Should I get my coin graded?

The fee against the difference

Grading is a fixed cost per coin, plus postage both ways and insurance on a parcel you cannot replace. That cost does not scale with the coin, so for a coin you intend to sell the question is a single one: does a certified grade change the price by more than it costs to obtain?

On a worn common date the answer is no by a wide margin, and this covers most of what people inherit. The coin is worth its metal, the melt value pages give that figure for nothing, and any dealer will confirm it across a counter in seconds.

The four cases where it pays

A coin that looks uncirculated, because above the circulated line a single grading point can double the price and the trade will not pay top money on your opinion. A key date, where the price justifies the fee several times over and the market expects certification. A coin worth faking, where the holder is authentication as much as grading. And any coin heading to auction or to an online buyer, because a bidder who cannot examine it bids on the holder.

The common thread is that all four are situations where somebody else’s money is at risk on a judgement. That is what the service sells, and it is worth buying only when that risk is what is holding the price down.

Keeping the coin is a reason too

Every case above is about a sale, and a coin you are not selling is a different calculation: what you are buying then is the holder. A sealed slab keeps a coin at a stable humidity, away from skin, from cardboard flips that off-gas, and from the handling that turns an uncirculated coin into a coin with a thumbprint on it. If the coin matters to you, that protection is worth paying for whether or not the grade ever earns its fee back.

It is also the honest answer to a question the trade tends to dodge. Collectors submit coins because they prefer them in holders — consistent, stackable, labelled with the date, the mint mark and the grade, and safe to hand to somebody across a table. That is a legitimate reason on its own, and it does not stop being legitimate because the coin is common.

Two things to be clear about if this is your reason. The fee buys preservation and a label, not an increase in value, so a common coin comes back worth what it was worth. And the grade you get is the grade the coin has: submitting it will not improve it, and a coin that has been cleaned will come back saying so. What coin grading is covers what the holder does and does not certify.

When it was not worth it

It comes back graded, in a holder, worth what it was worth before, minus the fee. Nothing is damaged and nothing is gained. The worse outcome is the coin that comes back marked as cleaned or damaged rather than numbered, which is information you needed but paid a premium to receive.

Grading also cannot be undone cheaply, in the sense that a common coin in a holder looks like a coin somebody overestimated. What coin grading is covers the designations and what each one signals to a buyer.

Before you submit anything

Confirm the date and mint mark, because the whole case for submitting usually rests on them being what you think they are — and an altered mint mark is exactly what a service would catch. What the letters on a coin mean covers reading them, and how can I tell if my coin is fake covers the checks worth running first.

Then handle the coin by its edge, put it in an inert holder, and clean nothing. A coin that arrives at a grading service having been polished is a coin that arrives having already lost the value you were submitting it to prove.

Related questions

• What is coin grading?
• Does condition affect a coin’s value?
• How much can I sell my coin for?

More on grading and condition

Condition is the largest variable in a coin’s price and the one most easily destroyed at home.

• Does cleaning a coin reduce its value?
• How can I tell if my coin is fake?

Coin Grading and Condition collects every question on this topic in one place.