"Tony Clayton" wrote in message
...
In a recent message "Amistad" wrote:

Just now happened across a coin whose description caught my eye. I can't
say that I previously knew of any coin grading regimen that allows for
rim
nicks being commensurate with the grade. Have a look:

http://cgi.ebay.com/2-Scarce-Barber-...temZ8422047521

My question is -- what grades are rim nicks acceptable on? Come on,
comrades. Educate me! ;-)

I would be surprised if such well worn coins did not have a nick
or two, and, let's face it, they are hardly going to detract
from the coin.

Personally I would rather NOT have such worn coins in my collection
even if they 'filled a gap'

I suspect that there is a fundamental difference between British collectors
and U.S. collectors. Over here there is a long tradition, going back to the
1930s, of the use of devices to form and store collections, be they called
coin folders (which sold for 35 cents when I was a kid) or coin albums (more
expensive, as they allow both sides of the coins to show). Whitman
Publishing made some 35c folders for collections of British coins of all
denominations, but something tells me they weren't intended to be exported
to your country, but rather to be used by Americans who had an accumulation
of pennies and sixpences that came here with tourists and soldiers, and that
otherwise would have knocked about loose in a drawer. Thus, we have more of
an urgency to "fill gaps." Some of those gaps are very expensive to fill,
indeed. If I want to fill all the gaps, then, in my Barber half collection,
and am an ordinary guy with an ordinary income, some of the coins just have
to be pretty low down.

On the other hand, we don't indiscriminately buy the first thing that comes
along. The rim problems on the coin in the auction in question, while not
necessarily being "surprising," are more serious than most of us will or
should tolerate, because we know that there are coins out there in that
state of preservation that do not have any damage at all. Finding
problem-free coins is part of the romance of collecting, whether one is in
the MS crowd or the AG crowd. As for me, of course, I'd rather be part of
the MS crowd, but when it comes to finding, paying for, and owning a
Sheldon-264 large cent, About Good will just have to do.

Mr. Jaggers