by James F. Ruddy
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Book Description
Considered the most highly acclaimed and preferred of its kind, the newest edition of the universal coin-grading encyclopedia by James F. Ruddy showcases over 1000 enhanced coin-grading pictures and adjectival descriptions of regular issue U.S. coin types from 1793 to date. Designated in 1972 as an Official Grading Guide of the American Numismatic Association, Photograde is widely accepted as the most complete grading book ever printed. In fact, over 500,000 copies have been sold to date.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Disappointed **NOT AN UPDATE** Don't waste your money, 2008-04-06
There is nothing new in this book except the 19th on the edge of the cover. It doesn't even cover the state quarters or presidential dollars. I am very disappointed in the quality of the photographs. I would have expected quality Color photos in this day but these photos are of 1970 B&W quality and not the quality of todays digital photos. It's just a poor and lazy update of prior versions to give the author a boost in money. If the author wants a good book then completely redo it with high quality color photos and add the new coins for more accurate grading. Do not waste your money on this book. Buy an older used one for less money.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Poor photos and printing, 2008-01-09
I am extremely disappointed in the photographs. They are not large enough and not clear enough to really see detail being discussed. With the state of art of photography and printing, the quality of the book is inexcusable, especially since having photos of the various grades is the `niche' the book is trying to fill. I realize that using glossy paper would make this book significantly more expensive, but they could have done a much better job with the existing paper stock. The photos make this book unusable. Instead consider `AMA Grading Standards' or `Guide to Coin Grading and Counterfeit Detection.'
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Easy to understand, 2007-11-26
Persoanlly, I really like this book and use it all the time. It is easy to understand and helps me feel more confident with my personal grading practice. The only thing I don't like is that the pictures are not the greatest but this hasn't really been a problem for me. In short, if you want to grade better then get the book. The sub-par pictures aren't enough to detract too much.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 Photograde, 2007-11-13
While the book is unique and helpful with the pictures depicting the grade of most coins, it is outdated! I was very disappointed to not find grading guides for the new state quarters (1999,ff). I read on the title page that it was last revised in 1995! Yet, the book was copyrighted in 2005. I thought I was buying a current book to aid me in grading my coins. Wrong!
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
 Lots of Information--where it matters least, 2007-10-01
I've had this book for years. And yes, while it's a very good guide for grading coins in the inferior grades; and as someone mentioned, even many ten year old kids can do this--those aren't the grades that most often matter much with regards to US coins.
For example, a well known mail order coin company has a 1923 Mercury dime for sale, right now, for $8.75 in the grade of good--which is probably a bit much, for one of the lowest possible coin grades. On Ebay, the same coin in "choice BU" (and no one knows what that means exactly particualrly not on ebay), appears, for sale, and to be a roughly MS-60 coin. It can be "bought now" for $50 bucks. So that's the range that Photograde handles--Almost Good, to Brilliant Uncirculated. A range which varies from $5 - $50 on this particular, common date Mercury dime.
Now that same dime however, has sold recently at auction for $500 in MS66, $1800 in MS67, and a whopping $12,500 in MS68!
In other words, unless you're a kid collecting out of your lawn mowing proceeds, the real issue nine times out of ten; on most coins after 1850), isn't whether or not a coin rates VF or F, it's all about the 10 different grades from MS60--MS70.
It's frankly amazing to me that there isn'tt a good guidebook published by PCGS or ANACS, that can do in text form, what these organizations pretend to do every day of the year behind closed doors--determine grades of uncirculated and proof coins.
Such a book would be relatively expensive, maybe $50-$100 or more. But for people who collect coins at least in part as investments, this amount is barely significant in terms of what it would mean to teh collector.
Photograde? It's a decent enough compendium, but you can go online and get most of their grading criteria, with better pictures, for free. The book is sadly out of date IMO, in the sense that it still treats coin grade divisions, much as they were treated 30 years ago.
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