The pitfalls of market grading and very similar coins.

Most of the time TPGs get it pretty accurately. Sometimes, they don't. I am going to post the 3 coins I received recently, in their slabs. One may immediately notice something, despite the difficulty of photographing brilliant Morgans accurately.

I would have graded all three of these coins exactly the same. The surface preservation is almost identical, not in the location of bag marks, but in the amount and severity. All three have clean fields, and very significant reflectivity. The question is obviously. the degree of subjectivity. I will post what I would have graded all three after people make the comments. Please spare me the "It looks like a 62" type of comment, as none of them fall into that category, and none of the three are "AU coins." They're all about the same, but feel free to make comments about the market grading and discrepancies in the grade. This is an important exercise in grading, as we always discuss the accuracy of TPGs, and our ability to grade.

 

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Not a type I usually look at, but honestly for the graded Morgans I have seen, they look better to me than MS64, since the faces are pleasant and I am not seeing distracting marks in the field. I don't know if the strikes are particularly less strong than desired, but my impression is a MS65. I hope I have not overgraded them.

 

One of the problems I see with your comment is that these slabs are from 3 different times and 2 different TPG's.. so there will be discrepancies

 

The pictures aren’t that bad. I could easily grade from them. The light was far from ideal, but I think it shows the similarity of the coins. They aren’t “presentation photos,” but pictures we often see online, and if we are interested in the coins, we have to be able to grade from that type of “quick and dirty” photos.

 

I disagree. These pictures are not useful for grading. If I saw an auction with these pics, I'd use them to verify there were no major eye appeal issues (huge spots, etc), but I'd trust that the TPG got it right. I would bid low, and I'd have low expectations. You can't grade from these - you can read a number on a slab.

 

However, to get this thread back in the direction that I think you intended:

Comparing three separate coins is tricky, because each coin has its own unique traits. There is a very small difference between a 64 and a 65, in reality. The 65 might be a lower end 65; the 64 might be a higher end 64. These differences can be slight. I'm guessing that you are trying to talk about gradeflation, but we just can't see enough in those pictures to tell.

As for the * vs. PL, that can be a difference in standards. NGC has the star available for coins that don't quite make it - PCGS doesn't. I've seen quite a few Stars that were resubmitted and got the PL, so that wouldn't surprise me at all. However, I've seen just as many people with a Star coin that thought it was fully PL, but wasn't.

 

Awaiting the ever-elusive PCGS star!

 

How about using the original auction photos for comparison + NGC's photos on the last one? All these photos were available when making the buy determine on OP's end so shouldn't they be available for comparison if someone else is trying to make a determination (in this case grading) as well












NGC's images

 

Gotcha. I think we are more on track. What I was getting at was inconsistency in grading, not necessarily in gross grading (is it MS or not.), but subtle differences in coins that could go either way, and if not outright market grading, then grading that is not nailing the finer points of coin grading. My point was that all three were so close that they should have been identically graded. They weren’t, and while it isn’t as catastrophic as the AU 58 versus MS 63 slider situation, it is kind of bizarre. In hand, the 3 are so close that I could not give them different grades. As far as what they deserve, I am sure that there will be a difference of opinion. I would have gone MS 65 PL for all 3, but that is, of course, open to dispute.

 

With these new pictures, the 65 is overgraded. They should all be 64.

However, I do agree with the Star on the last one. That doesn't make PL.

 

Which shows what I am trying to point out, as they all look right on at 65 in hand. I have seen enough PL Morgans in my life to know a 65 easily. The star one has the deepest cameo of all of them, and all 3 have 8” of reflectivity. Go figure.

 

The rattler is not PL, but is MS64.
The 1885 PCGS is PL but not MS65.
The NGC coin is accurately graded at 64. Got a star due to PL obverse and not reverse.

 

I would call them all MS-64 (PL if they are all as reflective as you say), but I’ve always been partial to the old PCGS standards. PL was a terribly difficult designation to get in the rattler days.

 

If you think they're all about the same and you paid roughly the same for each of them who cares what the labels say?

 

Not sure what your goal was with this post. They all look pretty much the same. From what little detail is discernible, they all look like 64s. Pretty hard to tell anything from those photos, though, the lighting is very bad and the focus is way off.

 

Says the guy who has the coins in hand.

Those look like completely different coins when compared to the OP's pictures, which hide most of the marks.

My opinions from the bad scans is that the 1898 O is MS-64, the 1885 is MS-64 PL, and the 1904 O is MS-63 (the horrible scans are probably making the marks look more severe than they are).

 

I see them as:

1898-O - 65
1885 - 64PL
1904-O - 63*

 

Sorry I posted this thread. Won’t make that mistake again. Some of you big shots should spend some quality time with PCGS photograde, and learn Morgan grading.