Grade This - No Cheating!

[SlowFrog]

Thought this might be a bit of fun!

This 4 gram coin is roughly the same weight and size as a half sovereign. Using the Sheldon grading scale, what would you give it? The intention here is for everyone to give it a shot, regardless of your knowledge level or experience. It'll be interesting to see how varied the guesses are.

No point cheating obviously, and I'll reveal what NGC gave it this evening at 21:00. Winners will receive absolutely nothing.

 

 

 

[MickB]

AU53 as a wild guess.

[CollectForFun]

Assuming it did not get the Details grade, how about MS60?

[ArgentSmith]

XF45

[sovereignsteve]

Very difficult to grade a coin unless you've seen some very good examples but IMO this should get a details grade, XF or might make AU details, or about 50

[flyingveepixie]

I would say none of the above as it looks really beaten up to me, but what do I know...🤣

[Mrpound]

Without seeing other examples and doing research, I should say au55 details

[Zhorro]

MS details - harshly cleaned.

[SlowFrog]

Thanks for the guesses! For what it's worth, I thought it looked like an AU55. There was quite a range but it seems we all thought it'd be less than its actual grading:

MS63

https://coins.ha.com/itm/chile/chile-republic-gold-20-pesos-1926-so-ms63-ngc-/a/232204-64469.s?type=DA-DMC-NumistaWorldCoins-WorldCoins-232204-01202022

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by SlowFrog

[Mrpound]

12 minutes ago, SlowFrog said:

Thanks for the guesses! For what it's worth, I thought it looked like an AU55. There was quite a range but it seems we all thought it'd be less than its actual grading:

MS63

https://coins.ha.com/itm/chile/chile-republic-gold-20-pesos-1926-so-ms63-ngc-/a/232204-64469.s?type=DA-DMC-NumistaWorldCoins-WorldCoins-232204-01202022

 

Well I am surprised, but at least it’s a pleasant one ☺️ nice high grade, just wonder how it isn’t details 🤔

[SlowFrog]

2 minutes ago, Mrpound said:

Well I am surprised, but at least it’s a pleasant one ☺️ nice high grade, just wonder how it isn’t details 🤔

Same! I was surprised as I've previously been advised not to submit coins for grading on the basis that they had light surface scratches and would therefore be likely to get no better than a details grade. Usually correct, I guess.. but 63 for this one? I can only shrug with complete bemusement! 

[Mrpound]

10 minutes ago, SlowFrog said:

Same! I was surprised as I've previously been advised not to submit coins for grading on the basis that they had light surface scratches and would therefore be likely to get no better than a details grade. Usually correct, I guess.. but 63 for this one? I can only shrug with complete bemusement! 

Had similar experiences, submitted coins that look faultless and come back ms or au details, then submit a few I’m abit iffy on and they come back no details and better than expected. Just have to take the wins and the loses I guess 🤣

[CollectForFun]

Well definitely not what we all expected. I at least guessed right it would be MS as there did not seem to be any wear on the details but that amount of bag marks, scratches and hairlines should arguably demote the coin to the lowest levels of MS grade. 63 seems a bit too generous, but on the other hand, the way NGC takes those photos they in general exaggerate all the faults on the coin which means in hand and without magnification the coin probably looks much better.

[Bruce06]

Sometimes it's quite hard to understand their standard, especially the historic coins.  I recently purchased a penny graded AU, but i think it's only gVF/nEF at most.   Anyway, per some senior members, buy the coin not the number.

Edited February 12, 2023 by Bruce06

[sovereignsteve]

15 hours ago, SlowFrog said:

Thanks for the guesses! For what it's worth, I thought it looked like an AU55. There was quite a range but it seems we all thought it'd be less than its actual grading:

MS63

https://coins.ha.com/itm/chile/chile-republic-gold-20-pesos-1926-so-ms63-ngc-/a/232204-64469.s?type=DA-DMC-NumistaWorldCoins-WorldCoins-232204-01202022

 

Scandalous, considering how hard they tend to be with even slight hairlines, cleaning etc with sovereigns.

They certainly haven't considered all the wear/ damage / file marks around the rim

Edited February 12, 2023 by sovereignsteve

[Leonmarsh]

Details scratched 

[slack]

On 11/02/2023 at 21:03, SlowFrog said:

Thanks for the guesses! For what it's worth, I thought it looked like an AU55. There was quite a range but it seems we all thought it'd be less than its actual grading:

MS63

https://coins.ha.com/itm/chile/chile-republic-gold-20-pesos-1926-so-ms63-ngc-/a/232204-64469.s?type=DA-DMC-NumistaWorldCoins-WorldCoins-232204-01202022

 

Wow I did not expect that, but hey, that's got to be great news for my grubby 1849 young vic shieldback lol

[SilverJacks]

These coins may be known to have scratches through production or early storage etc. Im guessing the graders probably decided to focus on mint lustre and newer contact marks to determine whether it’s been circulated

[SlowFrog]

7 minutes ago, SilverJacks said:

These coins may be known to have scratches through production or early storage etc. Im guessing the graders probably decided to focus on mint lustre and newer contact marks to determine whether it’s been circulated

It's a fair point that there may be factors beyond our knowledge but then I feel like that would need to be reflected in the label info. As someone that's looking at grading for the first time, it doesn't fill me with confidence in the grading process. Consistency is key for us all to pay the premiums associated with graded coins but I've never seen an MS63 sovereign look like that. It's hugely damaging to see such disparity without any clear justification or further information on display for all to see. Let's say for argument's sake that you're right, I feel there should either be a special category for such coins with a known history impacting its circulated state, or a sentence stating so as a way of adding context.

[SilverJacks]

32 minutes ago, SlowFrog said:

It's a fair point that there may be factors beyond our knowledge but then I feel like that would need to be reflected in the label info. As someone that's looking at grading for the first time, it doesn't fill me with confidence in the grading process. Consistency is key for us all to pay the premiums associated with graded coins but I've never seen an MS63 sovereign look like that. It's hugely damaging to see such disparity without any clear justification or further information on display for all to see. Let's say for argument's sake that you're right, I feel there should either be a special category for such coins with a known history impacting its circulated state, or a sentence stating so as a way of adding context.

The scratches might be a known characteristic for that coin, year of production etc, and just par for the course, kind of. I am speculating a bit, but there must be a reason why that coin gets a good numeric grade.

If we saw those scratches on a sovereign we wouldn't submit it, unless we either wanted to confirm it as genuine or had reason to believe it was made that way. I remember a YT video before grading incuse Indian heads - a coin that's notorious to judge. There was one coin with a huge chunk missing. It was probably submitted just to find out whether it was genuine. The grader deemed the damage to be minting process and graded it well

I found the video, took me a while - the owner thought the coin was a dead cert details grade, turned out to be his best result, MS 63. - https://youtu.be/Ig9Gtc1UrG0