Research on medals,compared to research on coins, isin its infancy. The gradingcompanies neither have, nor is itpossible for them to have, thelevel of expertise across theboard for historical medals that they can offer for coins.

In order to meet the same standards used ingrading and authenticating coins, the duty of the gradingcompanies to competently and accurately encapsulatemedals requires them to have expertise in authenticatingand grading well over a thousand different medals ofdifferent designs, compositions, and manufacturingprocesses, manufactured over a period of nearly 500years. For now they can accomplish this using only afew scattered references (Betts is over 100 years old andseriously outdated), and with no grading standards inexistence. Only one word comes to mind: "Impossible".

With historical medals, there are nopublished grading standards and no grading sets, so it isimpossible for the grading services to meet the samegrading standards they use for coins As said earlier,between all of the categories of historical medals theyinclude in their services, there are thousands of designsand even more varieties. With no standards, limitedreferences, and minimal experience and expertise withan overwhelming number of different types and designsof medals spanning many centuries, it is not possible forthem to meet the same standards for grading historicalmedals that they use for coins.

My solemn advice to medal collectors is to freeyour "graded" medals from their slabs so that you can"feel" the history. Save your money on third partyauthentication and grading. And, when deciding what tobid, or whether to buy, ignore everything written on theplastic.

In the issue editor John W. Adams writes:

Tony adds:

To learn more about the Medal Collectors of America, see:www.medalcollectors.org