EAC Grading Standards-- are these published anywhere?
Longacre
Posts: 16,717 ✭✭✭
I hear that the EAC has their own grading standards that are much more conservative than the third party grading services. I see that some auction catalogs refer to these standards sometime. Does anyone know if these standards are written and accessible?
Always took candy from strangers
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
0
Comments
The old manual new EAC members used to get has an abbreviated explanation of it, but most of us who grade early copper that way just learned from someone older. Sheldon created the system (more or less) and all of us who learned can basically trace back the "secret knowledge" through a few friend/mentor relationships back to Dr. Sheldon himself.
I learned the methodology from a few different people: Chris McCawley, Doug Bird, Denis Loring, and others. As I came up in EAC as a kid, it was nice to talk about grading with people like Jack Robinson, Doug Smith, Ted Naftzger, and even EAC founder Herb Silberman here and there. With this sort of interaction, you get the basics and then refine it to a style you're personally comfortable with. This is why, in the ANR catalogues where I use "EAC grading" I call it "EAC-style grading." The style is the same -- sharpness minus problems equals grade -- but the standards are personal and mutable. This is why Del Bland can call a coin VF-25 and someone else could call it EF-40 or F-15, with both considered a fairly competent grader.
For myself, I deduct most heavily for very obvious man-made flaws -- bad cleaning, re-engraving, burnishing, etc. I'll deduct pretty heavily for egregious marks, rim bruises, or scratches. Accumulations of many different things (a few rim nicks, a bad scratch, and recoloring) can also make for a pretty significant deduction. The sort of things that are present but do not immediately render the coin "ugly," whether it be very minor roughness, a removed spot, retoning, light hairlines, or marks consistent with circulation, tend to make for a more minor deduction.
Just how severe a scratch or bump is differs from grader to grader, thus why "standards" can't be published. I hate scratches. Someone else might not. Thus one man's VF-20 net F-15 is another man's VF-20 net VG-8.
Hope this helps!
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