Question about the history of TPG grading

Mark

Longacre's thread about Doug Winter's grading suggestion reminded me of a queston I have wondered about. I believe that back in the early days of TPG, when ANACs had a monopoly, a coin's obverse was graded separately from its reverse and two grades were assigned. Separate grades always struck me as reasonable, but ultimately this grading scheme was rejected by the hobby. Can anyone explain why this rejection ocurred?

Thanks in advance.

mark

tradedollarnut

In most cases, the reverse is as nice or nicer than the obverse so the information simply wasn't valuable to the marketplace [which desired a single 'net' grade]

ziggy29

In the Morgan series, for example, it's not *that* uncommon for a coin to grade, say, 61/65 or even 61/66 using split grades. Since it's hard for a price guide to list ALL the possible combinations of obverse and reverse grades, and most people emphasize the grade of the obverse more (as well as the lower of the two grades), most people just wanted to see a single number to represent the coin. A 61/65 might be a 62, for example.

In some sense, it was one of the early forms of "market grading" in that the market wanted to see a single number to represent what a coin is worth.

123cents

Here is a grading service that still grades that way.

dorkkarl

it was using too much ink to print 2 grades, so as a cost saving measure, they only print 1 grade now.

K S

Gemineye

If split grading was reasonable as split pricing the dilema is that if a coin graded $ 100 on one side and $ 500 on the other it gets rather confusing. It just doesn't make "Cents"..