   Rarecoinman, Ltd. |
"Collecting
coins for pleasure and profit"
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Are
Rarities Graded Differently? If
you’ve ever seen me at a coin show, chances are good that I was sitting at my
table looking through boxes of coins, one coin at a time. Naturally some coins
take much longer to look at than others. My staff and I look at thousands of
coins at every show, and we often consult on major, or even minor decisions.
It’s fairly rare that we spend less than $1 million at any show we attend. If
you worked for me, would you tend to spend more time examining a coin priced at
ten thousand dollars than one offered for sale at a hundred? Would you pay more
attention to flaws that appeared on the more valuable coin? If you were about to
spend ten thousand dollars, instead of a hundred, would you be more concerned
about the coin’s technical grade? If
you didn’t answer yes to all of these questions, your job interview is over! I’ve
purchased at least a hundred million dollars worth of coins valued at ten
thousand dollars or more, yet each of these purchase opportunities remains
special and never routine. In
theory, all coins are graded using the same standards. In practice, I haven’t
found this to be the case. It’s only reasonable to assume that when making
major financial decisions most everyone becomes extra diligent and cautious. The
rarities are more carefully inspected. The importance of imperfections, and the
correctness of the technical grade become magnified by value. That said, would it surprise you to learn that in many if not most cases, I believe that very rare coins are more liberally graded by third-party grading services than their less important counterparts are? This surprising irony stems from the fact that expensive coins tend to be submitted (and resubmitted) more often. A $25 grading fee is significant on a $200 coin, but meaningless for a $20,000 coin. When you think about it, it’s completely logical. Age
can also influence the way coins are graded. The tendency is to forgive some
imperfections that wouldn’t be tolerated when examining more modern relatives.
Method of manufacture is also taken into account. For example, due to older
equipment and lower skill of the staff, the gold coins produced at the Charlotte
and Dahlonega Mints were often weakly struck compared to same year issues from
Philadelphia, so such deficiencies are often discounted when grading and
evaluating these coins. Perhaps someday all coins will be graded by computers programmed with one universal standard. Until this happens, we should content ourselves with the current system and perhaps even revel in its charming idiosyncrasies. James Halperin is co-chairman of Heritage Rare Coin Galleries and Heritage Numismatic Auctions, of Dallas, Texas, the world's largest rare coin dealer and auctioneer. Jim has been one of the top coin traders in the world for the past 25 years. He is also the author of two best-selling futurism novels, The Truth Machine and The First Immortal. |
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