As an aside, I do get most of my burnished eagles graded by NGC. That said, I have mixed feelings about grading. I think that to a certain extent NGC creates an extended market by trying to come up with specialty labels all the time.

Some collectors think they have to own every very version of every label for a burnished coin. And I think they do overpay. As a both a buyer and a seller, I do try to keep an eye on what coins and what labels sell for more.

And NGC created confusion when they came out with the label for a bullion coin that has a W in parentheses (W) and the phrase “struck at West Point”. Inexperienced sellers on eBay are calling these coins burnished. They are not.