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The grade of a coin is a technical description of the amount of wear on a coin, although it is slightly more complicated than that. Many ancient coins were struck from worn dies, and so appear to have wear on them the moment they were struck. Since the grade is really a description of the amount of detail present, it does not matter if the details are missing due to wear to the coin, wear to the dies, as the technical grade is the same.
Many ancient coins were struck from a pair of dies on which one die was more worn than the other, with the result that the obverse and reverse of a coin have different grades. When this happens, both grades should be stated with the obverse first and an oblique stroke between it and the reverse grade (VF/F means the obverse is VF and the reverse is F). When this happens, the value must be adjusted down to account for the over-all lower average grade.
One should also remember coins and dies both wear very gradually, so for most grades there a range of of wear that falls within that grade range, and the boundries are not always clear. At the lowest range of a grade, the adjective "about" (abbreviated "a") describes a coin slightly below the norm for that grade. At the highest end of a grade, the adjective "good" (abbreviated "g") describes a coin slightly better than the norm for the grade. So aVF meas a coin that is just slightly below VF, and gVF describes a coin slightly above VF). Obviously, a coin that is at the lower end of the grade range, will not be worth as much as one at the higher end, if all else is equal.
One difficulty is that you cannot accurately assign a grade to any coins, without an understanding of what that particular coin would have looked like when freshly struck with all of it's possibly details. This is something that comes from experience, but fortunatly there are internet resources that can help you with this. The COIN ARCHIVES and WILDWINDS websites allow you to search for images of specific types, and have thousands of coins archieved. With a little effort, you will often be able to find images of high quality examples to compare to.
To follow the discussion of grading on the new few pages, you will need to understand the following terminology :
1) MAIN DESIGNS - The central figures or portraits, as well as any lettering or inscriptions.
2) MAJOR DETAILS - Larger parts of the main designs, which give the main designs their internal definition. These include things such as laurel wreaths, crowns, the drapery or clothing, major facial features and many other things that make up a coins designs. On a portait the hair as a whole would be a Major detail, while the individual lines in the hair would be included in the minor details below.
3) MINOR DETAILS - The very small details that create sharpness in major details. These would include such things as the raised lines that surround a laurel wreath internal structures of laurel leaves, the line that defines the upper-most tip on the ear, the fine lines used to define hair on the head or beard. There are many other examples.
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