Do they ever blow it?

There are some interesting threads right now dealing with the value and implications of coin certification. It occurs to me there's another aspect to this topic. How often (if ever) have these companies (and I mean the big boys such as NGC and PCGS, not the fly-by-night outfits) gotten it wrong, as in erroneously authenticating a fake or high grading a skillfully whizzed piece? Any horror stories in this vein to share?

 

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I've seen mis-attribution of die varieties. I've seen mistaken denomination designations. I've seen "PR" coins holdered as "MS" coins, and vice versa...

But if one of the "big" TPGs ever mistakenly holdered a counterfeit, their reputation would be irreparably tarnished, their service would not longer be respected, and bankruptcy would soon follow.

 

The coin shop I work at sent a $2.50 gold piece to NGC and it came back labeled $5. We still have it at the shop.

 

This isn't a half dime

 

No, I don't think PCGS or NGC would ever blow it that badly---authenticating a counterfeit, or slabbing a whizzed coin as a graded coin. Those are too obvious for most coin professionals. The way they do blow it sometimes is misgrading and misattributing varieties as was said before. We have all had over and under graded coins by TPGs.

 

This is a cool thread idea I'm real interested in seeing a circulated coin get a MS grade. I wonder if that's ever happened. And I don't mean sliders, I mean obviously worn coins graded MS.

 

Basically any MS60 to MS63 large cent is really an AU coin with obvious wear. I have a MS 62 NGC 1853 large cent which has obvious recoloring as well. The thing is, all the TPGs use market grading which is not the same as technical grading. Just keep in mind that an MS holder from NGC or PCGS does not mean the coin is mint state.

 

The first thing that comes to mind is NT/AT coins which NGC and PCGS blow all the time...but that's another whole can of worms...:dead-horse:

I know that NGC's blown a counterfeit coin (someone on CT posted a story about it...it was their coin); however NGC had the courtesy to "buy back" the coin in order to remove it from its slab marking it as a genuine coin.

 

inless they did it just to buy the coin back

the title of this thread grabed my attention for some reason

 

Not often, but yes, they have certified counterfeits. Read this from PCGS;
http://www.coinresource.com/news/news2005/pcgs_declares_counterfeits.htm

 

The Micro O's should be an exception because they were traded as genuine coins long before era of TPGs

 

One "blow it" I have is just a mis-labeling on the PCGS slab, a type 2 Buff that says type 1 on the label.

 

Also the Omega gold, which I do believe got by all of the tpg's

 

And as far as I know, the identity of the "Omega Man" has never been discovered. His counterfeits were probably the best ever made.

 

Eh, depends on the counterfeit. Remember the Omegas? They would have been slabbed if TPG existed then. It was an authentication service would finally identified them as fakes, but years later. Could there be some very high quality fakes out there right now? Of course there could be.

Edit: Sorry, didn't see someone already posted about the Omegas.

 

I'd bet there are counterfeits in slabs since these graders only get like 2.2 seconds to look at a coin.

 

Probably. Its simply math. I will say, though, TPGs do provide a great service weeding out the fakes. That is the one thing I would ever use them for, just to guarantee authenticity. Grading? Too high IMO. Consistency in not slabbing cleaned coins? Lol. Look at almost all 18th century issues and tell me the TPG is consistent in that policy.

 

Yes they have. I believe Conder has at least two examples of counterfeit coins makeing their way into problem free holders. If he reads this, maybe he can share them again.

 

My favorite slab is an ancient Roman with the wrong emperor, wrong date, and wrong mint. At least they got ancient Rome right, and it is a genuine coin.