Question about coin grading

Some coin dealers have a good eye for what a coin will grade out as. My question, will coin dealers send our coins off for grading at their discount and charge us a reasonable fee for such? There really aren't that many good coin dealers though, even in the best coin shops. The reviews are mixed bag at best, depending on who is working that day in these shops. So I'm wary as to who really has a sharp eye. And I have access to shops in a metro area of 1 million plus residents. Thoughts and comments?

 

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Thanks!!!

 

Since you were nice enough to reply. I will ask you one more question. I've made friends with a jewelry appraiser that can make laser focused photos, and can get digital photos for a favor. Would I be better off getting those and posting them here or taking the word of a coin dealer for submission to a grading service? This is one tough crowd. LOL! Not for a grade, but an opinion if worth to send off.

 

First, you have to determine if a coin is worth sending in for grading. Most will say unless the coin is worth at least $100, it's not. Grading is expensive as well. For instance, my last economy submission of world coins totaled to a hair under $300 for 11 coins.

If you are only interested in photos and your jeweler friend can do them, that would be fine. If you are sending coins to be graded, adding photography services further increases the grading fee per coin.

I'm an NGC member, I pay the yearly fee and submit coins myself. I've never gone through a dealer and feel I never will.

A lot of the specifics though would be better answered if we had an idea of the kind of coins you were interested in submitting, plus photos. Most modern stuff is really not worth grading.

 

I appreciate the response. I just have a few coins that have very strange strikes, and I feel not made post mintage and want to have graded for a variant. One in particular. It's too weird to be intentional. I posted it here on the forum but it was a bad photo, and that's on me.

 

In the early days coins had to be submitted to PCGS through a dealer. We should be delighted that, we the unworthy, can get the Holy Water directly now.

 

I think about 200 members here are more worthy than the stuff I see graded and slabbed. It's highly subjective, and I am amazed at what is overgraded and undergraded based on eye candy I see. But if you want to sell online or have bragging rights, those people have us by the short hairs.

 

That's why I have nothing but absolute contempt for 11 point MS grading and everything associated with it.

 

I almost always send my coins that need to be slabbed through my dealer buddy.

 

Technically you can send any in to be graded. Trust me, I've seen some coins and thought, why did someone send this in? I myself have sent lower values items in because I wanted them certified for my personal collection. But, if it's an error/variety, grading is a good way to authenticate the coin and make it easier to.

 

If you are going to survive in the coin business as a dealer, you have to be able to grade coins. Even when pieces have been certified, all slab grades are not the same. Some coins, with the same assigned grade, are better than others. The better coins are worth more than the lesser examples for the grade.

A dealer has to grade the coin before he or she sends it in for grading. He might not get the grade exactly, but it has to be close. Given the high costs of grading and shipping fees, I think that a piece has to be worth at least $500 to be worthwhile for grading. If there are still bulk grading deals left, it might be less.

I knew a dealer who couldn’t grade coins who thought he could succeed by buying and selling using the numbers on the slabs. He was out of business within a few months. Many of the coins he bought to sell were “low end” for the grade. He couldn’t sell them to make money, in fact he lost money.

When grading started, some thought that buying coins would be like buying cans of Campbell’s soup. Every can was the same. It has not and never will work that way.

 

I did the same thing when I had my core collection graded back in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

 

I really don’t like burying myself in grading fees - not much of a submitter.

So buy coins already graded, markup for sale.

 

Many collectors submit for the Registry Sets. The cost of Grading fees are not the primary reason for collector participants in such situations.

 

Give us a crack at them, first, Barney, it won’t hurt you none. Or cost you none.