By Crossave · Updated: August 2026
On a coin, condition is not a detail — it is the price. The same coin, same year, same mint, can be worth many times more in Mint State than worn. Yet in a listing that information is compressed into a couple of letters and a number: MS 65, AU 58, VF 30. This guide is about reading them, and about the one word that quietly changes what a certified coin is worth.
One honest warning first: you will not find price estimates here. What a given coin is worth in a given grade depends on the year, the mintage, the mint mark and the market of the moment, and a number written today would be wrong tomorrow. What you will find is how to read the listing: what the abbreviations mean, who is making the claim, and which words should slow you down.
Modern coin grading runs on a numeric scale from 1 to 70, developed in the late 1940s by Dr. William Sheldon and now the industry standard: 1 is the bottom, 70 the most pristine example possible. Sheldon's contribution was to attach numbers to the adjectival grades collectors already used — "Good" became Good 4 and Good 6, "Fine" became Fine 12 and Fine 15 — so that two sellers describing the same coin land on the same word AND the same number.
The scale is not evenly spaced, and that trips people up. Above 60 every single number exists, because that is where the money is and the distinctions are worth making. Below 60 numbers are skipped: there is a 50 and a 53, but no 51 and no 52. A listing quoting "AU 52" is quoting something that does not exist.
Before the exact step, there is one question: has this coin passed from hand to hand, or not? 60 is the threshold — at 60 and above a coin is Uncirculated, below it has seen use. Everything else on the scale is a matter of degree; this one is a matter of kind, and it is the first thing to read in a listing.
Which is why About Uncirculated is the grade to read carefully. AU 58 is a coin with no more than the faintest rub on the high points, and a photograph is not always enough to tell it from a coin on the other side of that line. Watch the abbreviation, not the picture. One more trap: on gold listings "AU" is often the chemical symbol for gold rather than the grade, and only the context tells you which.
Every coin from 60 to 70 is uncirculated, so wear is not what separates them. What does is bag marks and eye appeal: a coin at the MS 60 end is without wear but, in PCGS's own description, may not have the eye appeal collectors want, while an MS 65 is above average for the issue with attractive luster. At the very top the standard is strict — NGC defines a Mint State or Proof 70 as having no post-production imperfections at 5x magnification.
Around the number sit designations that are easy to skip over and that carry real money. NGC adds a + to coins at the high end of their assigned grade, and its trademarked Star (★) to coins with exceptional eye appeal for the grade. Where the two meet the order is fixed: the +★ example first, then the +, then the ★.
This is the most common beginner's confusion, and it costs money because it concerns two different coins. Mint State describes a state of preservation: the coin did not circulate. Proof describes a striking method — specially prepared dies, mirrored fields, frosted devices — used for collector issues that were never meant to circulate at all. Certified proofs carry a PF (or PR) prefix instead of MS, on the same 1-70 scale.
So a coin can be Mint State without being a Proof, and most Mint State coins are exactly that. The reverse does not really happen: a Proof is born as a collector's piece. When a listing shows both kinds of wording it is not contradicting itself — it is telling you how the coin was made and how well it has been kept.
This is the single most useful thing to know before bidding on a certified coin. When a coin has surface problems that rule out a numeric grade — improper cleaning, scratches, damage — NGC encapsulates it with an adjectival Details grade instead, and the coin is NOT graded on the 1-70 scale at all. The holder looks much the same at a glance, and the problem is named on the label.
The most common reason is unskilled cleaning. When a coin is improperly cleaned, surface metal has been forcibly removed by mechanical or chemical means — and once that metal is gone it cannot be put back. "Damaged" is the catch-all for destructive contact that is not described more precisely; other labels name corrosion, environmental damage, scratches or repairs.
What this does to the price: the value of a Details-graded coin is generally set at least one grade lower, and sometimes two, than the same coin without the problem. The point of the holder is that the coin is still guaranteed genuine — which is worth something — but a listing photograph of a slab is not by itself evidence of a numeric grade. Read the label, not the plastic.
Paper money is graded on its own 70-point scale, derived from the same Sheldon scale, by PMG. The adjectives work as they do on coins, with two qualifiers worth recognising: "Choice" marks a note at the top end of its grade range, and "Superb" pairs with Gem Uncirculated for a note grading 67 or above.
The designation that decides the price is EPQ — Exceptional Paper Quality. An EPQ note is, in PMG's judgement, completely original: it has not been physically, chemically or materially processed to give the appearance of a higher grade. Every note graded Very Fine 20 and above is assessed for it, and a note must qualify for EPQ to reach Gem Uncirculated 65 or higher at all. Two notes at the same number, one with EPQ and one without, are not the same purchase.
Two more marks to read. NET means the note has problems more severe than the numeric grade can express, and PMG lists them. The PMG Star (★) is the opposite signal: exceptional eye appeal, with embossing, ink colour and paper quality beyond the EPQ standard. At the very top the requirements stack — PMG defines a 70 as showing no evidence of handling at 5x magnification, and a note graded 70 must also qualify for both EPQ and the Star.
The grade describes the state of one object; it says nothing about how many of that object exist. Mintage, the mint mark — the same year struck at a different facility is a different coin to a collector — and die varieties and striking errors all sit outside the number. Two coins sharing a grade are not therefore comparable, which is the mistake the number invites.
On banknotes there is a second thing the grade does not carry: the serial number. Low and fancy serials are collected in their own right — PMG writes them up as a category of their own — so two notes at the same grade can be wanted by different buyers for different reasons. Folds, pinholes and staple marks are the other half: a serious listing states them, and if it does not, that is the question to ask.
Collectors' coins and banknotes are normally classified under customs heading 9705, which covers collections and collectors' pieces of numismatic interest among others. Being in a favourable heading is not the same as arriving free: what you actually pay depends on where the parcel lands, and import VAT or sales tax is a separate question from duty. Our guide to import duty and VAT by country walks through the rules destination by destination.
Two costs that never appear in the listing price. The carrier charges a customs clearance or handling fee on top of whatever tax is due — on a modest coin that fee alone can change whether the purchase made sense. And grading is not free either: if you are thinking of submitting a coin yourself, the fees sit on the grader's own fee schedule and change over time, so read them there rather than from any guide, this one included.
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