More on the subjectivity of grading

lava

There has been a lot written here lately both attacking and defending ACG.

The attack essentially focuses on the apparent widespread feeling that ACG overgrades its coins.

The defense, for the most part, doesn't take issue with this, but rather points out that grading is subjective, and that there is no universal meaning to a particular grade, and the discrepancy between the many different grading companies supposedly proves that point.

I remember a time long ago when instead of number grades, it was popular to simply describe a coin by such words as circulated, uncirculated, brilliant uncirculated, choice, gem, etc. Those terms were so misused that reference to the number system was seemed preferable, to avoid great discrepancies in grading.

An auction on ebay I just saw made me think of this. Check out what this seller thinks is a "choice" ten dollar bill.

Link to a CHOICE ten dollar bill

Goldfinger

I think overgrading is only a part of ACG's offenses. From what I understand, the more disturbing problem was the Hager's self-dealing, that ACG would assign low grades to a seller's coins and pay accordingly, then turn around and assign those same coins higher grades for re-sale. If it were strictly a case of overgrading, I don't know that ACG is any worse than NTC.