Are CAC stickers useless on MS?

Then they need to wake up!

 

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In the last couple of days I was looking to start a proof, slabbed, Lincoln cent set. After participating in this thread, I am now only looking at ANACS. Same guarantee. Eye appeal means more to me than slabbed grade. ANACS gives that same guarantee. They offer summer classes to detect counterfeits. NGC and PCGS want you to "bean" your coin so that 1 man benefits. Here's the truth.

 

His website also says he doesn't CAC Mint Errors, but last year I sold a MS63 1861/0 Half Dime (Mint Error written on the holder) for a DDO.

 

How about the reality slant instead of the PR slant? I'm not explaining this to you - your opinion is already set in stone - but to those reading who might think that CAC is about you, me or us or our coins.

It's not. CAC is about Albanese Rare Coins, and all the other dealers at their level for whom a $5000 coin is "just business." You ever notice how many dealers are already gone by Day Three of a major coin show? That's because they've done the business they came to do, and it doesn't have anything to do with you, me or us. That business was with each other, to acquire the coins they need for their clients, most of whom do not come to coin shows because the coins they buy are too expensive to just stick in your pocket and walk out with.

Dealers do a lot of volume with each other. Much of the time it's to fill a customer want - mind you, a multi-thousand-dollar customer want - and sometimes it's to get out from under something they're overstocked in, or acquire something they're understocked in. Dealers have done this for a long time, for as long as there have been dealers. Wholesale is big in numismatics, far moreso than the average collector imagines.

Part and parcel of that is being able to trust the product the other dealer is sending you. In the "bad old days" before TPG's, there was always the chance that the dealer sending you those coins simply wasn't an expert grader of that issue, or maybe even sent you his "dogs" to get out from under them.

That's why the TPG's were formed. Sight-unseen trading. Wholesaling. Yes, it benefited the end user - you, me and us - but only because it allowed our dealers (don't forget, this world where we can look at coin images on dealer's websites and Ebay has only existed for twenty years; before that, you had a dealer you patronized, or you bought from a print ad in the coin magazine, and that was it) to reliably tell you they had the coin you wanted in the grade you desired.

So what happens when the TPG's you founded for the specific purpose of sight-unseen trading became so unreliable that you couldn't trust their product, when you could as easily find a 63 Details or a 65 in a 64 slab?

What happens is what John Albanese did. And keep in mind, Albanese is just the public "face" of CAC, the guy who took the publicity because his was the name that carried the most weight in the situation. CAC is a consortium, a group of major coin dealers and a few major whales in the collecting community (guys whose name you'd recognize, because you see their names on slab provenances) who reached the limit of their patience with TPG aberrations. They started CAC to regain control of the sight-unseen market. They were disgusted with the TPG's.

And think about it. You think John Albanese wants to be spending his time rechecking slabbed coins? You think that's an effective use of his time? How much is he worth per hour? More realistically, how much is the person he's paying to do this worth per hour? Somebody who can reliably call half-grade differences in five-figure coins in all denominations?

At, what, $12 per coin? I kind of doubt CAC even operates in the black, to tell you the truth, and even if they do, they're not making sufficient ROI to justify the effort.

I'm not going to say, "CAC does this," because that doesn't get the point across. What I'll say is, "This group of dealers backs their stickers with their own money." In a big way. They started CAC to have sight-unseen coins to trade, and CAC coins are what they buy. To the tune of close to half a billion Dollars so far. How accurate would PCGS' grading be if they were actually putting their own money at risk, by selling and more importantly buying their own product, placing their profitability potential in it?

It would be accurate enough for CAC to quietly fold, which is what they'd undoubtedly do, because every_single_person involved with that group can make more money elsewhere.

And for the record, ANACS kind of sucks at Lincolns.

 

A quick question...have any of you actually submitted a coin to get the CAC bean? Just wondering what the rejection ratio is.
Myself, I've found a few things:
1. OGC holders have more value because grading is minimally perceived as having tighter standards than newer ones.
2. A grader is only as good as their reputation for a given coin. I would agree that if I had a valuable Lincoln, I wouldn't go ANACS.
3. If I were looking for the absolute best of grade (fat chance of that!) I would only go with NGC and PCGS AND would want a CAC sticker to verify that they agree. My humble opinion is that CAC's is the unbiased third party review...kind of like you folks when I think a coin is nicer than it really is!

 

Actually - and this may be just semantics - I've always considered CAC's opinion extremely biased because their profits depend on their stickers being accurate.

Hmm. Now that I look at it in print, yeah, it's just semantics.

 

I have submitted quite a bit to them for my collection and I can honestly say it was by far the cheapest grading education someone can get. They don't even charge collectors for coins that don't sticker. Have I agreed with every decision they have made on my coins, no of course not. But here is the key. When we disagree is it just because we have different taste which is fine as long as you realize where it differs or is it because I missed something. A few times it was from not seeing something they picked up on which was a valuable learning experience.

For stickering they probably don't. On the back end I would imagine they do. They actually raised the submission price a dollar this year which leads me to believe that aspect of the business isn't very profitable if at all and they are really just doing it for the information.

 

No they don't. PCGS touts their better rate with CAC, NGC you basically never hear them mention CAC at all. Neither of them encourages you to send all your coins to them. You've made a lot of assumptions that have been way off base

 

Prt of tge reason for this is because a lot more PCGS coins get submitted to CAC. NGC certifies a lot more modern coins than PCGS as well, which cannot be submitted to CAC, thus throwing the numbers askew.

 

I think you are taking a little misinformation and warping it into an illogical conclusion that is biased against the TPGs and CAC. No, I don't like them either, but you seem to have gone off the deep end a little.

And also, that one person you keep mentioning was one of the many founders of both PCGS and NGC (If I have read correctly), not the sole founder. There is no conspiracy theory that he alone founded PCGS and NGC and then CAC to solely line his pockets.

 

That certainly is part of it, PCGS does control the better end of the classic market now a days. In that regard CAC may have actually been a negative to NGC.

That may be changing after the latest financials from PCGS. To much of a coincidence for me that letter happened to come right around when the financials were released.

 

This. I believe David Hall was the President/Co-Founder when PCGS was founded by 7 dealers, and according to an interview with Salzberg from 2011 JA sold his interest in NGC sometime in the 90s.

 

I think they began with these good intentions, but it has become too commercialized now. They are falling into the same game the TPG's play. There's no way you can review as many coins as they are now and maintain the level of consistency as when they were small. I suspect soon we will get a spin off. A new sticker will emerge. Probably one of the "CAC founders" will be behind the new outfit.

It depends on when you submit. If you submit after they receive a new order of stickers then your odds are better. If they are running low on stickers then you are less likely to get one.

 

I'm quoting myself here because I want to add something...

Dealers (and regular sellers) are just using the sticker to be able to flip for a profit. On $5,000+ coins it makes sense to have a service like CAC, but how many sub-$100 coins are we seeing with CAC stickers now?

This is just my observation, and I could be wrong, but it seems like the percentage of coins getting stickered has gone up. So maybe CAC is operating with profit in mind. Just yesterday someone posted this on Instagram...

"CAC submission was returned yesterday. Most coins ever stickered, got 14 of em with the green bean."

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQORPMMj5bj/

 

Thanks, I got my smile for the day!

 

The coin likely had a QA Checks sticker on it. It's a different company that does modern coins. they use the same software as CAC.

 

Spinoffs have been attempted already.

Not that many. Some do it hoping for a gold sticker, others just want it or are still learning from it. There are also cases where it wasn't a sub 100 coin when it was submitted and changes in the market over time have turned it into one.

The instagram post isn't really evidence of anything. The more you submit the more you start to figure out what they like and it becomes easier to pick out coins or only buy coins you believe will sticker. Most MS 63 classic commems aren't all that hard to get stickered as well.

It's all realitive to what is submitted. You could have a 100/100 sticker or 0/100 sticker and it doesn't mean they are any loser or tighter. Some series have better rates then others just like some submitters do as well

 

@baseball21, do you have any real stats to back up anything you say? Or is it all just your humble opinion? I honestly would like to know. No harm intended.

"Some series have better rates than others." Where is your evidence?

"Most MS63 classic commems aren't all that hard to get stickered."
Where is your evidence?

 

CACs population reports. As an example business strike Mercury Dimes as a series have 370 gold stickers while Barbers have 39. Most 63s classic commems aren't worth submitting unless someone is trying for a gold sticker, but Gem gold stickers at a lower rate then middle MS mercurys.

Take the 1911-D Saint PCGS has graded about 3k at MS 65 or higher and NGC has graded 2700 something in the same range. So we have a little under 6k 11-Ds in that grade range yet CAC has only give 369 Green beans and 1 gold to that group. Even if you say half half of the TPG population are cracks outs that is still a low stickering rate and unlike the TPGs CACs pop report is actually pretty accurate since the vast majority of people aren't pealing stickers and resubmitting trying for Gold. Yes CAC hasn't seen everyone of them, but I bet you they've seen the vast majority of 66s given the price jump to 67 and have seen a good number of 65s.

 

@baseball21 Are these stickering at lower rates, or are more mercury dimes being sent in than barber coins?