The Grading Vault

One of the most important aspects in determining the value of your currency is to evaluate its grade. The grade of a piece of currency reflects its overall condition. Before standards for grading currency existed in the collecting industry, collectors and dealers use terms such as good, fine, excellent, satisfactory, exquisite, etc. Unfortunately, what one person graded as “good,” another person might call “excellent,” and third-person might call it “satisfactory.” As you can imagine, much confusion existed within the currency grading marketplace.

Remember, grading currency is a subjective process that most collectors and dealers would agree with. However, it is not scientific where you can apply a set of standards to an individual specimen, and everyone will come up with the same results. Additionally, there’s an old adage that says, “Ownership adds five points.” In other words, if you own it, it must’ve been a good specimen, so we may think higher of it then the person we are selling it to. This is why a set of grading guidelines were developed.