What happened to mercury dime grading in the past few years??

mbbiker · December 27, 2010 10:04AM

Ive been out of collecting since around 2006 and when i put my merc dime set together i was told and thought the standard g4 had to have full rims on the obv and rev. I desided to start searching for the 16-d to finish my set and its scary to see whats in pcgs + ngc plastic passing as g4 nowdays.. What caused the change in grading standards from a few years ago?

1916-d at auction now..

lordmarcovan · December 27, 2010 10:47AM

That's a squeaker. I suppose it barely made it. I think it should've gone AG3, personally but the trouble is, there's no "AG3.5" grade. It's definitely strong for an AG. I suppose the fact that it's a key date weighed in its favor (not that it should have, but such things do happen).

joebb21 · December 27, 2010 10:50AM

<< <i>That's a squeaker. I suppose it barely made it. I think it should've gone AG3, personally but the trouble is, there's no "AG3.5" grade. It's definitely strong for an AG. I suppose the fact that it's a key date weighed in its favor (not that it should have, but such things do happen). >>

agreed.

ag3 but it happens alot with keys

SeattleSlammer · December 27, 2010 12:54PM

I did quite a bit of grade research/comparison on these before buying my VG8 earlier this year. I didn't find any PCGS/NGC G4s with full rims. I can't remember finding any PCGS/NGC G6s with full rims either!

TomB · December 27, 2010 1:10PM

It has been quite a while since I can recall seeing a 1916-D Merc with full rims in any G4 or G6 holder.

keyman64 · December 27, 2010 2:02PM

1916 & 1917 had high relief and are graded a little different...but besides those two dates... "Making the Grade" and "Photograde" say that for G4 the rim is detectable. For VG-8 The rim is complete on both sides. Nothing has changed in the past few years.