Coin condition explained without the jargon

Coins · 5 September 2026

Grading looks like a private language, but it answers one question: how much of the coin's original surface is still there. Wear always starts in the same places and progresses in the same order, so once you know where to look, the level is obvious without any abbreviations. And the flat areas around the design matter more than the design itself.

The five levels in plain words

1. As struck. No wear at all. The surface has the texture it left the press with, and any marks are from contact with other coins, not from circulation.
2. Almost unworn. Full detail, but the very highest points have lost their original texture – you see it as a faint change of sheen, not as flatness.
3. Lightly worn. The high points are visibly flattened, fine detail in hair, leaves or lettering serifs is softened, but everything is still legible.
4. Well worn. Whole areas of detail have merged. The design reads as shapes rather than as detail; the rim may be starting to blend into the field.
5. Worn smooth. Only the outline, the date and the denomination survive. At this level condition, not rarity, decides everything.

Where wear starts

Wear is not random: it lands on whatever stands highest above the surface. On most coins that means the cheekbone or brow of a portrait, the top of a wreath, the raised edge of a shield and the outer serifs of the lettering. Check those first — if they are crisp, nothing lower down will be worn. Turning the coin under a single light source shows it faster than any magnifier: worn areas change sheen before they change shape.

Why the fields matter more than the design

The flat areas around the design – the fields – carry the original surface texture, and they are what a practised eye reads first. A coin with slightly soft detail but untouched fields reads as honest; a coin with sharp detail and scratched, over-bright fields reads as cleaned, which is a permanent defect rather than a grade. That is why cleaning destroys value: it damages exactly the surface that condition is judged on.

Damage is separate from wear

• Scratches and knocks. Not wear – they are noted separately and they do not improve with a better grade elsewhere.
• Edge damage. Rim knocks and file marks are structural and always mentioned.
• Corrosion. Green powdery spots that spread are active damage, not patina.
• Holes and mounts. A coin that was worn as jewellery is described as such regardless of how sharp the design is.

How to grade a coin at home

1. Hold it by the edge, under one light, and tilt it slowly. Sheen changes reveal wear before shape does.
2. Check the highest points first, then the fields, then the rim.
3. Compare with another example of the same type – the archive is useful precisely here, since most coins are shown from both sides.
4. Write down what you see rather than a label: soft on the high points, fields clean, small rim knock at three o'clock.
5. Never adjust a coin to improve its grade. Nothing you do at home moves it up a level.

What the archive holds

The open archive holds 855 Soviet coins, 523 of them dated, spanning the silver of the 1920s to the last issues of 1991. Comparing several examples of the same type is the practical way to calibrate an eye – and it also shows why the same design can look completely different at two levels of wear. What condition means for value is covered in the guide to what makes a Soviet coin valuable.

Open the sections: Soviet coins and banknotes, badges.