Definition

• Obsolescent practice of affixing numerals to each grade designation: Basal State (= barely identifiable and unmutilated) 1; FAIR 2; ABOUT GOOD 3; GOOD 4, 5, 6; VERY GOOD 7, 8; ABOUT FINE 10; FINE 12, 15; VERY FINE 20, 25, 30, 35; EXTREMELY FINE 40, 45; ABOUT UNCIRCULATED 50, 55; Mint State 60, 65, 70. Other numerical grade designations were never authorized by Sheldon. He devised this scale after noticing that auction and fixed price sales of 1794 cents (ca. 1925-45) exhibited fairly consistent relations between price and grade: A GOOD sold at twice a FAIR; a VERY GOOD almost twice a GOOD; a FINE three times a GOOD; a VERY FINE five times a GOOD or almost double a FINE; an EXTREMELY FINE eight times a GOOD or about five times a VERY GOOD; an ABOUT UNCIRCULATED about seven times a GOOD or two and one half times a VERY FINE; a Mint State about 12 times a GOOD or five times a FINE or three times a VERY FINE; and an original blazing mint-red piece would then bring about 15% more than a toned one. From these observations Sheldon made the mental leap to an equation which he believed fundamental to a "science of cent values": Market Price = Numerical Grade X Basal Value (value in Basal State). However, publication of his books {1949, 1958} permanently affected the market enough to destroy this relationship between price and grade, and with it both his hypothetical "science of cent values" and any remaining rationale for these numbers. Because Sheldon standardized descriptions of each grade level for large cents, the numbers remain in use in EAC; but because they have not been so standardized for other series, despite the ANA Grading Guide, they are not used herein. Theyhave become a focus of the very same abuses, primarily overgrading, which Sheldon had devised them to combat; among the most flagrant instances are those involving alleged grades between 58 and 67, which represent distinctions nowhere precisely described, and about which disagreement has become both frequent and acrimonious. See slider.

Source

• Breen Encyclopedia

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