Peter asks; "But what if you can only see one of them?"

Aha; Therein lies the truth. If someone is condition conscious, don't you think that they would be prone to comparisons of other like pieces before purchasing? I most certainly would.... and I would not need a grading service to tell me which one was the better piece.

I can assure you Peter, from personal experience, that all MS65 silver dollars of the same year and mintmark that have been graded and slabbed ... are not all alike. Professional coin dealers will tell you the same thing. That's why many of them are not at their tables at the larger coins shows.... especially on the day before the show opens to the public. Many times they are out on the floor, cherry-picking those pieces with "eye-appeal" that have been undergraded from those that have been overgraded. Ask any veteran coin collector what he/she sees lying all over bourse floors and in trash receptacles behind dealer tables throughout this country after a large regional coin show has ended. Busted open slabs that have already been graded by a service! Maybe they were even purchased at the auction the night before. How come? To remove the coins so they can be re-submitted to grading services for potential higher grades. Overstating my case, you say? Trust me. I know what I'm talking about. It's not all hypothetical... like my amusing story I posted about my ficticious friend Harry, and Perlowski's grading service. This is serious stuff.

BTW: Where's our friend from Sahara coins who posted a day or so ago? Perhaps he would like to confirm or deny what I've just related to you. But then, I guess I'm simply reacting to another "knee-jerk".