Grade of a coin

I see a lot of posts where people ask, how much is a 1911 Pig Rupee or how much is a 1936 1/4 Anna. But rarely do I hear someone qualifying the coin in terms of grade. Depending on the grade of the coin the coin can be worth anywhere between the price of silver to a 10's and thousands of rupees. Grade is such an important thing! So I want to take a few minutes to let everyone know my thoughts about grade.

What is Grade?
Depending on how unchanged and unscratched and uncleaned the coin has been since the time it has been minted, the coin is given a grade. There are different ways in which grades are measured. The most famous one is the Sheldon scale. It is a number from 1-70. Where 1 is barely identifiable to 70 which is a perfect coin. The probability of a coin just minted by the mint being graded 70 is one in a few thousand coins. For more information about Sheldon's grading see here.
www.coins.about.com/od/coingrading/f/sheldon_scale.htm
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin_grading#The_Sheldon_rarity_scale


How can I tell what grade my coins is?
It requires a lot of practice and experience but a good place to start is getting an idea how a coin in each grade will look like. Here is a link about all US coins and pictures of each coin in every grade. This will give you an idea about how each grade looks like. I use this article as a baseline for grading my coins.


Remember that a shiny coin is not always a higher grade, look for scratches and evidence of cleaning. Get a magnifying glass and notice the surface of the coin. It should not have scratches from cleaning whic is different from scratches from clashing with other coins(this is called bagmarks). See how the dust is spread across the coin. See if there is something unnatural about the coin.


Coin should never never never be cleaned. The moment it gets cleaned or even touched, the surface starts reacting with your bodily oils and starts getting destroyed. Always use a cotton glove to handle coins if you want to maintain the pristine state of the coin. Do not store the coin in any plastic cover because the plastic contains PVC that could damage the coin and make it go bad in a few years. Do not put it in water or use a toothbrush to clean it or tamarind or anything else.

BRITISH INDIA - HALF RUPEE - GEORGE V - SILVER

United Arab Emirates ( UAE ) | Coins

The dirham (Arabic: درهم‎) (sign: د.إ; code: AED) is the currency of the United Arab Emirates. The ISO 4217 code (currency abbreviation) for the United Arab Emirates dirham is AED. Unofficial abbreviations include DH or Dhs. The dirham is subdivided into 100 fils (فلس).


Below coins are part of my collection :

25 Fils

50 Fils

1 Dirham

1 Dirham (Magnetic)

1 DIRHAM COINS



50 FILS COINS



25 FILS COINS

Withdrawal of all old series of Banknotes issued prior to 2005

This is share information about RBI's Notice regarding abolishment of all the banknotes issued prior to 2005 from March 31st 2014.

Please make sure that you don't keep any old notes stocked at home. They will be worth nothing later.

If anyone wants to dispose of any old notes bundle or notes in good condition, they can contact us. We might take some for collection purpose..  Click here to contact us.

Link : http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=8715&Mode=0

What are Milled Edge Coin variants actually.... ??

Security Edge ?? Milled Edge ??

Most of the coin collecter have a doubt regarding milled/reeded edge variants for security edge high value coins... Are these deliberately minted ? If yes then how come a coin has partial milled edge and partial security edge ?? Or are these coins some sort of error coins ? And if error why are they listed as variants in Krause Catalog as varaints.... ??

Here is a article which might help u gets your doubt clarified :

Normally high value coins are produced with a 'Security edge' like Rs.2 coins in before 1990s and Rs.5(normal and commemorative) coins till 2008. This is done to check counterfeiting(making fake coins) of coins. Coins having 'security edge' are first struck with the usual upright milling at the time the obverse and reverse designs are impressed upon them same as the edge of milled coins shown in this article . These are next passed through a second press, where the security mark is put on the edge, under pressure.

But, while being fed into the second machine, if a few coins accidentally skip the press, these may go to circulation with normal upright milled edge or if get pressed partially they lead to partial security edge and rest milled. 
Thus we find another type of error in coin specimens with upright milling which should have a 'security edge'.
These are milled edge or partial security edge variants of such coins.

Then the question comes why these are not categorized as error 
coins even when they are actually error coins. The only reason for this is that the number of such error coins having milled edge is large as compared to any other kind of error coins which makes them a variant rather than a error coin.

History of Security Edge... how the term was coined ??

In olden days the coin was fed manually and the impression was hammered.The coins was made of silver and unprincipled persons used to shave the coin near the edges to steal part of the silver. Hence when automatic machine minting came in to use, A security edge was implemented around the circumference thereby proving that the coin had not been tampered with and the weight of the coin remained the same as per the minted coin. Hence this impression around the edges was called security there by securing the actual weight of the coin.

 Some pics of the such variant coins :

Special thanks to senoir coin collecters Sekhar Kausik and Balakrushna Kar who helped me in writing this article.

Note : Not all Milled edge coins are error coins. Recent rs.5 Ni-Br coins 2009 onwards and olden days silver coins had milled edges only.