I always enjoy perusing those old numismatic journals and magazines that one encounters from time to time at coin shows. The prices quoted therein are invariably out of date but the information therein is sometimes more valuable than what appears in current publications! I recently purchased a small run of the slick British publication "Coins and Medals" published by the Link House group (1968-76 period). In the February 1969 issue I came across a particularly interesting article by Douglas Bramwell entitled "BANKNOTE GRADING -- A NUMERICAL SYSTEM" and I have reproduced it below in case Forum members are interested.
The proposed system is based on the 100-point-maximum system and it assigns "damage numbers" (shades of Charlton!) to five specific attributes of the note, namely (i) CLEANLINESS, (ii) FOLDING, (iii) SURFACE, (iv) EDGES & (v) BODY.
Personally speaking, I like grading systems that are explicitly defined (like Charlton's), which unfortunately is not the case with many of the existing third-party grading companies which do not explicitly state how their assigned grades are determined. Also, I personally prefer the 100-point-maximum system (as currently used by postage stamp grading companies in the US) rather than the illogical(?) 70-point-maximum system, but that's another matter. The article below includes a table indicating how the "damage numbers" should be determined for each of the five attributes of the note.
It's obviously too late to introduce the proposed system in North America but I still feel that there's a lot that we can learn about grading from Mr. Bramwell's 40-year-old article!
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« Last Edit: April 01, 2009, 07:13:57 pm by Ottawa »
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" Buy the very best notes that you can afford and keep them for at least 10 years. " (Richard D. Lockwood, private communication, 1978).
