European Perspectives on Bank Note Grading Standards

News: Welcome to the Canadian Paper Money Forum.

I have reproduced below an interesting article from the latest issue of the International Bank Note Society (IBNS) Journal, Vol. 47, No. 3, 2008. The author attended a major commercial bank note event in Holland and asked 50 of the world's leading bank note dealers to grade three specific notes. He then analyzed the results. The last three paragraphs are particularly elucidating as they reveal that very few people outside North America are aware of, let alone interested in, the US Sheldon numerical (0-70) scale!

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In my opinion this category of grading is too confusing and complex . You have way too many grades, ie. g-, g, g+, vg-, vg, vg+, f-,f, f+, vf-, vf, vf+.......etc. I much prefer our current grading system in place. Any one else feel this way or am I off base here?

I would have to agree with nova7415.

Theres just to much to remember

This is a good article.

It just goes to show you that its an opinionated practice. The range of grades is not so surprising as there always seams to be a cluster in or around the "actual" grade.  While few of these leading dealers were at the extremities I assume that these had some marketing plan in mind when giving those grades. For example very few dealers could survive if they grade a Fine note as Poor.
One other section which stuck is having certain top dealers factor in the age of the note when grading. I have seen this done before in NA but always assumed it was done out of greed. This can certainly prove enlightening when purchasing notes from overseas.

Cheers