove to be an emotional re-
action which will vary among individuals anyway.
This is likely to happen in the not very distant future.
<< <i> Newmismatist: How is a machine grading a coin with 100% consistency on which individuals disagree on the grade inferior to people grading a coin with 98% consistency on which individuals disagree on the grade. >>
Is consistency the same as determining what is beauty, what tastes good, and what looks good?; all of which require input by the individual person and then assessment by the human brain and then thought as to whether the input is liked or disliked.
100% consistency could be 100% wrong 100% of the time, but it certainly would be consistent.
<< <i> Certainly the technology doesn't exist yet to get 100% consistency, but it will. If there's anything to "eye-appeal" which isn't quantifiable it will most likely prove to be an emotional reaction which will vary among individuals anyway. >>
I certianly disagree with that: Adding machines and computers can "count" (add, subtract, multiply and divide) numbers with 100% accuracy 100% of the time. The only time they are wrong is when the fingers inputting the data hit the wrong key.
<< <i> This is likely to happen in the not very distant future. >>
Theoretically yes, depending upon how one defines "not very distant future"
However, I would agree that you realistically could develop a machine to be able to determine the level of wear on a coin, so I would agree that a machine could be programed to determine the level of wear (definable loss of detail) and like the machine that Lucy mentioned that would cost $400K or so, it could tell you the number of microns that have worn off of a particular coin and the resultant "grade" that had been pre-programed into the machines database and yep, it would be 100% accurate because it was measuring something quantifiable. But could that machine quantify the other aspects of grading? So in a hypothetical sense, I would concur that a machine could be developed that could very accurately determine wear (the quantifiable amount of metal worn off of a particular coin, either by measurement or by comparing digitized images of the loss of detail to a database of the various stages of wear.
However, the grading that I was specifically referencing is the grading of Mint State and Proof coins and in those coins there is no "wear" to measure, nor loss of detail to compare to. Once you eliminate the perfect coin, all other uncirculated and proof coins (that likewise have not seen circulation) you would be left with a machine trying to quantify a virtually unlimitied number of variations as to the combination of marks, strike, luster, toning, mirror v satin surfaces, hairlines, etc. and eqate those non-qunatifiable characteristecs into a number defined by words (lost of adjutives) that themselves are not quantifiable. It would be like tryong to have a machine tel you what you think food tastes like, and then explain why you like (or dislike it) -
But when it comes to grading anything above MS/PR62, grading will in all probablility be done by humans. We might use technology to assist us, but the human brain wll assess what the human eye sees.
“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.” Mark Twain
Newmismatist
<< <i> We might use technology to assist us, but the human brain wll assess what the human eye sees >>
There is a phenomenon known as blind sight. The optic nerve runs from the eye to the
mid-brain or the reptillian brain and then to the visual cortex in the back of the brain. If
the nerve is cut between the visual cortex and the reptillian brain then the individual will
not experience vision. He will not be able to tell you the color or shape of an object and
will for most purposes be totally blind. However if you toss him a ball he'll catch it and not
be able to tell you how. Activities which are very basic to human life can still be in reaction
to visual stimulation of the eye, but the seer is aware of none of this.
Imagine if you will a super computer in place of the reptillian brain and various optics view-
ing an object at various light frequencies some of which may be well outside of human vis-
ion. All you need now are some good light sources and a way to communicate with the brain.
This is just a fanciful way of saying that while a computer may never be able to experience
sight or to love one coin more than another there is no apparent reason that it can't do
those things which machines have always done best; repeat the same operation until an
operator causes the function to cease. That grading is a far more complex operation is of
little concern to the computer which is merely following a flowchart in machine code.
typo
<< <i>That grading is a far more complex operation is of little concern to the computer which is merely following a flowchart in machine code >>
Is that where the term "GIGO" comes from?
“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.” Mark Twain
Newmismatist
<< <i>
<< <i>That grading is a far more complex operation is of little concern to the computer which is merely following a flowchart in machine code >>
Is that where the term "GIGO" comes from? >>
If it does come to pass, it might be a good time to institute standards too.
Sorta' takes the compassion out of it.
Dave