The "Peter Principle" for Slabbing Coins

Hi everyone, it's been a while since I have had much time to chat and start a few threads, but I am here, and busy. I still read the posts every day, I just don't have the time to start much up, but I digress...

It appears to me that as everyone keeps trying to upgrade coins into higher and higher graded slabs won't the end-game of all of this be that all slabbed coins will be overgraded?

There is a point where people will finally stop cracking coins out and re-submitting them hoping to get a better grade, and that point is where they finally all agree that the coin will not EVER get a higher grade if resubmitted. The point where they feel that they have achieved maximum grade for that particular coin.

Each slabbed coin will kind of rise to it's own level of being a point overgraded (instead of incompetancy).

Just ramblings of an increasingly crotchety old man... what do YOU think?

 

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Great insight. :thumb: Perhaps the (Top Three) TPGs will change their standards when all grade able coins have reached their collective potential and submissions slow to a trickle.

It has happened in the past...

Ben

 

Mike,

I have been thinking the same thing. I had not made the comparison to the Peter Principle but that looks like a good fit.

 

Oh Boy, here we go again. I don't want to get into a LONG dissertation, pointed discussion, and especially an argument about the issue. David Hall's famous letter to dealers and collectors. He said it and PCGS DID IT...

http://www.cointalk.org/showthread.php?t=12285
//////////////////////////////////////////////
From the (The Coin Collectors Survivors Manuel -- Scott A. Travers)

Kindest Regards
Ben

 

lol i havent laughed so much in recent times hahaha hilarious

 

here we go again Phoenix bring a popcorn and some soda this is sure to get interesting. I suggest we cal this part 2 of the trilogy series

 

Just don't see how I misunderstood (according to you) the use of the associative term "WE'VE..."

Take Care
Ben

 

come on guys spice it up i am not going to make any money on this part 2 if its without action one of my financiers has already left i dont want to go out of business the paying public is already mad since its the same story

 

Spock, I really like you and think you're a treasure, but in this situation would you PLEASE "Shut Up..."

 

Yes they do! It is well beyond me why anyone would choose to waste their money on changing their plastic coin holders so often. I would personally chose to use the money purchasing books and coins.

I guess some could say at least there is a player out there that is making this whole process much cheaper and more enticing to the collector. They go by the acronym of CaC.

Although not the end result CaC is looking for since they are simply a money maker anyway, and their whole existence is to make money, CaC will play a leading role in bringing this end to fruition.

I doubt this will ever happen. Virtually every coin in a slab may end up being over-graded by the TPG-CaC cycle, helped enormously by the Crack-enthusiasts. However, I believe that interpreted market forces will drive coins to downgrade (which will come with a price to PCGS) in order to provide for more resubmission fodder.

Resubmission fodder will also be created through cross-overs. I can foresee cross-overs automatically downgrading when the scenario you give comes to fruition.

It has been said that TPG grading standards have not changed over the years. This could be absolutely true, and there still yet be variances in grades by the same TPG for the same coin. Grading is subjective. And market influences DO affect the grade. So an MS65 today could very well be an MS64 tomorrow, while it had been an MS66 for the past five years.

Grading standards do not necessarily change, but market tolerances do. Bring an avid collector from the 19th century and let him have his way with your prized collection. You may become horrified by what happens.

 

Darn you, spock, I think I just cracked a rib!

 

i am glad someone liked it

 

I don't think the TPGs will ever run out of coins to slab or re-slab, but it seems likely that if they do nothing, the business will reach a point where it levels off and perhaps declines [if it hasn't already]. Then, they will either have to be satisfied with a smaller volume of business, lower the cost and their profits to attract lower value coins, or find new ways to get people to want to reholder their already slabbed coins. Holding out the possibility of higher grades has limits. Maybe the slab itself will have to be redesigned and improved enough to justify the cost and effort. Maybe they can add a magnification lens, or internal lighting [this is humor if it isn't obvious], or throw in a free but undetected cleaning to improve eye appeal, or who knows what the marketing people will think up. The only certainty is that if they do nothing, the business, like all businesses, will eventually decline.

 

Do you really expect posters to believe that David Hall and his comrades would take the fall for what the ANA did? It wasn't the ANA standards that were the problem, it was how they were applied by the con artists. If a coin was nicer than 60, they called it 65 and that was the problem. The 63 grade didn't start getting widely used until 1980 and the 64 grade in 1985. No offense GD, but you are the one who doesn't get it.

Thanks to PCGS and their ilk, the ANA doesn't even have standards anymore. They gave up and now only "report" what the market manipulators are doing.

 

Not really. They simply refer to them as guidelines, or "suggestions" if you will, since nobody listened to them anyway. I have not gotten a copy of the new "guidelines" yet, but from what I hear, they have a focus and tendency that shifts more toward the market aspects of grading, and with this part I agree to the "Thanks to PGCS and their ilk" part of your comment.

The "manipulators" only have so much sway because one of the first thing anybody will tell a "newbie" is "join the ANA, it's one of the best investments you can make in coin collecting". The problem is that investing IS the problem. There are so many involved with coins today that are truly investors and NOT collectors.

As the numismatic society becomes saturated with investors instead of collectors, the focus will tend to shift from propagating ideologies and practices that reflect the diversity of its collector constituents to propagating market issues and condoning more openly the practices of organizations such as the TPGs, since such things are common among investors.

And then, of course, the situation outlined in this thread become more a possibility, since the focus being fed and propagated to the numismatic community is one of profit and greed.

 

That would only happen if every slabbed coin succeeded in getting an undeserved upgrade. Clearly, that is not reasonable.

A more reasonable assumption is SOME coins will be overgraded. Those coins are less desirable targets for another upgrade for obvious reasons, so they TEND to settle into their final resting place (their Coin Coffin).

So yes, this is analagous to the Peter Principle - it's good for discussion, but it isn't real.

 

With all due respect, I do. You are taking it to mean "we, the grading services" but the real meaning is "we the dishonest coin dealers". What you are missing is that he is talking about PCGS as a new savior from the coin dealers of which he was (and is) a prominent member. Additionally your insinuation is that because "they" (whoever that is) have changed their standards before, they are apt to change them again. That would make some sense, but in the past they were tightened (with the advent of third party grading) and in this thread you are saying they will intentionally loosen the standards to increase submissions. That is a complete disconnect from reality.

 

whatever happened to your sense of humor?