Sgc 11 / psa !!

[steve B]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

There is nothing much about the state of professional grading today which couldn't have been predicted starting in about the late 1990's. You think card grading is ridiculous now, look into coin grading. 10 different flavors of mint?

That's one thing I can't really see fault in.

The nature of coins and the traditional grading system was like that long before modern third party grading.

To a coin collector "mint" is a coin just as it came from the mint. Because most were simply put into cloth sacks and shipped to banks most recieved no wear from circulating, but did get lots of knicks from rattling around with other coins.
So you can have a coin that hasn't circulated, but was on the bottom of a bag at the bottom of the pile and looks like it did a couple rounds with a bear. OR you can have one that was on top of the top bag, and is nearly perfect.

Both are "mint" but one is far nicer than the other.

If you get to San Francisco, take the tour of the old mint. Hopefully they still show one of the old metal lined vaults that has dents which are coin impressions from the 1800's at least 5 feet up the wall!