Does PCGS give preference to the big guys?

Farouk is known to have carried around his favourite coins in his pockets, handed them to his various girlfriends etc. I just don't believe the coin should have gotten slack on grading because it was a well known coin.

 

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That's fair enough but when there is only one I can understand why they would rather net it then have the only legal example in a details slab. That said I don't know if he did that with this coin or not and haven't seen it well enough to make any judgement on it. For whatever reason that one has just never caught my interest

 

I'd like to think that the other 10 Izzy Switt coins might have been handled a lot less since they spent a good 60+ years in a SDB. I doubt the mint will destroy them like they did with the other specimens they seized in the 1940s and 1950s, but the legal wrangling continues and the coins may well never be owned by the public - they will probably be caught up in some legal conundrum that will stop them from being sold etc.

 

I would assume one of those would likely end up being the new top pop if they got graded assuming they've been handled reasonably well in evidence. It really doesn't appear to have any end in sight and the whole debacle of wasted resources and money with those is one of the things that turned me off on the Farouk coin. I could certainly believe that coin wouldn't be a 64 if it was a common date, but I haven't seen it well enough to have an opinion on it.

 

The grade on coins like that is 100% irrelevant. Nobody who can afford them actually cares if PCGS says it's MS65, or AU53 cleaned. If I had multi-millions of dollars worth to throw around on coins, I'd just look for the nicest coins money could buy.

 

I agree that the grade is irrelevant, but realistically the grade on the said coin is on the pedigree and not the coin itself.

Pic of the Farouk $20 from Wikipedia:



Clearly "handled".

 

I'd also believe I had an obligation to protect them to be passed along is the same condition I received them. I.e. I'm not the owner, just a custodian for a time.

As for the $20, it's clearly mint state (never entered circulation) by the OLD definition, but has a lot of 'cabinet friction'... is that the poster child for MS-40 grade?

 

Like mentioned I don't think that was actually handled from that picture. It looks like the fields still have their luster. I would be curious to see how pronounced that friction is in person but that obviously won't happen lol.

I would disagree that grade was on the pedigree though. This isn't a case of the coin coming from a famous collection and getting a bump, it's literally the only one you can own as of now. Anyone could have sent that in and it could have come from any collection or lack there of and it would have gotten the same treatment being the only example.

 

Hate to think what it would look like today if the Egyptian Government hadn't pulled it from the sale in 1954.

If you don't understand this is how the viewing went.

Say you have a lot of 60 double eagles with dates and mints as so and so. You want to see the lot. So here is a tray of the sixty coins just laying loose in the tray, no holders. But before you can see them they have to count them (make sure none are missing) So they have another tray and they pick up the coins one at a time and drop them into the other tray, and onto the previously counted coins "One (clank), two (clank), three (clank), four (thud)" and so on up to sixty. You look at them and hand them back. But security, they have to count them again (clank, clank, clank, thud, thud, thud.....) Then the next viewer asks to see them and the whole process repeats itself! Can you imagine what those coins looked like after a couple dozen viewings? And the 1933 was originally in just such a multi coin grouping.

 

That's not what I call "handled", that's what I call "run over by a truck"... the black stuff on the coin is rubber, right? (from an 18-wheeler LOL)

 

My suspicion has long been that more modern issues, such as Silver Eagles, are the targets of preferential grading. When HSN is sending you thousands of coins, and they're looking for 70s, are the graders going to break a sweat over every coin to make sure it's a genuine 70 vs a 69? Doubt it.

Classic coins, however, are different, in my opinion. Major retailers aren't trying to move Barber coins in and out like a revolving door, so I would think there'd be less incentive.

 

That actually gets into the interesting aspects of the psychology of grading. Say we sent in 10 Silver Eagles for grading. That is a small enough number where you wouldn't expect any had to be a 70 so you may or may not give some the 70. Now if we sent in several monster box we all have our own idea of what percentage should get a 70, barring the rare dates we probably think 35-40 percent should be a 70s give or take 5-10 percent per box. With those bulk submissions not only is it a different set of graders, but they're already preconditioned to give out a certain percentage of 70s based on what should be in the boxes. With the 10 coins though there is no preconditioning that any should be and actually may even be expecting none of them are.

 

I was not aware that ANACS had a minimum I do know ICG has no minimum on any submission.

 

I disagree. The coin should be graded as any other Saint. Then we would not need to have this discussion and the TPGS wouldn't look like "self-serving crooks." Unfortunately, trashy rare coins always get a "break!" I have heard that at least one coin in the Trompeter (sp?) Collection ($10 Indian if I remember) was straight graded although it was tooled and damaged! This should be very easy to verify with an auction catalogue.

 

It's a coin 1 of 1 in any grade at any service. No one was saying oh I won't pay 64 money for that one, or if it was a 65 I would buy it. The grade really is irrelevant on a coin that is 1 of 1 and had no impact on the price.

 

The OLD definition had nothing to do with whether a coin circulated or not. An Uncirculated coin HAD NO TRACE OF WEAR. This coin has more than a trace of wear. The cross-hatched "pattern" of scratches where the original surface is GONE is the "poster child" for the term "friction wear" and gross mishandling. THAT IS NOT AN OPINION. The coin is actually the "poster child" of ABOUT UNCIRCULATED! The weasels I this business say this coin has "cabinet friction."

 

The fields are amazing and lustrous with just enough hits to grad MS-63 IMO.

IMO, there are really no clank, clank marks, only honest and typical hits This coin has not been thrown around...only run-over by a truck on the high points due to poor storage. I have seen thousands of Saints yet I have never seen one with this wear pattern! The high points of this obverse are virtually "damaged" while the fields look normally Uncirculated.

This is basically true; however, famous rare coins DO get preferential grading - the above coin is proof.

I heard if less that 10% are 70's, the submitter pitches a fit!

 

I would. The boxes are big enough statistical probability starts to come into play. Eagles coming out of the mint now a days are made to a much better quality than 10 percent 70s. Occasionally a series hits where the 70 is hard to get and if you see that across the board fair enough, but if its the normal percentages and your box performs that poorly it just shouldn't be that far off the usual average.

 

You made my point! Grade the coin accurately and let the market determine its value. For example, if it were put in an XF slab it still would have brought the price it did (an then be cracked-out and sent to a different service).

The TPGS's missed out! They could have decided on an acceptable "final grade" and which service would get it at the end. Then had it passed back and forth while approaching that grade a little at a time with each submission . Those suckers lost a $100,000 + in grading fees.

 

You and everyone else In my experience the first flow of new SE are made to tight standards. Nearer the end of the run the coin aren't so good and if the box is not mint sealed, you can fogetaboutit