PCGS forum deletes member accounts

Not only has PCGS ousted its founder and some of their other management team, but have deleted the links on Coin Facts to their images....They have new "rules" with one warning before banning. Seems like current management has instituted a zero tolerance policy, not sure why.

 

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For people being abusive.

You left out how everyone is back and even Mark Field is posting there again.

It's no where near what you are portraying.

 

Pointing out there faults and varying degrees of grading depending on how they feel, Isn't abusive, What is abusive is hiding there past and not being transparent.

 

No, what caused the warning was people were being abusive. There is plenty of legitimate criticism or people expressing their opinions in respectful ways. There were also a bunch of people going off the rails both online and off line which created the response.

 

Same here

 

It's really calm over there. Most know where the lines are drawn and understand that being abusive will get you the boot.

Mark Feld coming back is a pretty big deal. He has been gone for about 8 or 10 years. He could have came back at any point but chose not to. I'm sure they ask him to return and with all the changes, he said yes.
I believe Conder101 is the same. He could have gone back but chose not to as well.

 

Feld's return to PCGS against whom he had a feud with David Hall is more a feel good promotion for PCGS than a shaft of sunshine. I always found Feld since he has been working for Heritage especially a company man, never disagrees with the grading services or the other major money interests in the hobby. Expect little in the way of controversy from him as he will not stick his neck out for the underdog.

Very likely the PNG members at HA had a major role in taking down the images on Coin Facts and other useful information that were provided as an ethical and knowledge-centered section of the PCGS site. Poof, all gone due to wealthy interests who were agitating for that; literally no one who wanted those images gone spoke up, too cowardly to take a public stand. All the posters on the PCGS forums from what I saw were very upset about that. The company with Brett, etc. have thin rationales for those changes.

 

It's the most civil I think I can ever remember it without all the constant flame wars. Some of them were entertaining to an extent but the forum is definitely vastly improved over what it had been in some years past.

 

Forums are a minuscule part of the hobby. This is a hobby full of people who think PMs are the only real money, who still write checks, who thinks the internet is evil, or refuse to use credit cards/smart phones, have PMs buried around the house ect. Even from forums plenty of people won't share images or tell what they have purchased recently and that is the place where sharing is the most likely.

So if you guys want to just try and use it as a reason to bash PCGS because of your vendetta against them go right ahead. You're kidding yourself though if you don't think there are plenty of people in this hobby collectors included who didn't want their images visible from one click for privacy reasons. It doesn't matter if there actually was any privacy in danger or not, all that has to happen for complaints is the perception of it from someone.

Also what people say publicly and what they tell a company privately in feedback can be very different things because they don't want to look like the bad guy or want to be in the popular opinion crowd.

All they did was start operating their image database the exact same way NGC has been doing it and NGC is actually more restrictive with theirs.

 

Brett did say that only 3% of the CoinFact users clicked on the "other images". If that's the case, what possible harm does that contribute to the 97% that don't?

 

baseball21, posted: "Forums are a minuscule part of the hobby. This is a hobby full of people who think PMs are the only real money, who still write checks, who thinks the internet is evil, or refuse to use credit cards/smart phones, have PMs buried around the house ect. Even from forums plenty of people won't share images or tell what they have purchased recently and that is the place where sharing is the most likely.

So if you guys want to just try and use it as a reason to bash PCGS because of your vendetta against them go right ahead. You're kidding yourself though if you don't think there are plenty of people in this hobby collectors included who didn't want their images visible from one click for privacy reasons. It doesn't matter if there actually was any privacy in danger or not, all that has to happen for complaints is the perception of it from someone.

Also what people say publicly and what they tell a company privately in feedback can be very different things because they don't want to look like the bad guy or want to be in the popular opinion crowd.

All they did was start operating their image database the exact same way NGC has been doing it and NGC is actually more restrictive with theirs."

Each grading service has their own "fanboys." I prefer reading posts from middle of the road members who can point out the pluses and minuses of each TPGS. Unfortunately, this is not allowed on the TPGS forums and that's the way it should be since we post at their discretion.

We are lucky on CT as we are less restricted. PCGS has made some major changes to Coinfacts. THAT IS THEIR CHOICE and we may never know the GOOD REASONS they used to make that decision. Before the change it was a very valuable tool - in fact, my first "go-to" place for authentication questions after my personal files. Now it sucks for my use. NGC and Heritage images are more useful for my needs.

PS I only used other images once. What ruined Coinfacts for me is NOW the images do not magnify sufficiently.

 

You may have special access to NGC images, but for the rest of us basically the only place we get NGC images is from the cert verification lookup and their lookup is more restrictive than PCGS is by forcing you to enter the grade. PCGS still shows the images on the cert page and a few in coin facts. Other than that they went to the same method NGC is doing with their image database overall.

I understand that some people are disappointing by that and that's fine, but some are using it for a soapbox rant and choose to just insult someone pointing that out with childish name calling as a response instead of actually looking at the facts of what was done.

Programs could have taken down double images in a matter of minutes in the middle of the night and no one would have known anything. There's more to it than people just trying to take shots at them want us to believe. NGC had done the same with their picture database long before PCGS did it. There's no view all images on the NGC site but no one is going after them for that.

 

baseball21, posted: "You may have special access to NGC images, but for the rest of us basically the only place we get NGC images is from the cert verification lookup and their lookup is more restrictive than PCGS is by forcing you to enter the grade. PCGS still shows the images on the cert page and a few in coin facts. Other than that they went to the same method NGC is doing with their image database overall.

I understand that some people are disappointing by that and that's fine, but some are using it for a soapbox rant and choose to just insult someone pointing that out with childish name calling as a response instead of actually looking at the facts of what was done.

Programs could have taken down double images in a matter of minutes in the middle of the night and no one would have known anything. There's more to it than people just trying to take shots at them want us to believe. NGC had done the same with their picture database long before PCGS did it. There's no view all images on the NGC site but no one is going after them for that."

While I graded for NGC at one time (before they had an imaging department), I'm a nobody with no special access. I feel the pain of all the folks who used Coinfacts to look up coins and then post images of the identical coin graded higher. Now the little trolls are out of luck.

My ONLY use for Coinfacts was to compare the micro-diagnostics of very rare coins. Decades ago, I would need to go to the National Collection or ANS to examine "special" coins. Now that the images still provided on Coinfacts do not magnify to their former powers, the site is virtually useless for my needs.

 

The Professional Numismatist Guild was contacted on this issue, it looks like the images will be coming back up according to them.

 

Link or source?

 

One issue with Coinfacts that I believe is being worked on from Brett's comments was that there were some errors in the variety images. I think everyone can agree taking that down was wise.

If you are looking for special coins, just go to the cert page for it. Their sale will be published or in an archive somewhere which will give the cert where you can then type it in.

https://www.pcgs.com/cert/36982251

All you have to do is click the image on the cert page and the magnification is the exact same as it was on CoinFacts.

 

I have seen Mark openly criticize NGC and PCGS in different venues even after having joined HA. On the other hand, I don't think Heritage had anything to do with Coin Facts blowing up. Laura Sperber (Legend Numismatics) admitted that she was the one who went to Charville regarding Coin Facts.

 

So is the implication here that because everyone could see the upgraded coin images in CoinFacts, (e.g. what used to be an MS66 became a 66+ then a 67, and all those images are still visible), that this was hurting the sales prices of these new "top pop" coins? And that's why some of the higher ups wanted to delete these images? Or am I reading something totally wrong into this?

 

Not exactly. She was in favor of it, not that she was the one to get it done

 

I met a dealer 3 years ago bidding at a Heritage Auction. He said that basically all he does is bid on big coins and resubmit until they upgrade. Said he spent "6 figures" the previous year on resubmission fees with PCGS. If they tighten standards and repost all those images of upgraded coins, then dealers like that may go right out of business!