Regarding the never ending question of "changing standards" at PCGS/NGC et al.
keets
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As a particular grading service/grading services as a whole/graders see a larger pool of coins, isn't it logical that the average grade would go down?? Having a larger pool of coins graded to compare each succeeding coin by should eventually start rendering a lower grade average, shouldn't it?? Would a grader looking at a coin 10 years ago "see" it the same after having looked at 10 years worth of coins??
Is grading static as some members believe, or does it change as a larger data base is formed?? Do you grade a coin the same way you did 10 years ago........five years ago........last year?? Have you become more selective as time has passed, finding it harder to locate coins which meet your standard, or has it become easier to pick out choice coins as you've learned how to grade better??
Just wondering. Thanks.
Al H.
Is grading static as some members believe, or does it change as a larger data base is formed?? Do you grade a coin the same way you did 10 years ago........five years ago........last year?? Have you become more selective as time has passed, finding it harder to locate coins which meet your standard, or has it become easier to pick out choice coins as you've learned how to grade better??
Just wondering. Thanks.
Al H.
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When I look at a MS coin I have always put it into one of the above categories first. I do it instinctively. I then see if the coin is better or worse than the grade my first impression gave it. If it is much better, but not better enough to bump it into the higher category, I will give it the " in between" grade, say a 61 or 62, a 64, a 66, or - dare I say - a 68. Likewise, if it is a little worse, I bump it down a number. This is the way I have always done it, and still do. It works for me.
Now let me throw in the question/problem of grading a major toner. Well, right or wrong, nice toning pushes the coin up a number (in some cases), and in the case of "bad" toning, down a number (in some cases).
In an earlier post it was mentioned that a coin went from a 66 in an NGC holder to a 63 in a PCGS holder. To me, this is wrong--I can not understand that. A 66 coin is a PQ Gem while a 63 is an aveage CHBU. Here is where I want to just crack the coin out of the garbage it is in and put the coin on a nice board and enjoy it for what I think it is. Someone screwed up- Period- no other explanation.
I don't think my personal standards have changed much thru the years----I think.
Second, my personal grading standards don't change because I don't have a personal grading standard. I simply try to see the coin well and, if the coin is for resale, predict what other people will think of the coin.
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Interesting question(s). Although I can follow the logic, if we look at the history of the top two TPG's, it seems so far at least, it went the other way for a long period.
A "solid 65" in the early nineties might well be in a 66, or possibly even a 67 holder today. Getting a 65/6 seemed pretty tough in 1990-93, a time at which I was very active in the market at local and regional shows in and around the Northwest. But if the coins I have seen in 65 holders are any indication, it isn't as tough as it used to be, at least not overall. Maybe there are just a larger pool of mistakes that cause misperceptions about what the real grade should be.
Additionally, it seems that quite often even the circulated grades shifted a bit, especially with earlier series. Nice or even Choice EF's became AU's, etc. This I chalk up to a real gradeflation phenomina from the begining and not just "mistakes". I think from the middle circulated aspect it took about five to eight years before the standards started to take hold. So from 1988 to 1995 the grades did seem to shift upwards.
Personally, I grade just about the same as I did 10-15 years ago, except that now I try to use the accepted numbers for Mint State instead of just adjectives. For the majority of my collection, I am dealing with Choice AU pieces (53/55/58), so little could change there. Even gradefaltion doesn't turn many 55's into 62's.
When we get to Choice and better Unc's though, although I can "see" (accept, justify, whatever) the numerical advances with some stability, I am less likely today than 10 years ago to agree on a large scale. Gem has to be Gem (65/6), without question. Not a wannabe, lucky day, decent to nice 64 that made it. Superb (67/8), well, unfortunately my budget doesn't allow for many of those, but they have to be just that, absolutely Superb ... visably AND technically. Choice (63) and Very Choice (64) have to be worthy, not just Unc's.
Is it harder to find coins that meet my standards? To some extent, yes. I think this has to do as much with a more active and diverse base of collectors today than 10-15 years ago though. There were always coins I didn't agree with, before and during plastic.
Now with all the complaints (if warranted) about PCGS getting really stingy are true, maybe it is a drift back towards some balance. Or maybe, all of the would be pro's (not the real pro's mind you, as they rarely whine much, they just take their shots, win some, lose some, and move on) have been learning from the too many mistakes out there and believe they are the correct grade.
Was interesting to think about, sitting here listening to some old ZZTop ...
“We are only their care-takers,” he posed, “if we take good care of them, then centuries from now they may still be here … ”
Todd - BHNC #242
I suspect all of us decide the grade in 5 seconds or so,whether we are right or wrong,we know what we like.
Proof
i think you get better at grading as time passes, becuase you have a set of (standard) to follow. but as time goes on we sometimes forgget to look. not to mention the higher power microscopes.
but haveing more than one oppinon is also important, do we always get one? as a master grader i would suspect i need not bother anyone due to there high workload..
how many arms does the average human have?
i think that for the most part, complaints tend to center on MS grades which are more susceptible to personal judgement. circulated grades tend to be guided by more specific criteria such as how many letters of "Liberty" are visible, etc.
perhaps i should have clarified that my questions were aimed primarily at MS graded coins.
When we play "Guess That Grade" from pix,everybody is usually within 2-3 points
the only problem with the guess the grade threads is that there's generally a preconceived notion as to what the thread's about. add to that the fact that if you guess MS64 in any of those threads, you're almost guaranteed to be within 2-3 points, since that gives a very vague grade range of MS61-MS67. even a newbie should be able to drive a semi through that target!!!
i think that for a collector with raw coins, there's always a certain amount of comparative grading that goes on, whereas a grader working at PCGS is just grading, and i assume, working from his own brain's database. to make an extreme example to highlight my inference that the tendancy is to grade lower as time goes by, consider a collector with perhaps 2-3 years experience looking at coins within his/her chosen series. the "WOW" coins will probably be more frequently seen, coins that are raw, keep in mind. fast forward to 10 years and i'd almost guarantee that that same collector sees coins with that kind of pop and appeal with less frequency, not because nice coins aren't still there being looked at, but because time has caused a more subjective analysis of each coin, there is more data to compare to when assessing the coin and assigning a grade. the same process might also account for what seem like overgrade mistakes when a coin makes that initial great impression but proves to have flaws which were initially overlooked.
to my mind, the fact that a professional grader looks at a coin for a short period in hand, perhaps inspecting it quickly with a low power loupe and assigning a grade before looking at the next coin, makes our debates about that same coin rather absurd sometimes. we look at the same coin under extreme magnification with more intense and differently directed lighting, sometimes for minutes at a time. then we pronounce the grader as having "missed" the right grade.
BTW, i realize i do all these things myself, i'm just wondering how everyone else feels about the way i perceive the process to take place.
IMO, yes, the grade given is based partly on the inventory of coins for a given date/mm the grader has seen. If you believe, for example, that all coins of a certain date/mm are poorly struck, you factor that into your final grade. The difficulty with that method is the occasional unexpected coin that comes along and changes the standard. Supposing you believed all of them were softly struck, graded them based on that assumption for years, and then Stewart Blay comes along with a coin that moves the bar so far out there you realize you've overgraded a few.
and it sets us apart from practitioners and consultants. Gregor
My own grading standards are more strict now than in recent years. For circulated coins I use the 1964 Brown and Dunn. I increasingly notice dealers trying to use the new 6th ed. of the ANA grading book when the SELL. I'll bet they aren't using it when they buy.
The grading of circulated key and semi-key Indian Head cents appears to have really deteriorated at both PCGS and NGC. I've seen too many VF 1877 and 1872 IHCs in XF plastic and even more XF 1877 and 1872 IHCs in AU plastic - "market grading" seems rampant now with this series. Also, most 1873 DDO S-1 IHCs in PCGS and NGC slabs appear overgraded.
I received a F-12/(15 on a good day
On the other hand, both PCGS and NGC have been brutal on high grade Flying Eagle cents and IHCs, in my opinion. They seem to have a deathly fear of high grade copper. Body bags litter the landscape.
IMO, there's a good reason why circ grades don't change. With rare exception (27-S SLQ, for example) there aren't major price jumps between circ grades, so there's no financial incentive for anyone (collector, dealer, or TPG) to play shifting grade games.
more on the total grade of the coin. somtimes over looked by the average grader.
if the value of a coin is high a lower grade may be in order due to the pcgs guarantee.
No, that argument makes no sense to me. I would think that over time grading would become more consistent as the pool of coins grew larger. The factor which causes grief is the change in grader(s), that should be a much more significant effect.
There have been blind gradings performed that we all know about. Highly respected professionals grade coins and their grades are all over the map. I think that tones down at the TPGs through collaboration in the peer review part of their grading process. It provides consistency to an extent. As the team members change though, standards will change, not based as much on experience but on their collective grading biases. The PCGS guaranty certainly must temper it so it does not get too strict too fast.
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Next, and equally important, remember to always ask yourself the question: "How is it made?" (Or, "How do they come?"). I think most professionals would agree that one of the things to come out of the evolution of grading is acceptance that you simply cannot grade coins from different time periods and of different mints the same way, even though they may be the same coin type. If you submitted an 1896 "O" Morgan dollar that looked like an MS65 1903 "O", I'll bet you would be very disappointed if it came back in an MS65 holder! You would probably also expect an "O" mint $2.50 Liberty to be graded taking the typical weak striking into consideration. Most choice AU Charlotte and Dahlonega gold might only be XF40 if compared to most choice AU "P" or "S" mint gold. So you can see that one simply cannot apply the same grading standard uniformly to all coins without taking these and other factors into consideration.
and it sets us apart from practitioners and consultants. Gregor
<< <i>i would suspect that at pcgs. the coin in question is placed under high power microscopes. >>
Russ, NCNE
as per your post, comparing a 1960 Jefferson to a 1941 Jefferson and expecting the same appearance is flawed. to carry it a step further, MS coins from the 1990's have step detail/overall detail that rivals some of the early Proof issues, simply because of die improvement. it would be silly to compare the two, yet some do.
i don't know if this relates directly to my questions or the topic, but it's a point i'm glad you raised.
and it sets us apart from practitioners and consultants. Gregor
and it sets us apart from practitioners and consultants. Gregor
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The strike of my Morgans for instance is viewed in terms of the hair detail, puffness of cheek, full rev. breast feathers. I don't look at just one area on the reverse--So the "CHANGING STANDARDS" seem going too far by eliminating all but one area for Wash. Nickels focusing only on steps, the SLQ's-- full head focus-- but not the shield detail!!. This causes a classification breakup (and Registry)--coins with steps/FBL/ FH/ etc that otherwise might be very high end appealing examples--Without these strikes they're NOT WORTH COLLECTInG--The are worth very little and none wants them--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm not going to collect a series where there is such a black and white segregation between "good and bad" coins--The reason is I've always evaluated the whole coin--it's strike, luster, marks and originality/eye-appeal as well as rarity.--So these newer changing standards in my opinion might leave out too many important factors--PLUS it's hard for older collectors ignor the value of the overall appearance of the series they're used to seeing, to suddenly just look at a fraction of the reverse area, before deciding the Gem's collectability.
By the way I do own a raw date set of UNC Wash Nickels collected from banks in a Dansco---
i would venture that any specialist of any series could volunteer the prime focal areas on a coin to best judge strike quality. but, back to Don's point...................if you would have noted the 1919 Lincolns i could have made the link between the thread and Stewart. past that, i think we agree and just didn't know it.
hey Morgannut2
give DennisH a PM and reitterate the above point that noone collects well struck non-Full Step Jefferson Nickels. then post the replies so we can all see how wrong you are with that assessment. there are more collectors of non-Full Step Jefferson Nickels than you could probably imagine, but why/how would you know?? you have clearly replied past your experience with bias leading the way. best to post about what you know and not about what you don't know.
here again, misconception leads the way, and you are wrong. check the Registry; each issue which has a strike designation also offers a Set Registry which offers no points for the strike designation, thus encouraging collector participation with coins that meet your criteria of luster, eye-appealing orginality, surface preservation and nice but not full strike. the fact that there are less participants may say different things to different people. it tells me that collectors are fully cognizant of the added appeal to coins with the "full strike designation" and the fact that those coins are generally better struck, though certainly not always.
back to the thread topic, though, do you thiunk that a collector comes to the point of recognizing full strike areas on any particular issue over a course of time?? i believe that to be true and i think what happens is that it goes along with an increase in grading skill. for me that means that what i saw as an MS65 five years ago might not be an MS65 today. i don't think i grade the same way as i used to, based on the experience of having seen more coins to base an opinion on.
at the same time, there are coins that i've kept for 3-4 years as raw examples, and when i submitted them for grading---finally---they graded where i thought they should. grading is a funny thing, isn't it??