Numismatic Guaranty Company (NGC) is excited to introduce NGCX, the first 10-point grading scale for coins. The 10-point grading scale has long been the standard for most collectibles, including comic books, sports cards, trading cards and more. Now, with NGCX, coin collecting will benefit from the same intuitive and approachable scale.
For centuries, coins have been collected — for enjoyment, for study, as an investment and as a benchmark of achievement. In the late 1940s, a numeric scale of 1 to 70 was introduced by Dr. William Sheldon to describe the relative values of US one cent coins. In theory, a coin graded 1 would be worth $1 and a coin graded 70 would be worth $70. The values quickly became irrelevant, but the grading scale stuck. NGC adopted the Sheldon grading scale when it was established in 1987, and it remains the industry standard to this day.
Meanwhile, the collecting instinct has expanded to include comic books, sports cards, trading cards, video games and much more — the list continues to grow as new categories emerge, with collectors seeking to protect and preserve the things they love. These collectibles are virtually always evaluated on 10-point grading scales, which new collectors quickly recognize and readily understand. Each 10-point grading scale is precise and nuanced based on the collectible type.
NGCX, only from NGC
The 70-point grading scale for coins isn’t going anywhere. Rather, NGC recognized an opportunity to bring in new collectors to the hobby by wielding the power of X — NGCX — a 10-point grading scale for coins.
The NGCX 10-point grading scale aligns with today’s expectations for coin grading, and what it means to be the best. On the NGCX scale, 10 is the supreme grade, equivalent to a 70 on the traditional scale. The subsequent grades cascade from 10, a criterion understood by all.
For example, a coin graded NGCX Mint State or Proof 10 has no imperfections at 5x magnification, the same as a coin graded NGC Mint State or Proof 70. Likewise, an NGCX Mint State or Proof 9.9 is the same as a coin graded NGC Mint State or Proof 69 — each a fully struck coin with nearly imperceptible imperfections.
To see the full NGCX 10-point coin grading scale, go here.
Be part of the revolution
NGC is the world leader in third-party coin certification because of its constant innovation and collector focus, with NGCX being only the latest example. While there is no difference in quality between a grade on the 10-point scale and a grade on the 70-point scale, the difference for the hobby is exponential. New collectors now have a clear path to embrace coin collecting. The path is NGCX.
NGCX-certified modern coins, minted from 1982 to present, will be available through select retailers beginning January 2023. For a list of qualifying retailers, go here.
At this time, NGCX is not available for regular submissions to NGC, which will continue to be graded according the 70-point scale.
About Numismatic Guaranty Company™ (NGC®)
NGC is the world’s largest and most trusted third-party grading service for coins, tokens and medals, with more than 55 million collectibles certified. Founded in 1987, NGC provides an accurate, consistent and impartial assessment of authenticity and grade. Every coin that NGC certifies is backed by the comprehensive NGC Guarantee of authenticity and grade, which gives buyers greater confidence. This results in higher prices realized and greater liquidity for NGC-certified coins. To learn more, visit NGCcoin.com.
This allows for at least the possibility if indeed not the probability that every coin that has ever been graded and encapsulated prior to the establishment of this new grading system now has a potentially valid reason to be graded and encapsulated once more.
Agree, this is a money grab.
If, and only if, this plan is liked within the existing community. All we need to do it put a premium on the 1-70 scale and things will remain as they are pretty much. What is puzzling is the statement that a 69 will be a 9.9, this shouldn’t be the case as 0.1 through 10.0 allows for 100 grades. That means all the coins that just barely made 69 should probably be 9.8.
More precision can be a good thing (see the addition of + grades a while back) otherwise, what’s the point of all this?
Like the article said, recently comic books, and sports cards, and Pokémon and magic cards use the 1 to 10 standard. Because these are also the same people that can’t read a analog clock, or count back change they had to lower it from 70 to 10 because too many of their customers were getting ptsd from having to deal with such high numbers. Even 10 is stretching as these are the yelped and cancel culture used to giving reviews that only go up to 5 stars. Luckily they can use their poor man’s abacus (their fingers) and mimic what… Read more »
I thought comic books were always on this standard. I’ve yet to see a 10 grade for a classic comic book though. DC #1 Superman, 9.8.
I did collector shows for a while as a kid, when the grading system started people thought it was a fad and a money grab and wouldn’t endure. A few people displayed old sports cards they graded, but that was mainly to ensure it wasn’t a reprint or fake but those were cards like mantle and Ruth and Wagner and Cobb. Didn’t see many comic books being graded and I never was into Pokémon. Early 90s is when I stopped collecting and selling at shows, too many companies and releases for cards and the death of superman with its white… Read more »
If your still-boxed coins aren’t primarily of the more scarce and/or rare variety, Dazed and Coinfused, there’s a darn good chance that having all your coins graded and slabbed under the new ten point system might result in more of a cash outlay than it cost you to acquire the entire collection in the first place.
Perhaps, Antonio, compared to coins it’s more difficult to keep comic books in perfectly pristine condition; therefore, no 10 for them.
Dazed and Coinfused,
That is without a shadow of a doubt not only the most clever but also the by far funniest comment I have ever read on this site.
To which do you refer? If you mean the progress part, I can’t take the credit for that. I owe that glowing trinket of factual clean humor to the late great George Carlin and the late great Gallagher. Both of whom I paraphrased. Carlin 2014 show was great. And his 1980s reference to NIMBY still rings true today
I miss George. Got to see him live in 1978.
What a genius, and not just in a comedic way. You were fortunate!
The one, Dazed and Confused, that refers to people unable to decipher analog time or calculate coin change and who have a PTSD reaction when confronted with any digit higher than 10.
I agree with your assessment. However, there must not be many comments on this site. One motion I’d like to submit to the board, more women. You’d think with their love of gold and all things shiny there would be one here. Whatever happened to your favorite sounding board Mr. Humor. I think first name was Senza. Yeah that was it, Senza Humor
You definitely get an award in the fine humor department for “Senza Humor”, Dazed and Coinfused. Another instant classic.
Well said. I have a 10 yr old daughter in the 4th grade. An honor roll student while in the 1 advance class that they offering her grade level. That was offered to her bcuz she tested so well on her leap test last yr. I said all that to say this…..I’m proud of my daughter for exceeding expectations by the public school system standards bcuz she can only answer the questions that are on their test and learn the curriculum they teach. But I can tell you this much, I’m embarrassed for anyone to see her school work. She… Read more »
I’m sorry, Ryan, to have to admit that I dared to laugh at any part of this because I understand you are being absolutely sincere in describing what a debacle the entire apparently failed education situation amounts to, but in all honesty I must say that “gOrg waS hentun was the f isSt Presed int e” is beyond priceless and had me rolling on the floor. I suppose we can either cry or we can laugh, and I choose to go with the latter.
J. Adam,
FViia’s is as definitive an explanation as there is for this audacious gambit.
I would imagine, J. Adam, that the use of mathematical conversion would mean that each potential point on a .1 to 10 grade scale ends up being the equivalent of 7/10 of a point on the original 1 to 70 grading system.
They call it a 10 point scale, but if you can grade something at 9.9 rather than only a 9 or 10, doesn’t that make it a hundred point scale? I guess a 100 point scale will allow for a more accurate grade than a 70 point scale, so there is that. NGC should just start listing both values (new scale in a smaller font for now, I suppose) on the coins people send for regular grading going forward (even pre-1982), especially if they want coin collectors who grade their coins to start using the new scale. While I agree… Read more »
Maybe it’s elon musk making sure you aren’t trying to impersonate or mock him. Did you pay $8 to verify you are indeed Jeff Legan? Which reminds me, seems ngc is following the steps of Twitter and changing the color of the stamps and the birds.
Will the other grading services go along?
Only if it becomes clear that for the sake of doing business they have no choice.
They would have to, otherwise ngc could be in trouble for being a monopoly.
Just think, they could be broken up into regional operators like Standard Oil or the Bell System. “Hello, this is Great Lakes Grading.”
What I do like about Mr. Musk is that he is thankfully just too rich to have his strings pulled by the nefarious likes of Mohammed bin Salman or Vladimir Putin.
I learned the hard way as a young naive man about the catastrophe that can ensue if one decides to pull another’s string. And that lesson was. Be careful it might just be attached to a tampon.
If this wasn’t a family friendly site I could expand on that notion.
Or Xi Jinping.
I didn’t forget him, Antonio, I just can’t ever remember how to spell his name.
Jeff, if you go to the NGC link above, it shows the proposed full NGCX 10-point coin grading scale to consist of 29 points (and not a 100 point scale), i.e.,
1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6, 6.5, 7, 7.5, 8, 8.25, 8.5, 8.75, 9, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4, 9.5, 9.6, 9.7, 9.8, 9.9, 10
Thanks Rich. I do not click on any links here, so that is why I did not know that. With only a 29 point scale, I think it is worse than the original way. I assume the other collectables are already on the same 29 point scale then, not an actual 100 point one? Their grading system was no better than ours then, in my opinion. They broke only the 9-10 numbers into 10ths so they can pump the value up more on the “10”s. If there was only a choice between 9 or 10, more would have gotten the… Read more »
Jeff Legan and Good Sir Rich,
I recall hearing somewhere that money makes the world go round while others contend the earth’s rotation is due to natural forces. The jury is still out on this.
Good Sir Rich,
That looks like one of those puzzles to solve which is posed as being helpful in determining if one is on a genius level, like a part of a Mensa entrance exam.
It can’t be a 100 point scale, Jeff, because then it would once again be “off” from the 10 grade maximum to which other collectables are limited. Besides, having a grade of 9.9 is still perfectly legitimate within the framework of a scale that tops out at 10.
Hi Kaiser Wilhelm,
I thought the 10ths were used all the way down to 1.1 but I see now they are not. It would have been a hundred (data) point scale if all the 10ths were used. They can still call it a 10 point scale, since 10 is the highest number. I just don’t see it that way, personally. It is actually a 29 point scale (thanks again, Rich!) to me.
Hello Jeff Legan,
This revamped grading scale is a whole lot odder and much less logical than I at first imagined it to be. This solidifies my original suspicion that the minds at work there have decided to effectively reverse the direction of the spin of the hula hoop in order to be able to call it an entirely new product.
Jeff Legan,
Just a technical note. You may have had to provide your name and email address again if since the last time you were here you cleaned out your cookies. Happens to me.
Nope, didn’t clear out any cookies so it must be a different reason. Thanks for suggesting a possible reason, though. I will remember this when I do delete cookies the next time though. I did have an issue recently where I could not send out emails for a week or so. Perhaps when that was fixed, it changed something. I know no cookies were deleted during that fix, though. Just a few settings were changed. Now it seems likely to me that it has something to do with that. Seemed so minor of a fix I did not think of… Read more »
On the other hand, the guy who’s offering technical advice to you here happens to be an ordained Luddite, one who strictly adheres to the faith by owning a hand-crank-window car and a non-texting flip phone. That’s just to give you a proper heads up in case you’re ever inclined to listen to me.
When I have problems with all my electronics I send them to amish towns. I heard they are excellent craftsmen and great in a team. I have yet to receive any of the electronics back. So maybe they aren’t as good as I was led to believe. Also. If you live in India and call tech support, do you get a white guy with a southern accent named Shaheed?
It’s possible the Amish are forwarding your electronic bits to Shaheed in Georgia who then rings up his contact Officer John Smith at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in Mumbai for engineering tips.
The IRS. Hmmm. That explains why Pres a deNt J o E (higheSt) Bidder (not a typo) insists that the laptop that FBI said belongs to his son, in actuality probably belongs to me. Uncle Tom, I mean Joe, didn’t name me by name, but he did say MAGA alot, which mean Make Another Guy Accountable. But I’m sure the coke residue on the lid and the hooker blood can be traced back to the big guy’s son. But with all the discord and stress of the last few years, perhaps as a show of bipartisanship, Dick Cheney should invite… Read more »
Hurry hurry hurry. Get all your coins re-graded. Our new number scale will ensure your old ms70 coins will be worth more with a huge 10 on it. Serious collectors will no longer believe those coins you had graded are reliable as the ms70 could be a 69.5 but rounded up. With our new patented and foolproof numbering system that 69.5 will be reflected as a 9, so when you get your coin back from re-grading and it’s a 10, you’ll know you have the best in the market. Disregard the fact that our professional graders have been fooled before… Read more »
Quick note, it also allows them to print the number much larger than previously used so that they can grab attention sooner. Like seeing an ad on your phone versus your 85 inch computer monitor.
and for us older folks. NOW I can see the number.
I didn’t wanna sound like an ageist, I was brought up to respect my elders. A cording to the media grading scale, by birth, i would be a racist, old bigot. Whether true or not is irrelevant, but i cant afford to add anymore negative discriptors to grading scale. Luckily i am not quite a boomer so the milllenials cant try to cancel me for that. I am more of the forgotten and unheard generation, which ironically is labeled as X, which is roman numeral for 10 making me a perfect grade, hence the irony. Plus many young folk wear… Read more »
I did have to consult Alexa, but I know now, Dazed and Coinfused, that the birth dates of Generation X roughly coincide with the beginning and end of the Vietnam War but with a slight extension at each end. We Baby Boomers on the other hand reach from the end of WWII until just after the beginning of the hostilities in Southeast Asia. Yours truly himself first saw the light of day just after the War that came after the Great War aka The War To End All Wars. Funny how that works.
All I remember is thinking, let there be light, and suddenly I’m sliding down the sausage receiver and soon after I was greeted with a hard slap then someone cut my stomach tube off. And if that wasn’t bad enough, despite the small already pecker, it was deemed by a higher authority that I must have some of it removed. I had no say in any of it. And to this day I pull and yank the little guy like it owes me a lot of money and it just won’t stretch back. Oddly my nose and ears are bigger… Read more »
I wonder how many husbands are as gullible as Joseph and fall for the ghost story.
Well, if you ever get a chance to watch old episodes of Maury, you’d learn, more than you think
I can see it as well, Antonio, except now I can’t remember what it means.
With age three things diminish, hearing, sight and the mind. Dementia is a horrible….what was I driving at?
As near as I can tell it was the bridge abutment. Ouch!
Don’t feel bad Antonio,, most people wouldn’t notice as there are only 3 types of people in the world. Those than CAN count, and those that CAN’T. Sad really
Spot on, Dazed and Coinfused.
For a bit, I actually thought they were simplifying by moving to the new grades. Boy, was I wrong.
I could see this bit of yours as an actual radio or TV ad. People would have trouble realizing you are messing with them. You should run this as a parody NGC ad in the Onion, everyone (except NGC) would be laughing.
Okay, now I know you’re messing with my mind, Jeff Legan. I get all my news from the Onion and I count on that very finest of information sources to provide me with the truth amidst a sea of lies. I sure would like to know whatever made you think any of this could possibly have a connection with either parody or laughter!
That technically was corrected in a later edition where they were found not to be double stuffed, but merely a planchet error.
Oreo coins!
They claim to be short of planchets and here they were using two per coin!
can’t they just put both grades on the slabs? i’m assuming that’s how they deal with it internally also, they must have a defined mapping between the two systems.
Well, THAT would make sense. We can’t any of that silliness.
That, c_q, would be like a Detroit automaker leaving the original logo on the chassis of a $20,000 truck before mounting the body of a $50,000 SUV on it.
totally missed opportunity – the scale of course should go to 11
c_q, the applause meter for that observation just went to 12.
Fair kaiser. What I think he meant to say was
Naturally both grading systems can be put on the slab, however you must pay for both grade types. Hopefully, they’ll have a black Friday sale and they’ll do both labels for buy one get one 10% off
That’s the best they can do? Whatever happened to the good old BOGO?
13. I heard it’s lucky
It actually is in some cases. For example, if you were to get a hotel room on that floor, no one else would be able to access it via the elevators.
It’s the Twilight Zone floor.
One gets off here, turns around, and the elevator door has vanished.
I don’t like the 29 point scale. Too subjective. Example. Action comics 13 (I think was 1st appearance of superman) at 10 it would sell for say 50 million. None exist. 9.9 maybe 30. 9.8 say 15 million. 9.7 10 million. And so on. So let’s say the usual grader on vacation or even same grader but angry at his wife. So let’s say he grades one a few years ago. And it had a crease on one of the pages. He rates it 9.8. A couple years later he gets one and it has a small fingerprint on the… Read more »
Nope, it’s just a drunk Ed McMahon with a pressing need to throw up in your bathroom.
So what does “the luck of the Irish” mean?
Erin goes braghless.
Enjoyed this comment as there is truth riddled with humor. I paused at the Stan Lee part as I may have his signature (counterfeit I’m sure) on a comic. Hope you were a winner with a clearing house check.
Publisher’s Clearing House made me think of the guy in Utah with five wives and thirty children who, while living primarily off our tax dollars, also puts his entire family to work selling magazine subscriptions door to door in the Salt Lake City suburbs.
The world is indeed a rather strange place.
Why can’t we pay out taxes with lottery tickets. Just send em 50 $1 tickets. And if they win then win, but if they lose, my tax are considered paid. Even if they said i owed 1,000. Sounds fair.
Hi Dazed and Coinfused, I seem to recall reading once a long time ago that before we had taxes in this country, when the government decided they needed to finance a large project (like building a bridge), they used a raffle to raise the money. I thought at the time we should still do that today for all large projects. If the project was not worth funding nobody would pitch in but if the government really, really, wanted it funded they could set a larger prize amount. Just like those large lotto jackpots start causing people who rarely play the… Read more »
The fly in the ointment here, Jeff Legan, is that lotteries replacing taxes would still bring about the same result regarding who ends up paying for everything the government does. After all, the wealthier a person already is the less incentive they have to buy lottery tickets, while as a person’s assets shrink their desire to play increases almost exponentially. Ergo, the people who could least afford to do so would purchase the bulk of the lottery tickets, thereby becoming the basic funders of the government. Unfortunately, akin to flat tax rates that would be none other than standard regressive… Read more »
The wealthy would have to play, if they owed any taxes. If it ended up being no different regarding who pays taxes, then at least the people paying would get to decide what was worth funding. I do not think we have that privilege now.
Perhaps a project could be presented before a council (chosen at random) to hear the details and plan and scope and decide whether or not to approve it. Once approved, a GoFundMe will be set up to finance the deal. If it doesn’t raise enough funds within a certain time period, the project can be reapplied for after a cool down period is instituted. This way the council is impartial, no aclu or special interest groups or whatever can stonewall it. And if the project is in a certain area and can’t get funding then they are free to try… Read more »
That’s definitely 9.5 as the hair is an error. Cultural appropriation.
Or, the practically inevitable result of a cruise ship port call in Jamaica.
Kaiser: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but you have to be cautious. There is the occasion that a 2 at 10 becomes a 10 at 2.
As reluctant as I am to admit it, Rooster, I did have that very experience more than once as a foolhardy lad in college…and after!
Most can relate. Usually happens to most in their 20‘s.
Well if Ray Charles or Ronnie Millsap were miss America judges, I guess it would be fair to say that the fate of the women is in their hands.
That is an error that could be altered but then would it be a forgery?
Speaking of which, Rooster, isn’t it a bit bizarre that some errors are forgeries?
That’s the 10-point standard.
Every time I hear a rating of 10 she comes to mind.
It’s nice to have a 10, but even 2 fives is acceptable. 5 twos on the other hand, well, that kinda falls in the big girl and moped category
If she had plastic surgery, 8008 job, lipo, or botox, would that ruin her rating as a 10? Also, if she got a tattoo, would it increase or decrease her value depending on who signed her?
Yes and maybe. Today’s rating would be judged differently from decades ago.
And here she is in the current day, still as radiant as ever.
P.S. We all grow old.
You could almost confuse her with Martha Stewart. I bet that woman had the nicest decorated cell of any inmate. For old chicks I think Sophia Loren and Ann Margaret are pretty. I had no idea Martha Stewart was as old as she is, but that the stars they are classy enough to not post bathing suit pics like all these 50 y.o. celebrities gripping at their last chance of beauty. Thank you Salma Hayek. And while I am not much for blueberries or strawberries or raspberries, I would eat Halle Berry like I was living during the starving times.… Read more »
If I see so much as a hint of a tattoo on an otherwise perfect 70 girl she immediately goes to 69.
Unless it’s on the reverse, then you take a moment to admire the art and look for anything that would make for an awesome bullseye target.
Word of warning. Tats on the Tits. [Tittoos] (sounds weird Twotits rolls off the tongue much easier and sounds more accurate) will in time become dull and elastic and eventually look as if was originally a nod to the famous painting “clocks”
Salvador Dali, I presume.
What a dumb idea, just so the company can save money because they can use the same system across all there subsidiaries namely their card and comic grading firms, it will cause NGC graded coins to plummet.
It’s much less a matter of saving money and much more one of making more money by convincing people to have their coins graded from scratch all over again. Ingenious!
Don’t worry “OLD LADIES” there are plenty of illegals at NGC in Sarasota Fla who would love to grade your coins OK Nap time for your brain!! Like sleepy Joe biden and the Ripper!!!! Keep Running Forrest>>>>>>>>>>>
Semper Fi…”13″+++++++
Semper Fi “13” ++++++
I just I just experienced experienced deja vu deja vu all over all over again again.
I think that would be an echo. Either that, or your hearing aid is getting interference from the microwave again
Or a Necco (wafer). Incidentally, my hearing is by far my most acute sense; I even hear at frequencies that other people don’t detect.
For Zeus’ sake, sam I am tweedy, you know all the illegals are hard at work for the Florida growers bringing in the harvest, the sort of work no citizen wants to touch.
Luckily numbers are the same in Spanish and English, but they do have one advantage. The only people I know that speak Latin are doctors and no way are they going to take a pay cut to grade coins. Since Spanish is a Latin derivative the e legals (electronically legal) have a better chance of deciphering that whole e pluribus unum message. As so far, no translation has been found for it on the Rosetta stone. Another fun fact, cavemen saw ghosts. Have you noticed all the drawings they did are only of shadow people. Either that or they were… Read more »
e pluribus unum translates as “there are too many of us” and since it’s been on U.S. coins forever this must have been the opinion from the very beginning. Where was Zero Population Growth when the Founding Fathers needed it?
I have a Lincoln memorial cent error coin I would like to have graded and valued. Any advice? Thanks.
Submit it as meant to be a quarter but turned out a penny. They can’t argue it isn’t. Unless they claim it’s just a penny that identifies as a quarter. But can’t help ya on grade advise. My sister said she spoke with one of the brains behind the concept or worked with a grader since the early days. But what he said was if it isn’t something that would greatly increase value then it isn’t worth grading. Also, say you wish to grade now and sell in 20 years. And add that it is worth a lot of cash… Read more »
Dazed and Coinfused,
Now I know how you must have felt that time not too long ago when you happened to write a by your own description somewhat lengthy comment only to have it removed by powers beyond your control. Very frustrating, isn’t it?
I’ve been a collector since the early 1960’s and have seen like many of you the changes in our hobby. When is enough is enough changes in grading coins and collectibles? I believe the grading services are needed since there are so many altered coins such as 1909 S VDB, 1914 D Lincoln cents just to name a few. Bottom line in my opinion the current 70 point system is not broke so why make any changes at all!