SEGS NOT HONORING GUARANTEE

His lawyer probably told him to clam up with the possibility of impending legal action.........

 

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If you have been reading enough comments here, you should be aware that under the warranty, you are not entitled to the price you paid but at most compensation based upon the "market value". If you over paid, that is no one else's fault but yours.

 

I hope you take him to court over this if only to force him to clear up his business practices. Very nefarious if you ask me. He has to know what he's doing with all the ambiguity imo

 

I am truly thinking about it but it might be sticky. It appears SEGS was Dissolved in 2015 according to the State of Tn

Name: SOUTHERN ENTITIES GRADING SERVICE, LLC
Status: Inactive - Dissolved (Administrative)

https://tnbear.tn.gov/ECommerce/Fil...084051170023240165120066224059160204166049110

 

You probably know that there appears to be appreciable disparities in the "top tier" grading, which I believe one will find well documented by objective impartial studies. If you really want to know the magnitude of differences, you might investigate the documented impartial studies, as cited in the following link: http://numismaster.com/ta/numis/Article.jsp?ArticleId=18830

It's believed that although there are statutes governing sales of bullion/ Numismatics, legislation is needed to exact grading consistency and damages adjudication. The Numismatic "industry" appears virtually unregulated, without reasonable constraints for uniformity of grading/values.

Unregulated firms appear to be intertwined, exacting believed questionable actions in a market affecting the investments of many throughout the world.

 

The only people that believe this are lawyers and people trying to run other people out of business.

Federal regulations on grading standards would successfully kill the hobby. The majority of people would sell and get out while they still can before everyone just moved onto other things.

 

Thanks for the link to the five year old article. Nothing new to me; yet the article should be added to the CT info pages. Eight of the grading services sited don't exist anymore but the four majors are still around. Coin World did a test before this article was published showing subjective grading and there was a FTC case before that mentioned by Bowers where the $20 Saints were graded from AU-58 to MS-64 (Barry Cutler)! We can go all the way back to the 1970's Grading Roundtable in NYC where experts graded the same Large cent from VF to AU!

I'm more interested in your personal experiences in POST#254 like your opinion of SEGS which I tend to agree with. After reading it again it looks like 2 coins crossed at the same grade. That tends to refute Ganz's article. Which service called your straight graded coin cleaned?

 

Maybe that is because the company is correctly named Sovereign Entities Grading Service.

Chris

 

I agree with you in that it would successfully kill coins as a business as we know it today and defeat the aims of those who advocate it. The value of everyone's "investment" would plummet making it pointless.

The idea of legislating grading standards is absurd. Grading is an art, not a science and it is not possible to make it one to enforce uniformity, either across grading companies or over time.

If it was legislated, it still would not create price uniformity across grading companies anyway except maybe for "widgets" because this is not how expensive coins are bought. No legislation can force collectors to treat coins equally where they choose not to do so.

As far as damages for breach of contract, aren't existing statutes and existing precedent sufficient? In my opinion even though I am not a lawyer, Common Law is more than sufficient. It isn't necessary to legislate and micromanage every aspect of society.

 

How do you conclude that a sample of two confirms or refutes anything?

There are no absolutes in grading and from a financial standpoint, it is perception of accuracy and especially consistency, not how "accurate" any grading service is or is not.

At this point in time, SEGS is not viewed at parity with NGC and PCGS, period. That is a fact whether any specific coins cross or not and whether any supporters of SEGS (or any other grading service) like it or not.

What this means in practice is a self re-enforcing spiral where any coins that most buyers believe will cross at grade (and sometimes one or more below it) will be cracked out. This will leave the "over graded" and "problem" coins in SEGS or other TPG holders further re-enforcing the perception of inferiority.

What the examples you used really demonstrate is that there frequently isn't a dime's worth of substantive difference between coins one or even multiple points apart on the Sheldon scale. Of course, collectors don't want to admit it today because that would bring into question the merits of the existing pricing structure and God forbid, with it the value of the more expensive and higher grade coins as "investments".

There are two ways to approach it. Either learn how to apply the existing market grading standards effectively. This is something the OP obviously did not do. Or, buy coins where this criteria doesn't matter or is a lot less important.

 

I will quote from an NGC article: I think it is pretty safe to estimate the market for rare coins in the United States to be well over $3 billion dollars per year.

The legislative process for uniform regulation really isn't that complicated. I know of no other legal "industry" of this size where there aren't minimal uniform standards. Even used car salesmen and lawyers have regulations.

If the leaders in this industry can't enjoin to correct perceived injustices, it's believed the processes have already been established for Government corrective efforts.

You may be correct that the industry might revert to that existing prior to the establishment of many firms collecting the wealth of investors.

Time will tell if internal correction or regulation might create a more equitable Numismatic industry.

I believe there are interested buyers throughout the world if the U.S. Numismatic industry collapses as you suggest.

I suggest that mature countries with great regulations will see a new burgeoning industry. FDR imposed a $10,000 fine and a jail term of 10 years on Americans who refused to give up their gold in 1933, but that wasn't enough to keep most wealthy Americans from transferring their gold overseas. Silver is probably also an acceptable commodity.

 

Be careful of inviting government regulation. I refer to the mess created in Minnesota when that state decided to regulate bullion dealers. Many dealers now won't even sell collectable coins to Minnesota residents.

 

Could not agree more. Laws are already in place that deal with the issues that have been discussed here and that is where the laws should end. Fraud laws are already sufficient for any cases of that as well. Trying to micromanage and legislate everything would kill the market and honestly would be the single biggest threat to the future of collecting. Most of us collect for the joy of it, but taking a complete blood bath on the value of the collection sure sucks all the joy out of it very quickly for most people.

At best we would probably be left with a collector base just collecting from pocket change terrified to touch anything above face value. Could easily see a lot of the actual rarities moved overseas for "safe" keeping as well

 

True story: I had a SEGS F15 1814 E/A variety capped bust half crossover to VF20 at PCGS about 5 years ago. Add that to the SEGS examples here.

 

The issues at hand here have nothing to do with grading and everything to do with contract law which is already covered and regulated. The only question is has SEGS done enough to get out of a liability they willingly make people believe they have.

Probably not. Most of the world couldn't care less about American coins, just like most Americans couldn't care less about world coins other than a quick "oh that's neat" from the novelty of it.

Real world experience has shown us the exact opposite time and time again.

 

It's akin to regulating the taste of food, or the difference between "purple" and "violet."

 

Correct, except maybe at nominal prices or discounts of 99%+ to current market value for the most expensive coins.

This might be breaking news and a shock to most US collectors, but most foreign collectors have never heard of most US coins, whether they are rare or famous or not. This is no different than if I were to name any number of the greatest foreign rarities which most on this forum and in the general US collector population also don't know and don't care about either. Foreign collectors may know or assume that a rare or scarce date for a denomination currently issued exists but only because they assume it was struck for commerce in the past.

As one example, the South African collectors I know have heard of the 1804 dollar and 1913 Liberty Head nickel. They may also know of "key" dates like the 1909-S VDB cent. A much lower number do or might know about coins like the 1787 Brasher Doubloon or 1794 dollar but only because of recent sales and they just happened to see it on the internet.

However, they haven't heard of coins like the 1849 proof double eagle in the Smithsonian collection and don't remotely hold any of these coins in remotely the same regard as US collectors do.

 

Actually, Chris, the Tennessee records show Sovereign was closed and Southern created. Both apparently used the SEGS trade name and also the same 800# (those would have been two of the assets Southern/SEGS purchased from Sovereign/SEGS.

Sovereign (Corp) - Initial Filing Date: 03/08/2001, Inactive Date: 07/25/2007
Southern (LLC) - Initial Filing Date: 09/24/2007, Inactive Date: 08/08/2015



Oh, and for giggles: http://www.ziplocalonline.com/c/chattanooga-tn/land-contracts - it seems they will also grade your lot...

 

So they'll bull-doze your lot and bull-doze your coins ?
would that be graded with Details for Environmental Damage ?