The E-Sylum:  Volume 10, Number 46, November 11, 2007, Article 21

ARTICLE: COMPUTER GRADING REQUIRES HUMAN INPUT

[Another interesting NumisMaster article published this
week is by Michael Fazzari on computerized coin grading.
Here are a few excerpts. -Editor]

It's almost 2008 and there is still no "little black box"
to grade coins, but some have tried. This weekend, while
looking through some old clippings, I came across an article
about "The Expert."

About 20 years ago, one of the grading services developed
an expensive gadget to grade coins called "The Expert."
Apparently, it was a video camera surrounded by a bank of
high intensity lights set up to record the surface of a
coin. The coin's image was digitalized as each light
flashed in sequence and the resulting image was stored
in a computer.

This was one of the first attempts to develop a computer
to grade coins. There were several other parties working
to develop a computer grading system at the same time.
I recall that Charlie Hoskins, director of The International
Numismatic Society Authentication Bureau, was a consultant
to one of these firms that eventually produced a product
under the name "CompuGrade." Since I was not involved with
this project, I have no idea how that system worked. That
grading service lasted a few years; yet, I cannot be sure
if a computer ever generated any of the grades on their slabs.

One thing I did know for sure, at that time, computers
could not grade coins.

To read the complete article, see:
Full Story

[I recall a front-page Coin World article about this computer
system, and remember thinking, "what, are they nuts? - What
do they know that I don't know?"   I was working in the field
of artificial intelligence software and although I wasn't
directly involved in computer vision projects, I understood
how difficult the problem was with the technologies and
techniques available at the time.  I wouldn't be surprised
if computer grading does become possible someday, but back
then it was a true pipe dream.  -Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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