What condition actually changes
On a common date, condition is the difference between a coin worth its silver and a coin worth several times it. On a worn coin it changes nothing, which is why most people should spend ten minutes on this and then stop.
The scale
US coins are graded from 1 to 70 on the Sheldon scale. The numbers are not evenly spaced in value: the jump from 58 to 65 can multiply a coin's price many times over, while the difference between 4 and 8 often means nothing at all on a common date.
| Range | Name | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|
| P-1 to AG-3 | Poor to About Good | Heavily worn. Date may be barely readable. Bullion. |
| G-4 to VG-8 | Good to Very Good | Design outlines clear, all detail inside them gone. Most jar coins land here. |
| F-12 to VF-35 | Fine to Very Fine | Moderate wear, major detail visible. Where common dates start to move above melt. |
| EF-40 to AU-58 | Extremely Fine to About Uncirculated | Light wear on high points only. AU-58 has barely any. |
| MS-60 to MS-70 | Mint State | No wear at all. The range covers everything from badly marked to flawless. |
When grading is worth the fee
Third-party grading costs money per coin plus shipping and insurance both ways, and takes weeks. It is worth doing when the certified price is meaningfully higher than the raw price, which in practice means one of three situations.
- A key date in any collectable grade. Certification removes the buyer's doubt about authenticity, and on scarce dates that doubt is priced in.
- A common date that is genuinely uncirculated. The gap between MS-63 and MS-65 is where the money is, and no buyer will pay MS-65 money for an ungraded coin.
- Anything you intend to sell at auction. The major houses effectively require it.
It is not worth doing on a worn common date. The fee will exceed the coin's entire value, and no grade will turn a bullion coin into a collector one.
The one thing that destroys value
Do not clean coins. Not with polish, not with baking soda, not with a cloth. Original surface is most of what a collector is buying, and cleaning strips it permanently. A cleaned coin is usually worth a fraction of the same coin left dirty, and grading services will label it as cleaned, which follows it forever.
This matters far more than it sounds like it should. It is the single most common and most expensive mistake people make with inherited coins, and it is completely avoidable: dirt costs you nothing, and silver value is unaffected either way.
Handling
- Hold a coin by its edge. Fingerprints etch into the surface over time and cannot be removed without cleaning.
- Keep them out of PVC flips, the soft bendy plastic ones. PVC breaks down and leaves a green film that damages the coin.
- Cardboard 2x2s, inert plastic flips and coin tubes are all fine.
- Store somewhere dry. Toning is normal and often attractive; corrosion is not.