Photograde: Official Photographic Grading Guide for United States Coins, 19th Edition
by James F. Ruddy
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Book Summary Information
Author: James F. RuddyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-02-28
ISBN: 0974237159
Number of pages: 294
Publisher: Zyrus Press
Book Reviews of Photograde: Official Photographic Grading Guide for United States Coins, 19th Edition
Book Review: Lots of Information--where it matters least
Summary: 3 Stars
I've had this book for years. And yes, while it's a very good guide for grading coins in the inferior grades; and as someone mentioned, even many ten year old kids can do this--those aren't the grades that most often matter much with regards to US coins.
For example, a well known mail order coin company has a 1923 Mercury dime for sale, right now, for $8.75 in the grade of good--which is probably a bit much, for one of the lowest possible coin grades. On Ebay, the same coin in "choice BU" (and no one knows what that means exactly particualrly not on ebay), appears, for sale, and to be a roughly MS-60 coin. It can be "bought now" for $50 bucks. So that's the range that Photograde handles--Almost Good, to Brilliant Uncirculated. A range which varies from $5 - $50 on this particular, common date Mercury dime.
Now that same dime however, has sold recently at auction for $500 in MS66, $1800 in MS67, and a whopping $12,500 in MS68!
In other words, unless you're a kid collecting out of your lawn mowing proceeds, the real issue nine times out of ten; on most coins after 1850), isn't whether or not a coin rates VF or F, it's all about the 10 different grades from MS60--MS70.
It's frankly amazing to me that there isn'tt a good guidebook published by PCGS or ANACS, that can do in text form, what these organizations pretend to do every day of the year behind closed doors--determine grades of uncirculated and proof coins.
Such a book would be relatively expensive, maybe $50-$100 or more. But for people who collect coins at least in part as investments, this amount is barely significant in terms of what it would mean to teh collector.
Photograde? It's a decent enough compendium, but you can go online and get most of their grading criteria, with better pictures, for free. The book is sadly out of date IMO, in the sense that it still treats coin grade divisions, much as they were treated 30 years ago.
More Photograde: Official Photographic Grading Guide for United States Coins, 19th Edition reviews:
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Summary of Photograde: Official Photographic Grading Guide for United States Coins, 19th Edition
Considered the most highly acclaimed and preferred of its kind, the newest edition of the universal coin-grading encyclopedia by James F. Ruddy showcases over 1000 enhanced coin-grading pictures and adjectival descriptions of regular issue U.S. coin types from 1793 to date. Designated in 1972 as an Official Grading Guide of the American Numismatic Association, Photograde is widely accepted as the most complete grading book ever printed. In fact, over 500,000 copies have been sold to date.Coins & Medals Books
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