GRADING GUIDE 

Uncirculated - No folds or wear. Notes should not have rounded corners. Pinholes will only rarely appear on uncirculated notes.

About Uncirculated - Looks uncirculated at first glance. Only minimal corner wear.

Extremely Fine - Some folds(2-3) are evident, but very light. Paper is still crisp, without any limp folds. Could have a number of teller smudges.

Very Fine - Some folds are clearly evident, may have a # of light folds or several heavier ones. Paper design is not broken at fold lines. Paper will probably be no longer be bright white. May well be slightly dirty.

Fine - Paper design will be broken, and note will be limp, at major fold points - typically in the center vertically and maybe horizontally as well. Still will have crispness in note in non-folded regions. The vast majority (greater than 99%) of notes in this grade will be dirty and no longer white.

Very Good - A very wide grade. Can still have a little crispness in regions between folds (designated VG+), to totally limp and filthy (designated VG-). Will not be frayed around edges. Paper design will be broken at fold lines. Typically the lowest collector grade, except for rarities.

Good - Totally limp with severe fraying and rips. May have small pieces missing.

Fair - Severe fraying with pieces missing. Typically only collected as a filler or if extremely rare.

Grading Hints

1 - As most notes do not fit into nice categories, split grading is done, such as VG-F where there is still some crispness, and folds will not be quite as heavy as a VG+.

2 - Visual grading will only yield approximate results, touch is the only sure way, as a good technician can enhance the looks of a note by washing and pressing it. If you can not touch the note, for one reason or another, hold it up to strongly light & look for brown fold lines.

1 - BEWARE OF BLEACHED NOTES. Like cleaned coins, bleaching a note will destroy some or most of its value. The note will appear much too clean and bright for the grade. Novices will quite often mistake a lower grade bleached note for a much higher grade. Ways to tell a bleached note:

a) Note will appear much too white for even a Unc. note. Please remember that these notes are at least 60 years old, and that even good quality paper (linen) ages.

b) May have a Clorox smell when in its holder.

c) On lower grade notes (Fine-Very Fine and less), the major folds lines will be white and not dirty. This is the easiest method to determine poorly cleaned notes.

d) On low grade notes, very small pieces of the bank title printing may be gone at the fold lines and white space will show at these points.

e) The bank title printing may be slightly blurry.

f ) Fine and lower notes will almost always be dirty. Often F-VF notes will also be somewhat dirty.

g) Note will appear too flat. Will not have normal printing waviness (in high grade) and wear marks and folds in lower grade.

h) In high grade notes, there will be too many teller handling marks.

i ) Quite often the color on the back of the note will be somewhat too light.

2 - BEWARE OF REDRAWN SIGNATURES ON LARGE NATIONALS. - A number of large notes have lost their signatures due to the fading of the ink, sunlight, or bleach. Occasionally someone tries to re-sign the note, most of the time it is noticeable because of one or more of the following:

Slabbing Currency (Professional Grading Services) - Useful or Silly?

Like most things, the short answer is, it depends. To do a good analysis of this, it is useful to examine the pros and cons of professional coin grading, as there is now a good history. The primary reasons for slabbing coins, in my opinion, are the following:

1) Determination of authenticity, this includes both non-mint products and alterations.

2) Definitive grading of the coin.

3) Determination of damaged, cleaned, and recolorized coins.

4) The ability to buy coins for investment - including buying coins sight unseen and by people unknowledgeable in the hobby.

The Pros

The first reason, in my opinion, is very important for most people, due to the large number of counterfeits and altered coins. I have personally seen a number of phony small denomination gold coins, 1916-D, 1909-SVDB, etc.; and I would not buy any of these if they were not slabbed. The grading of coin is also useful to resolve disputes. I, however, believe that the grading system might have gotten too fine (particularly the MS60-MS70 range) for consistency, as I see a number of people breaking out slabbed coins and resubmitting them, hoping for an extra point. In my opinion, the third reason is not very important, as most knowledgeable people can determine these problems on their own.

The Cons

The fourth point, in my opinion, was one of the biggest reason for the decline of the hobby. It allowed investors, particularly non-collectors, to treat the rare and/or high grade coins as a commodity. This priced collectors out of the market, and turned them off to the hobby. In addition, slabs can not easily be made into an album, i.e. there was no longer any holes to fill. The leading authority, Q. David Bowers, mentioned this in an article as one of the major causes for the hobby’s decline. I have also been told, by several dealers and collectors, all more knowledgeable than I, that certain coins, particular copper ones, will deteriorate in the holders, due to the trapped water vapor.

So there you have it. If you have a dispute on a note, as a buyer or seller or you plan to dispose of items in the near future, it might be useful to have the currency professionally graded; otherwise not.