Coin Collecting: Determing a Coin’s Value
In coin collecting, the condition of a coin is everything and is key to determining its value. A coin is mint or uncirculated condition can be worth a hundred or a thousand times more than a coin that is in poor condition. That example seems kind of obvious is is true of almost every type of collectable such as stamps, cars, baseball cards and more. Almost all collectors create systems to determine the the condition and value of a collectable. The most common one used for coins is the one adopted by the American Numismatic Association called the Sheldon system and numbers a coin between 1 and 70, where 70 represents a perfect specimen and 1 represents a barely identifiable coin.
The generally accepted scale of for how to grade coins from highest to lowest work something like this:
- Mint State (MS) 60–70: Uncirculated
- About/Almost Uncirculated (AU) 50, 53, 55, 58
- Extremely Fine (XF or EF) 40, 4-
- Very Fine (VF) 20, 25, 30, 35
- Fine (F) 12, 15
- Very Good (VG) 8, 10
- Good (G) 4, 6
- About Good (AG) 3
- Fair (FA, FR) 2
- Poor (PR, PO) 1
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