CACG Sloppy Slabbing

OK, this is probably a nit and if so I'm sure I'll be called out on it. But I find this irritating and in the great American tradition of sharing all of our feelings, all of the time, here goes:

This little half dime was recently slabbed by CACG. While photographing it and examining it under the 10X/30X stereo microscope, I noticed that the prongs on the obverse side at K12 and K4 had significant amounts of plastic flashing left on the prongs. This is leftover plastic from the injection molding process and it would normally cause the product to be rejected during QC either at the factory or, hopefully, within CACG's QC review.

But it wasn't and here it is, unnecessarily obscuring part of the rims on what is already a small coin.

I feel better already.

 

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Nope... That too would drive my OCD crazy.

 

Yeah I'd ask for a free reholder. It would bother me too.

 

I spent my life in Quality Management. This is unacceptable. But, I'm sure that when you make thousands of these it would be very cost prohibitive to do 100% inspection. So, as is, it may be well within the acceptance criteria of the molding process. However, the final acceptance should happen at the slab process. That is the only time the operation gets close up to individual pieces. Workmanship and Pride should take over at that point.

I'm mad too.

 

One of my better coins is slightly cocked in tbe holder. In other words if you are looking at the holder flat, the coin is slightly angled…. And I am like @Publius2 …. It feels nitpickish to me when I think about it… On the other hand it’s not an inexpensive coin and I don’t want something so slight to distract from the piece when I am viewing it. Being obsessive is part and parcel of being a coin collector. And I think the TPG’s should be attentive to that when they are entrusted with our coins.

 

I have several like that, some cocked at pretty severe angles. IIRC, these are all in PCGS holders. These are all small coins, half dimes and trimes, so I suspect it might have something to do with the difficulty of manipulating small coins into the posts.

Still, seems careless and less than prideful to let these out the door.

 

Call CACG and express your displeasure.

Edit to add: I'm sure that JA would want to know about something like this. While he's an old hand at things, his grading service is relatively new. He don't want any bad press regarding his holders.

 

When one is paying for something, one should only expect the very best...

 

Ain't that the truth bro'!

 

It also bugs me when they can't orient the coin properly in the holder. Almost every slabbed dime I own is off like this, because they're just eyeballing the bust side instead of using what clearly should be level on the other side. Talk about picky!

 

Christ, that's the least of my worries....

 

I saw a nice $10 Indian at a recent show that was like that. Somehow was completely out of one of the prongs on an NGC slab. NGC inspects the slab two or three times before it leaves the facility so I can't believe they would have sent it out like that. Would have to be re-submitted to be cracked out and fixed. For the hassle I would pass on a coin like that every time.

 

To be fair a lot of older coins sometimes had slightly rotated dies so it would be impossible to chase that perfection on everything. I think they do a pretty good job overall with that.

There are some coins that become loose and rotate in the slab due to transport and vibration over time. I've found you can re-orient them by giving them a good jolt several times. You can hold the slab firmly in one hand and repeatedly hit your other arm with your hand or something else solid and you can get the coin to rotate back in the slab. It will stay put (because there is still friction) unless it is bounced around hard again.

 

Hold my beer.

Here's a coin I got back from PCGS, sandwiched between a wrong-sized gasket and the shell.



I sent it back and they reholdered it. Here's their second attempt.


Third time's close enough to the charm.

 

Can you do that? ANACS does a fine job normally, but I have one they slabbed a half turn off of center. Looks stupid and careless.

 

Sure, it's just a nitpick thing. Not that big of a deal. But you can't easily tell what's a minor rotation when neither side is accurately oriented. My Canadian coins from the 1940s have lots of minor rotations and ANACS properly oriented the reverse sides level so it's super easy to tell.

Can't hurt to ask.

 

Yeah I know. Unfortunately I have missed the last two local coin shows where ANACs is represented. I don't remember my representative's name but he was a good guy and I'm sure he'd agree. It's not that big of a deal, and sending stuff off through the mail takes forever, like 2 months these days. I've got another 25 or 30 coins I want graded. I never feel safe until they are all back in my safe.

 

I don’t think it has as much to do with the position of the obverse in the holder as the rotation tolerances at the mint. I collect Franklin Half Dollars and it’s amazing how much off rotation the obverse and reverse can be. I’d say as much as 10% rotation. IMO it would be way worse if the TPGs set the reverse in alignment and the obverse looked crooked.