Title: Golden Baby
For today's Coin Learnings, I'm going to touch on the part of coin collecting that causes the most twitching in coin folks - Coin Condition (also known as Mint Condition or Mint State). In essence, a coins condition is a rating (from 1 to 70; with 1 being the lowest and 70 being the best) of how "perfect" the coin is. By perfect, I mean how close is the coin in relation to the original design (die) that made the coin. Generally, when you look at coins in your pocket, they are circulated and have a rating around 25-55 (very fine to about uncirculated). Sometimes you'll see a old cent that's been beat up and it would have a rating of 8-12 (good to fine). Other times you'll see a brand new dime that's shiny and bright with no scuff marks or dirt, that might have a rating of 55-60 (about uncirculated to uncirculated (mint)). Even coins that aren't really coins anymore still have a rating, say a coin run over by a train or one that's had a hole drilled through it would still having a rating of 1-3 (cull to about good).
The rating is probably the most critical element in what determines the value of a coin (the other major element is its rarity - or how many a certain coin was produced). Generally, the higher the grade (score) the more the coin is worth. When a coin gets to grade 60 or above, its considered Mint and has very few, if any mistakes on it. Each grade above 60 the coin must be getting closer to perfect. A grade 70 coin is extremely rare and are considered perfect examples of said coin. As for cost, just to give you an example; a 1987 quarter in grade 70 sells for about $220.00. Its the same as any normal 1987 quarter you'd pull out of your pocket and keep in mind, in 1987 over a billion of these quarters were made! But out of that billion, less than .000001% (around 1000) will be perfect, which is why they cost so darn much!
Oh, last little fyi about grade (keep in mind, there is a LOT more you can learn about grading coins - books worth if you are interested), never, EVER clean a coin! If you clean it, no matter what it looks like after you clean it, because of the chemicals on it, it will be worth very little (certainly not worth anything near what you'd hope). So, no cleaning! An unaltered scruffy coin is always better than a cleaned one!
This photo is of a 2010-S $1 coin. It's grade is probably around 64-65.
Enjoy
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