Why coin sales flat

Nothing will ever be the end all be all of any hobby. People will always have different tastes. TPG and CAC for US coins will give buyers great protection but they will always have to decide what they like. It would just be smart to understand how what they like is viewed by the market to buy accordingly which the TPGs allow them to do as opposed to relying on someone trying to sell them something.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Except of course back to the original sticky point of the "market" value of a coin (which is what the TPGs "grade" to) instead of assigning an accurate technical grade and let the true market decide value. This is the crux of where we disagree. The TPGs are now appraising the coins through grading and CAC stickers and trying to set or match market values rather than technically grading the coins and allowing the market to set premiums based on eye appeal and other factors.

 

This aspect is overblown in general. Pure technical grading hasn't been a thing for decades anyways nor is grading purely technical aside from lower circulated grades

 

And with that I will have to bid you good night baseball. Been an enjoyable discussion. Merry Christmas!
Razz

 

Merry Christmas to you as well bud

 

I completely disagree with earlier statements on this thread regarding TPG’s being a conflict of interest due to private ownership. On the contrary, the profit motive and competition between TPG’s raises the bar. If I’m buying a coin from a dealer I want an opinion from someone other than the dealer regarding its grade. It’s that simple. I’m also in favor of market grading as it makes more sense to me than pure technical grading. I would prefer that more, not fewer, attributes be taken into account when assigning a grade.

 

Let us think what would happen if I were correct, that TPGs manipulate their grades over time, constantly lowering them in order to drive new submissions. In such a scenario, you would see groups of people over many years make a living of simply identifying older coins that would now grade higher since they know how the TPGs have lowered standards. They simply buy older slabs and resubmit, get higher grade, and profit. However, such a situation of constantly lowering grades would put cap on prices, since those who do not know how to grade would see a constantly increasing population of a particular grade, pushing prices constantly downward.

Now, does this resemble the US slabbed coin market over the last 20 years? Many dealers simply profiting by resubmitting and collectors losing money due to lack of price appreciation?

TPGs have simply sucked billions out of this hobby to the detriment of all collectors. I am sure Wall Street is really more worried about the health of our hobby versus the stock price of Collectors Universe.

Like I said, if they authenticated coins that would be a valuable service. If they then also graded according to a third party standard, THEN they would add true value to the hobby since they would not have the ability to lower their standards to juice their stock price as needed.

I am just glad that Cointalk exists, and a reason I am a supporter, since any such questions or observations on boards run by TPGs are banned immediately, and many times posters are banned. I simply do not trust any organization that practices censorship so prevalently.

Btw, anyone not believe me? Look yourself. Go get an older ANA grading standards book. Go to a coin show and you tell me if the slabs are even close. TPG apologists will say "those are outmoded standards, they haven't "kept up with the times"". Let me ask this, what "times"? TPG quarterly earning report needs, or what is best for the hobby?

 

I'm guessing that this controversy over grading standards (changing over time, published/not published) hasn't hurt their business model, has it?

Are collectors/dealers perfectly happy with this state of affairs? I wonder.

 

Pretty hard to argue they're driving the standard when they flat out say they aren't

No, it resembles the coin market for 100s of years if not longer of people finding undergraded coins or coins they feel they can sell for a higher grade raw to get more money. You're reasoning is completely off so is the assumption that this started with the TPGs or that older slabs are automatic upgrades no matter how many times that idea gets floated on this site.

No they haven't. They have however allowed collectors to collect a wider variety of issues and countries and saved collections countless times from coin doctors and shady sellers.

They don't do that.

Saying that over and over doesn't make it true.

Collectors generally yes. There's always going to be an anti TPG group trying to get others to follow.

Many dealers would probably prefer to go back to the raw days as it was a lot easier for them to make money hyping things selling or talking them down when buying. Collectors were also more reliant on dealers back then selling too. Now if you don't like the price they offer you can sell it yourself or send it to auction

 

I have a simple answer to why coin sales are flat. I ran out of money.