PCGS just sent me the quarterly special - Re-Holder to the 30th Anniversary labels for $15 (Standard) or $20 (Secure). Reholder is $12 +$5 for Secure, and the 30th Anniversary label was a $4 option. That maths out to a $1 savings. So I save $1, but spend $3 more, and PCGS gets rid of all of the green labels they overbought earlier in the year. I mean, I don't expect free grading, but can we get a quarterly special I can get excited about? Maybe waive the $10 submission fee on submissions of 5 or more coins? 2016's deals have been pretty disappointing from the West Coast.
PCGS in general has been very disappointing all year. The turnaround times suck you know what and now, this crappy "Special"? I think they have grown too big and think that their customers will be loyal to them no matter what... If the NGC bigwigs were smart, they would put out a few "Specials" to draw some of the unhappy PCGS customers their way.
All it would take for NGC to win my business would be to offer "TrueView" imaging for $5/coin, and I'd be in. That's one of the major reasons I use PCGS is for the imaging services. Not all of us are world-renowned numismatic photographers, Justin...
$10 per coin for TrueView is a major moneymaker for PCGS. If all I had to do was manage one good pair of shots and edit them for electronic-only presentation, I could probably do 10 per hour especially if they were of similar composition/luster and I didn't have to mess (much) with lighting. With tethering, you can "zero" the exposure with a shot every five seconds or so (you don't always nail the exposure every time even with similar coins), and maybe ten seconds for each "diddle" with the lights, if necessary.
