| Some E-Bay statistics
After I read the recent Coin World article about the number of new slabbing organizations, I went to EBay and made a very unscientific survey of slabbed coins they had for sale. I was interested in pointing out the obviously different grading standards. SGS stands out like a sore thumb in the number of 70 grades. But I think this is not a surprise, most of the readers here are very aware of these differences in grading standards. So when we start arguing about differences between well regarded companies -- I am reminded of the famous GBS line:
"We have already established what you are Madam, now we are just negotiating the price." As long as there aren't industry wide standards, there will be this kind of drift of grades between different graders. The individual companies rely on multiple opinions because individuals differ. Why should that be limited to only those graders on their staff? I think the problem lies in people forgetting the inherent imprecision of grades. If we acknowledged that MS67 means somewhere between MS65 and MS69, then the market will become more sane.
I apologize for not including the numbers, but I am still trying to figure out how to transfer a spreadsheet to this forum.
Last edited by gc1111; 03-04-2006 at 08:42 PM.
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