The Two-Step Process of COIN CERTIFICATION: Authentication & Grading are the Keys

For a coin to be certified, it has to be both authenticated and graded. Certification by a grading service is a two-step process.

- SCOTT A. TRAVERS

First step: The coin has to be determined to be genuine and unaltered. Second step: The coin has to be graded or rated on a scale of one through 70, where one is the lowest and 70 is perfect.

Fake, altered or doctored coins were a major coin market danger in the late 1970s and early 1980s before the advent of third-party grading services. Grading services were designed to assist consumers in differentiating between high-quality coins where the difference in value between one coin with a small scratch and its counterpart without a scratch could have a multi-thousand-dollar value differential.

Since grading services guaranteed that the coins they graded were genuine, these services had the effect of basically ridding the coin hobby of fake coins. After all, not only does a grading service have to warrant that the coin it’s certifying is genuine, but it has to make that determination definitively before grading it. Grading a fake coin just isn’t an option.

COIN ALTERATIONS

An altered coin is a real coin that has been tampered with in some way. The uncertified coins for sale that have the greatest risk of being altered are coins with rare dates and mint marks that are in high demand.

The popular 1909-S V.D.B. Lincoln cent is one example of a rare-date coin occasionally found altered. The V.D.B. is the designer’s initials, Victor David Brenner, seen on the coin’s reverse. The “S” mint mark seen on the front or obverse under the date stands for San Francisco.