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In the July 16, 2025, issue of the Metropolitan Coin Club of Atlanta’s Newsletter, the From the Desk of the Editor column, titled Understanding AU-58 and the Nuances of Coin Grading, introduced three seminal articles by Bill Fivaz exploring the significance of AU-graded coins. These articles—AU-58: The Grade of the Future?, Almost Unlimited Bargains in AU, and It’s Confession and Revelation Time!—are being reprinted in full on our website and will appear in the club’s next three consecutive newsletters, presented in the order of their original publication. Following the insightful discussions in AU-58: The Grade of the Future? and Almost Unlimited Bargains in AU, we conclude this series with It’s Confession and Revelation Time!. In this final article, Fivaz takes an introspective approach, reflecting on the evolution of grading systems and introducing the concept of “low-end,” “mid-grade,” and “high-end” coins within the same grade. He emphasizes the importance of nuanced grading and encourages collectors to prioritize high-end AU-58 coins for their superior quality and visual appeal. Dive into this thought-provoking piece to explore Fivaz’s compelling framework and its implications for collectors.

Confession: Years ago, when the 11-point Mint State grading scale was adopted, I was not alone in shaking my head and telling anyone who would listen that it was impossible to grade uncirculated coins in one point increments. How in the world could someone, even the seasoned third-party grading experts, be astute enough to tell an MS-63 from an MS-64 or an MS-64 from an MS-65, etc. with any degree of consistency? It just can’t be done!

Computer-grading of coins was touted for a while, but faded into the sunset as quickly as it arrived. It was probably possible to measure two of the four basic components of grading by computer, the severity and location of contact marks on each side, as well as the strength of the strike, but what about the two more important factors – luster and eye appeal? These are both elements that only the human eye can evaluate, and no computer was up to that challenge.

Revelation: After a bit of reflection on the 11-point grading concept, and trying to keep an open mind, I came to the realization that armed with sufficient expertise and viewing a lot of coins, yes, incremental point Mint State grading is possible.

To illustrate my opinion, let’s look at the following scenario:

Let’s say that you go down to your local bank, the Wombat Federal Savings and Loan, and ask the head teller to sell you that $1,000 bag of uncirculated 1886-P Morgan Dollars that they’ve had stored in the back corner of their vault for over 75 years. He does, and you haul it home and spread out the 1,000 coins on your dining room table (be prepared to eat out for the next few nights!). I would bet a double struck, off center Peruvian bottle cap that you would be able to arrange those coins into at least 11 piles, with the first pile being the worst looking pieces, the next pile being a little bit nicer, and so on.

Then, referring to the first chart, I suggest that you would have, at a minimum, 8 piles of coins which would represent the grades of MS-60 to MS-67 (we must realistically expect that there would be no MS-68, 69 or 70 coins in the bag.

The “guesstimates” I have assigned each grade you might find in the bag are just that, and others may disagree, but it’s a figure that hopefully will get the point across.

There Is Quality In Every Grade

The three columns under each grade represent the Low End (L), the Mid Grade (M) and the High End (H) of that particular grade. Based on this individual grade expansion, you can see that the original 8 piles could, theoretically, expand to as many as 24 piles (8 x 3). You may only have 1 or 2 piles of coins that you feel fall into the MS-66 or 67 category, one a tad better than the other, but the point is, as stated above, there is quality in every grade, and this is reinforced by the second chart below:

This chart zeros in on MS-65 as the subject grade. The 25 coins you might find in the bag of this particular grade are sub-divided into the three categories I mentioned above. Low End, Mid and High End examples.

I should point out that this sub-division is applicable to every grade, even on circulated grades, and the goal of the collector should be to try to purchase specimens in the third column, those that are at the upper end of the grade.

By virtue of the above, you can see that it is theoretically possible to have between 18 and 24 piles of different quality uncirculated dollars in an original bag. The key, of course, is grading with consistency. Even professional graders are not completely absolved from mistakes, a fact that they will freely admit, but because they (1) have the years of expertise and (2) look at multi-thousands of coins, their accuracy percentage is pretty darn high and they are certainly capable of grading Mint State coins incrementally.

© 2020 American Numismatic Association. Reprinted with permission of the author.

Originally presented at the Intermediate Grading of U.S. Coins Seminar, 2020 World’s Fair of Money, Atlanta, Georgia.