Coin Grading

Grading coins can be seem like an overly complicated process. With such a small object to work with, there are many details, small factors and tiny imperfections to deal with in order to determine its true grading.

It’s important to be able to appropriately grade the coins, because after all, that’s the whole point. To see the quality of the coin you have or want to purchase and then to be able to determine the value it has on the market.

The first thing you have to do here is determine whether or not the coin you are working with is actually a mint state coin. A mint state coin basically refers to a coin that has never been circulated.

These can sometimes be hard to distinguish from “almost uncirculated” or A.U. coins. Keep in mind, even mint state coins can have some imperfections and some wear, so don’t automatically write something off as A.U. before really giving it a check.

For starters, you must be familiar with the original mint issue. Was there any imperfections made from that year and that mint, or anything else that would make the coin different or imperfect to begin with.

The highest points of a coin are where the wear is most likely to have occurred, and even from mint state coins, there can be wear on the high points after being rolled up with other coins. After determining that, the single biggest factor, besides obvious or excessive wear on a coin, will be the luster of the coin.

A mint state coin, even if its high points do have some minor wear on them, will retain its luster and shine throughout the entire coin. It will have the effect of the luster rolling over the coin, as in, when you move the coin in some light, the luster will roll completely around the surface.

An A.U. coin will not have this complete rolling effect, as the wear from the real world would have had more of an impact than any wear a mint state coin would have received.

Now you know you have a mint state coin, so how do you go about actually grading it. Mint state coins can fall into eleven grading categories, from M.S. 60 to M.S. 70, with M.S. 70 being the highest rated. Both the obverse and reverse sides of a coin are graded separately, however, under most circumstances the coin’s total grade will be that of its lowest side.

That being said, the obverse carries much more importance than the reverse on the majority of coins, and a higher grade there can carry up a lower grade from the reverse, and vice versa as well.

You want to look at four different categories for grading a mint state coin:

•    Surface Preservation – This deals with the quality of the surface, any wear or scratches and so on.
•    Detail – The quality and level of detail on the coin.
•    Luster – The total shine and brightness of the coin.
•    Visual Appeal – This basically factors in the previous three to see how visually appealing the coin is.

Surface preservation is by far the most important and roughly counts for double as much as the other categories. For each side of a coin, you give a grade for surface presentation up to 10, and for the other three categories up to 5.

Total up the score and then translate that into the mint state category. The higher the score, the higher the grade, so a coin that gets a perfect 25 will be a M.S. 70 coin and will garner the most value.