Thread ATS about "rampant gradeflation"

I would disagree with this part. With the consistent popularity of moderns and special release commemoratives, and the total madness that we saw in 2014 over Baseball and Kennedy golds, companies like NGC and PCGS have shown that they'll remain "in the game" for a long, long time.

 

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Paul when companies like PCGS don't even follow their written standards , and readily boast they price coins rather than grade , along with the resubmitting of coins over and over where else is a grade to go but up . You know they won't lower grades unless they really made a mistake , so in order to stay in business they have to inflate grades and grade coins that their own book says should be detailed . It's a matter of making money and as much as they can in every way that they can .

 

Doug , I think you've stated your view many times before .

 

Why is that thread going to disappear ?

 

The problem is that few here are experienced enough to grade coins.

This message board and others like it are among the Top 1% of 1% of the general public in terms of coin enthusiasm and knowledge. And yet, when there is a "Guess The Grade" thread, I see grades all over the map, anywhere from 2-4 grade levels difference (sometimes more). Sometimes a coin is MS and we have posters saying AU and vice-versa.

And you wonder why the casual buyer wants the certitude of a TPG slab and/or CAC ?

 

What about DONWGRADES ?

Anybody ever submit a coin and get a lower grade ?

 

If you want my thoughts specifically about Franklins, I posted on the boards ATS.

 

Can you cite an example ?

 

PCGS corporate parent, CLCT, does about $15 MM a quarter in revenue.

I don't know how the various club levels of service work with the per-coin fee, but assuming $50/coin and their certified totals, it means they are doing close to 250,000 coins a quarter...or 4,000 coins per business day.

The bulk of these are likely newly minted or recently-minted coins. If I had to guess I will say that crackouts are maybe 5% of the total, but I freely admit I am guessing.

 

What about Rick Snow's article?

 

This is exactly why I am a strong advocate of the TPGs. When I say "go ahead and buy raw coins," I am saying that in desperation, due to some of the idiotic things written here about TPGs. You'd think that the conspiracy theorists and coin collectors are one and the same.

 

The PCGS Collectors Universe is heavily monitored by the hosts. Threads that do not put them in the best light are typicallly "poofed".

 

Yeah. Seems a little over the top to me. That's one reason I don't visit the site much.

 

I am pretty new to collecting and don't know much but why do TPG's put a specific grade on a coin anyhow? If, from what I understand, the grading process involves eye appeal which is very subjective, why don't TPG's just say MS, AU, XF and so on and let the buyer and seller decide where it falls within each group?

 

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think before the 1980's most coins had 2 grades between them. MS-65, MS-63, MS-61, and then 3 grades down to AU-58.

Coins then would almost certainly NOT move more than 1 notch higher/lower but of course there was a big gap, especially betwen the Mint State and About Uncirculated grades.

 

The powers that run the board over there don't take kindly to tpg bashing especially its host.

 

Just read the many threads on this that have been written before this , there are many examples

That's why a lot of people don't post there , the NGC boards on the other hand truly have an open forum .

 

Gratuitious bashing is one thing, but criticism is another. If they really engage in censorship that is legit discussion, it'll hurt them more than the posts.

I take it you are talking about Forum sites that aren't on the official PCGS and NGC websites but sponsored by them or affiliated with them ?

 

"The problem is that few here are experienced enough to grade coins.

This message board and others like it are among the Top 1% of 1% of the general public in terms of coin enthusiasm and knowledge. And yet, when there is a "Guess The Grade" thread, I see grades all over the map, anywhere from 2-4 grade levels difference (sometimes more). Sometimes a coin is MS and we have posters saying AU and vice-versa.

And you wonder why the casual buyer wants the certitude of a TPG slab and/or CAC ?"
Not really a fair assessment, IMO. You can't assess luster or light rub very well, if at all, from a photo, even if you have decent grading skills. Not to mention that many of us (I think!) don't stress too much over making a guess or try too hard to "get it right" every time. I do think the TPG's help the casual buyer a great deal, BUT they need to know what they are getting into when buying coins.
No question in my mind that there has been a general loosening of grading standards for a variety of reasons, and never has it been more important to understand the condition of the coin in the slab, regardless of numbers or stickers.

The obsession with numbers and "+" signs has reached new levels of absurdity, I think. In the thread in the OP a large dealer talks about the "wide range of quality between low end and high end MS-67+ coins." Huh???