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I purchased this 2007 Washington "Golden" dollar that is an NGC graded MS64 "Missing Edge Lettering" for a reasonable price on E-Bay. The NGC serial number is 3084617-048, but alas, there is no photo provided by NGC of this coin. When looking at the coin there are (apparently) "starburst" planchet type rough surfaces on both the obverse and reverse as the blue circles indicate. Interestingly, there are a few scratches on the details of Washington's face and a number of scratches on Liberty's outstretched arm besides the rough surfaces. With these existing scratches on Washington's face and Liberty's outstretched arm would be causation enough to grade the coin as an MS64 On the obverse these "starburst" rough surfaces cover more than 25% of the fields and the reverse "starburst" rough surfaces cover more than 20% of the reverse.
My question is, when grading these coins do the graders "ignore" these rough surfaces or take into consideration that these surfaces were not "squeezed" flat as the rest of the field on the coin? The "starbursts" are interesting in their patterns, but it would seem to me (as an amateur collector) that these rough surfaces would reduce the grade of the coin along with the scratches that exist on the coin. I would think the other scratches noted above would support a grade of MS64. At this point (again as an amateur collector) I would consider this coin to be a lesser grade than a MS64. Please explain to me how the reasoning of the grader could give an MS64 grade to a coin with so many field imperfections? I have read every word of "Grading Coins by Photographs" by Q. David Bowers and intensely studied each and every photo in the book. I actually typed and used each and every grade description/definition in the book into my personal Excel files of my coins to place a description of each coin by grade identifiers (in my amateur opinion). Personally, I would grade this coin as a MS61 (as an amateur collector).
My question is, when grading these coins do the graders "ignore" these rough surfaces or take into consideration that these surfaces were not "squeezed" flat as the rest of the field on the coin? The "starbursts" are interesting in their patterns, but it would seem to me (as an amateur collector) that these rough surfaces would reduce the grade of the coin along with the scratches that exist on the coin. I would think the other scratches noted above would support a grade of MS64. At this point (again as an amateur collector) I would consider this coin to be a lesser grade than a MS64. Please explain to me how the reasoning of the grader could give an MS64 grade to a coin with so many field imperfections? I have read every word of "Grading Coins by Photographs" by Q. David Bowers and intensely studied each and every photo in the book. I actually typed and used each and every grade description/definition in the book into my personal Excel files of my coins to place a description of each coin by grade identifiers (in my amateur opinion). Personally, I would grade this coin as a MS61 (as an amateur collector).
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