Are CAC stickers useless on MS?

Man... @baseball21, you really are showing your true colors this week. Glad everyone can see it clearly now.

 

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Man, talk about reading absolutes into generalities....I was going to defend my words, but it's apparent there's not enough comprehension extant to go to the effort.

This is well and truly off the rails now.

 

Denis Leary did an interesting bit about the sports world and the phrase "they just wanted it more". You should give it a listen.

And Dave, while I generally understand what you mean and also agree on some level with what you're saying, it's the polar opposite of the cop-out that many impoverished people use to explain their misfortune, and it's just as false.

Stop generalizing! People are all different!

 

Then why attack those who were successful?

 

That is - to me, which may be part of the miscommunication - such a stipulated truth in life that any reference to a generalization carries the implicit assumption that there will always be exceptions, in many cases a substantial percentage of the datapoints. If exactly half of the world makes a million dollars a year and the other half only makes a hundred dollars a year, the "average" will be a number which nobody at all earns.

 

I remember way back when, someone said that CAC drives up the price of coins. I must correct that, DEMAND drives up the price. When I drive by a gas station selling gas for $2.50, I do just that, drive by. I hate to see people putting gas in their tanks there, because I know next week my gas station, whichever one has the lowest price right now, might have the same $2.50. When a coin is listed for more than it sold for yesterday adjusted for inflation, and someone buys it, it drives up cost, but not before that.

 

I have never and will never purchase a CAC stickered coin unless I am driving the price down.

 

Distressed merchandise can cry on my shoulder ANYTIME.

 

This thread used to be interesting. I dislike the TPGs as well, but I won't bash them as much as I'm seeing here. Calm down.

 

You are only hurting yourself with that type of stance. All you are doing is taking a large segment of very nice coins off the table from your potential collection

 

Demand AND supply drives the price of coins.

CAC is creating a new supply of coins, higher-end coins which have been certified TWICE which alleviates any fear of fraud and/or overgrading in the minds of many people.

 

The best of them, in fact.

 

For the coins I deal in -- Morgan's costing $500 - $1,000 or so, Saints costing $1,500 - $2,500 -- it appears a CAC sticker ups the price by about 15% on average.

 

This does seem to be the time and place to smack the hornet nest with a stick.

As a somewhat new guy, I learn more about grading with every coin and every conversation I have here. Every day I feel I am worse, not better. But as a new guy, I also am spared an attachment to any existing system of grading. I don't have a horse in any race, starting with the Sheldon system itself. And I think it is the problem.

Here is the swatting. This system reduces a very complex interplay of factors to a simple linear scale. The CAC approval takes the same complex set of factors and mentally reduces it again to the same scale. Mentally, are the same factors perceived, weighted, and recomputed the same?

I take to heart some recent comments. You may recognize them as yours. I have been thinking and rethinking them.

After posting a Jefferson, there were comments about losing FS because of one ding. Yet, the general strike, including the windows on Monticello, were far above average for FS coins I looked at. So is FS meant to refer to strike quality? If so, what would it matter to that quality that the coin has a ding? That is a separate issue.

I posted a Lincoln that I (subjectively) think is terrific. @BadThad called it an AU-63. That certainly has me thinking. A trace of wear that is unnoticeable to me makes it AU, but everything else makes it 63. Why should one predominate?

For collectors, I think a different grading entirely makes sense. Sure, this is complex, but let's think about how many independent factors are lumped into one simple numeric result. There are enough of them that it is easy to see why the same coin could be graded within two numeric steps. It's all about the mental weight and formula that each of us values.

Let's say we graded each of these on a 1-50 scale, independently. In no particular order.

• For copper, color Brown through full red. A continuum, not BR, RB, RD.
• Strike - are all letters and high relief features filled out.
• Wear - on my cent, a wear of 48 for a touch on the cheekbone is something OK with me
• Luster
• Toning
• Dirt
• For copper, wood grain toning
• Die wear - so you can have a good strike but poor dies.
• Hits / contact marks (considering severity and location)
• Hairlines
• Strike / Planchet flaws

And you all may have your own.

My point is, you cannot group this many things into a 1-70 scale and have the coin fully described. So how can people with different values hope to agree on a grade, or even like the same coin in the same way, regardless of grade?

 

Here, I fixed it for you:

For the coins you deal in -- Morgan's costing $500 - $1,000 or so, Saints costing $1,500 - $2,500 -- it appears a CAC sticker identifies the coins that are worth 15% more, on average.

 

No argument here. Whether all of the CAC coins deserve the bean and others that didn't get one do is the question.

For the most part, I think CAC does a good job.

 

RonSanderson, posted: "...starting with the Sheldon system itself. And I think it is the problem."

You don't do yourself justice. IMO, this post elevates your understanding of coin grading well above 70% of collectors.

"...This system reduces a very complex interplay of factors to a simple linear scale. The CAC approval takes the same complex set of factors and mentally reduces it again to the same scale. Mentally, are the same factors perceived, weighted, and recomputed the same?"

IMO, the Sheldon numbers and their description work very well for circulated grades. Combine that with the photos in the different grading guides and grading seems to be fairly consistent (forget "Net" grading) and easy to understand. That's because grading circulated coins is mainly based on wear (loss of detail). So the problem of combining many factors into a grade is not as important as for Mint State coins. Nevertheless, eye appeal is important here too.

It changes for Mint State coins. At the first TPGS, a technical system was used specifically to separate all the components of grading and remove subjectivity. Sorry, I don't have time to get into this as it is covered in some grading seminars. Only thing important is this grading system clashed with the "commercial" grading in the marketplace. Now, technical grading is only useful to teach grading to new collectors who learn about marks, luster, etc.

"After posting a Jefferson, there were comments about losing FS because of one ding. Yet, the general strike, including the windows on Monticello, were far above average for FS coins I looked at. So is FS meant to refer to strike quality? If so, what would it matter to that quality that the coin has a ding? That is a separate issue"

You are absolutely correct. The strike of a coin should have absolutely no bearing on its Mint State (condition as it left the die) - technical grading. However, in the real world that is not the case. Additionally, a fully struck coin with a single ding is still a fully struck coin. Unfortunately, the "clowns" of commercial grading and Jefferson nickel experts made the rules. Same goes for the bands and bell lines on other types.

"I posted a Lincoln that I (subjectively) think is terrific. @BadThad called it an AU-63. That certainly has me thinking. A trace of wear that is unnoticeable to me makes it AU, but everything else makes it 63. Why should one predominate?"

IMO, @BadThad is giving you an important lesson in grading. Coins can have different grades depending on the experience, eyesight, knowledge, magnification, ownership, etc. of the grader. That's why grading is "subjective." If a person cannot tell if a coin is whizzed - for him it is a 100% BU "gem."

"For collectors, I think a different grading entirely makes sense. Sure, this is complex, but let's think about how many independent factors are lumped into one simple numeric result. There are enough of them that it is easy to see why the same coin could be graded within two numeric steps. It's all about the mental weight and formula that each of us values.

Let's say we graded each of these on a 1-50 scale, independently. In no particular order.

• For copper, color Brown through full red. A continuum, not BR, RB, RD.
• Strike - are all letters and high relief features filled out.
• Wear - on my cent, a wear of 48 for a touch on the cheekbone is something OK with me
• Luster
• Toning
• Dirt
• For copper, wood grain toning
• Die wear - so you can have a good strike but poor dies.
• Hits / contact marks (considering severity and location)
• Hairlines
• Strike / Planchet flaw

And you all may have your own."

Been done long ago (1970's) and rejected.

"My point is, you cannot group this many things into a 1-70 scale and have the coin fully described. So how can people with different values hope to agree on a grade, or even like the same coin in the same way, regardless of grade?"

You are not going to like this answer...EXPERIENCE. You can learn to do that. However, what you cannot learn easily is when you also must factor the commercial value into the coin's condition of preservation (grade).

 

Thank you so much for this response.

The flip side of the coin (see what I did there?) is when the collector tries to use this scale to purchase. If the scale, plus a CAC sticker, lets dealers wholesale coins en masse, that's one purpose. It gets a coin in the vicinity of a potential buyer but there is no guarantee that they will like it.

That's where my profile (I'm OK with a minor scuff on cheekbone, but like a strong strike, like woodies and toning) and another person's ("cabinet friction is still an AU", wants booming luster, hates woodies ) are individual factors that cannot be teased out of a simple grade. The information was fed into the formula, but it can't be teased back out.

So I just don't think the grading scale gives the end consumer what they need. If they are investors, maybe. If they live for the competition of registry sets, possibly. If they are collectors, not so much.

 

One word answer: NO!

 

All of the aforementioned issues amount to why the grading system cannot be computerized (as of yet), and folks have tried. There are just too many factors for there not to some (read=a lot of) subjectivity. Toning is my favorite part of it. You can buy a Morgan Dollar that is pure white, one that is rainbow colored and one that is virtually black with "toning" and all of them will be MS65. There's no such thing as an "Ugly 65" or a "Pretty 65" grade, nor is there a "Barely 65 but it's Friday afternoon and I'm feeling generous" sticker. Will they all be the same price? No, probably not. Will the CAC sticker help? Maybe yes and maybe no. But the CAC sticker doesn't make an ugly coin pretty; maybe it just limits the debate as you negotiate a price. At this point grading is as much an "art" as anything else. And I guess that's why they call it practicing medicine and practicing law; no one has it down perfectly yet.