Sheldon scale (1 to 70)

How to read it

NGC calls it the internationally accepted grading scale and says it was first used in the United States in the late 1940s. Each grade is a number with an abbreviation in front. NGC says the abbreviation gives the way the coin was struck and, for circulation coins, its approximate condition: MS for a circulation coin of 60 or more, AU or VF and so on below that, PR or PF for a proof at any grade. The number places the coin within the range. Not every number is used. NGC says some numbers are skipped below 60, so that there are grades of 50 and 53 but none of 51 or 52; an ANA article says there are VF 30 and VF 35 but no VF 32, and that this could change if enough collectors and dealers wanted, for example, an AU 59. From 60 to 70 every number is used.

Also searched as: 70-point scale, coin grades chart, coin grading scale.

The grades and their numbers

Proofs take the same numbers with PR or PF in front.

Sheldon's large cent prices

The numbers began as prices. William Sheldon built the scale for the large cents of 1793 to 1814 in his book Early American Cents, first published in 1949 and revised in 1958, with Walter Breen and Dorothy Paschal, as Penny Whimsy. PCGS says the base of his 70-point grade and price system was one dollar, the price of the lowest-grade 1794 large cent; an ANA article gives the working: a Good 4 would be worth $4 and a Fine 12 $12. PCGS's own history puts it as the theory that a 70 would be worth 70 times as much as a 1, and dates the scale to 1948; the ANA gives 1949, the year Early American Cents came out, and NGC the late 1940s. CAC Grading credits Penny Whimsy with popularizing the scale.

From large cents to every coin

Sheldon's scale was for large cents only, and CAC Grading says it took years before others applied it to other series. PCGS says collectors agreed on the scale but not on the standard, so a Sheldon grade stayed a matter of opinion. The ANA has published official grading standards since 1977. PCGS began grading on 3 February 1986 and calls its numerical grading the Sheldon 1 to 70 scale; NGC adopted the scale when it began in 1987. NGC says modern grading was standardized by the third-party grading services in the late 1980s.

Plus grades

A plus after the number marks a coin at the top of its grade. NGC gives a plus to coins approaching the requirements for the next grade, from XF 45 to MS 68 and PF 45 to PF 68; CAC Grading's plus means a coin very close to the next grade, or with eye appeal good enough to warrant it.

Sheldon's other scale

Early American Cents also introduced a rarity scale, and PCGS's glossary uses "Sheldon scale" for that one. Sheldon numbers are something else again: the book's reference numbers for the individual die varieties of the 1793 to 1814 large cents.