Yes, but the TPGs do the same thing. Coins are returned in body bags with no way to trace their history. A later owner might submit them and end up with the same result. However, CAC does have the benefit of slabs with serial numbers that could be identified while a raw coin could not.
You are incorrect. For example, in the cases where I buy and list for sale non-CAC coins which are subsequently stickered, I leave the price unchanged. Odds are quite good that I'm not the only seller who does so. A $10 or $20 CAC fee need not result in raised prices.
You could say the same about the lack of published information regarding coins that have been submiited to NGC or PCGS for crossover. Are you going to accuse them of participating in a scam or fraud? I don't see any legitimate grounds for any "legal mess" in either case.
"Deceptive" or "protecting the submitter's position"? How is this any different from TPGs who don't provide bodybag information to everyone? Are TPGs deceptive, fraudulent and a scam because they don't provide this info also? NPCoin, you seem like a pretty rational dude, but the argument above borders on nonsensical. What legal basis would such an argument be made under? How is this any different from a person buying a cache of raw coins and submitting to the TPGs only to have them come back in bodybags?
Mike, I think an even more on-point comparison is a group of coins that is submitted for crossover and which fails to cross. That information isn't disclosed by the grading companies either. Not surprisingly, I haven't heard of any resulting lawsuits.
While I agree in principal with the above -- the collector's opinion is the most important one -- that's only true until it comes time to sell a coin. Then it is the buyer's opinion that matters most, and it is this buyer's opinion which is often shaped in part through 3rd party grading and, now, 4th part stickering. To ignore the buyer's opinion is oversimplifying coin collecting, in my opinion. Furthermore, when a collector is seeking to add a coin to their collection, the seller's perspective is important as it is that person's perspective that essentially sets price. Again, third (and fourth) party opinions come into play here. Now you may argue that it is the collector's opinion that matters most, and I would agree, however the seller's and buyer's opinions are equally or more important when it comes time to buy and/or sell a coin. Respectfully...Mike
Yeah, I thought I read your words to that effect, and wanted to provide a slightly different perspective....Mike
As the sought after coin becomes more and more rare, this statement becomes especially true. If there are only 6 of a particular coin, with only 1 being offered for sale at the moment, this statement is absolute...the seller will indeed set the price. As the coin becomes more common and begins to enter mintages of 100k or more, with many coins offered on the market, comparable in quality, the situation may change some. A seller may always be firm in his or her price, as they are the one in actual possession of the sought after coin. But, competition may well drive the seller to bargain with the buyer for the sale. Sure, it may take time, but a less rare coin may be gotten at the price the buyer desires. But it takes time and patience. But, if the price offered by the seller is too high for any prospective buyer, there will not be a sale, until either the buyers relent and spend the ask price, or the seller breaks down and offers the coin at a buyer's bid. When you are the one adding to your collection, it is most definitely your view of things that matters most. It is your view that will keep you on the hunt for that particular coin for your collection. You may find some that you desire, but do not like the price and pass on in search of another. Or, you may get caught up in the moment and buy that "perfect" coin for your collection and pay what the seller asks. But your opinion of things is still the most important when you are buying. If it comes time to sell for whatever reason, then you assume a secondary position. Yes, you have your ask price, and may even be willing to negotiate down to a specific level. But it will be the buyer's spend thriftiness, patience, or stubbornness that will eventually win out in the end, unless you are fortunate enough to find an agreeable or fickle buyer who jumps on the opportunity to buy your coin at your asking price. That's how I see things. When I personally buy coins for my collection, I determine first how the market has been acting with the particular coin in question. After evaluating the market, I determine what place the coin would have overall in my collection. If it is key to my collection, I may be willing to exceed current market trends to obtain a good quality piece. If it is a common addition to my collection, then I would consider holding out until I found something that would fit, but is offered or obtainable below the current market trend. If I do not find what I like within the price range I am willing to pay, I go without. In this sense, I do not personally see any need for CAC as a collector. I may do things completely backward from what most people do, but I'm kind of like that. I don't find the coin first, then try to negotiate the price. I figure my price range first for what I want, then peruse the market for coins that meet my desired criteria. Once I find the coin to fit my collection, I determine whether or not it is possible to obtain the particular coin at my bid levels, and if not, move on to find another. You may think that by doing things this way that CAC would be ideal since the "PQ" coins would be marked out for me already. But, grading is subjective. What is "PQ" to one, may not be to another. Each person has their own likes and dislikes when it comes to their coins. I take the chance that a coin that I would really like would escape me if I used the CAC stickers as a determiner in my coin buying.
The TPGs are generally in the practice of providing along with the "bodybag" the reason behind their decision, if I am not mistaken. My understanding of non-sticker CAC submission is that the reason is not explained with the returned slab. Now, please correct me if I'm wrong on that point. I don't know if CAC sent you a statement with your non-sticker submission explaining the reason behind it, or if you had to jump through loops, or if you simply had to call them. If the reason was not sent to you along with your returned slab, then there is a slight, but significant, difference between the "body bag" by the TPG and the non-sticker by CAC. In both scenarios, the submission is returned in the original state it was received. In both scenarios, there is the possibility for the coin to be sold to another party and it be resubmitted to the grading or evaluating company. The difference lies in the fact that the owner of the TPG "body bag" coin has reason to believe that there is a prospective problem with a coin. The owner of the CAC non-sticker coin would not have reason to believe that there is a prospective problem with the coin and grade assigned excepting that it did not meet with CAC expectations. To resell the "body bag" coin as a "problem free" coin would be deceptive on the part of the seller, though PCGS, NGC, et al, would likely be indemnified. The TPG does not have a definitive means of tracking these problem coins, as they do nothing with them, but return them. To resell the "non-sticker" CAC coin as a "possible CAC candidate" could well be deceptive and misleading on the part of the seller, but CAC may well also be faulted because they do in fact have a very viable means of tracking the submissions. It is also plausible for them to implement this tracking to be able to keep people from submitting coins that had already been through CAC, so as not to even have the appearance of deception on their part. As well, CAC would necessarily need to keep record of submitted coins and serial numbers. To this effect, if a slabbed coin makes its second trip into CAC, are they notifying the submitter of this fact? Are they informing the submitter that the coin had previously been processed through CAC, and are they re-evaluating the coin, or sending it back non-stickered, or what is it they are doing? What they do with such coins could very well be perceived as deceptive or misleading practice. Here is my concern for all of this. Though I could care less for CAC as a collector, their usefulness in the investor and speculator markets is there. And that is where the possibility lies with legal problems. We should remember the economic situation and markets as they were almost two decades ago. They were similar to what we see today. There are investors flooding into the rare coin and precious metals market, looking for a stronger or more stable investment opportunity where the stocks and banks have or are failing. There is a player in this market that, at its face, seems to offer a genuine expert opinion, that may possibly be construed as an objective audit and assessment of an investment commodity. It is very probable that the current market is going to crash fast and furious. There well may be heavy loss on the part of investors, and even more on speculators, when this happens. With hard financial loss comes even harder feelings, and people will be looking for a scapegoat. It was two decades ago that PCGS went through this, and rightfully, as one of their pitches was objective grading of investment quality coins. Though CAC may not be making the pitch of objectiveness, there is a perceived objectiveness. As well, there are holes in the business practices of CAC that may well open them to direct involvement in the deception of consumers and investors. What I am referring to are the various scenarios laid out in this post. For their own good, I believe CAC should work quickly on closing as many of these holes as possible before the markets take a complete dive. If the market does not belly up, then CAC can only be all the better because of it, and will be prepared to defend itself if the situation ever arises and they are investigated for possible deceitful practices. And just because they are investigated does not mean that they have done anything wrong. It simply means that there are quite a few angry people looking for someone to blame. And it is hard to see the storm ahead when there are few clouds in the sky, but one should always have a plan anyway for the eventuality. As it is right now, there are just too many open holes that lend themselves to derogatory appearances and chance possibilities, and it could well scare some away who may actually even use the service.
I am curious if it was a standard form that was sent back with the returned submission, or did you have to dig just a bit to contact someone about it? Basically, would the average person be able to reasonably obtain the reason for the non-sticker? If the reason is not sent with the returned submission, I would wonder why not. It would serve to better protect them if they did return something in writing regarding the reason for non-sticker.
The legal arena today is just a bit different than the arena of two decades ago. From what I have seen in different types of cases I take interest in following, intent has become a much more determining factor than it was back at the turn to the '90s. But, then again, I didn't much follow our legal system back then as I do now. I would not be surprised at all for our legal system to consider a market perceived claim of objectiveness in coin grading today to be of the same level of deception as the PCGS advertised claim of objective grading two decades ago. Like I said above, just because someone is investigated does not mean they did anything wrong. "Legal messes" are messes usually because the accused really did not do anything wrong. Yet, the accused still are left with the "mess" of the situation. And regardless of the perceived legitimacy of the situation, if enough people cry out over the situation, somebody is going to take a look into the situation. If there is even the possibility of deceptive or misleading practices, then they have cause for action. This is why I believe CAC should try to close all holes in their business practices to ensure that they have covered themselves as best as possible. It is not necessarily what did they do, but what could they have done, and did they profit by not doing it, that will become the issue if too many investors lose too much money when the markets come tumbling down. As pertaining to the case of crossovers, the situation is quite different, as you probably see. The holes in CACs practices pertain to submissions revolving solely through their own company. With crossovers, it is submissions between two separate entities. With TPGs it would be more along the lines of "body bags", but even with those, the fault of deception lies with the seller, as I believe I had laid out in the above posts.
And that is the main difference. It would be so much easier if the world had purple trees and pink air, and everybody loved everybody else and never lied. Sucks to live in our world, doesn't it?
The original poster mentioned using more stickers to further "refine" the grades. I suggest, rather than using more stickers, use comments that are easily assessable via the internet. This is completely feasible, unless, of course, there is a reason why they do not want the public to know what their reasoning is behind their determinations. Yet, regardless of what the TPGs do or do not do, it is quite feasible for CAC to publish comments about a specific coin online and make it available. I believe this would accomplish the same purpose as having even more stickers to worry about. That's why I mentioned it. Within each sticker type, coins may be further separated by comments explaining why the coin is where it is. Exceptional traits may be noted as well. In this way, I do see CAC as being useful to collectors in the sight-unseen market. Otherwise, I still hold that CAC's usefulness realistically stops mostly with speculators.
Thank you for the long and well-thought-out (IMO) response. However, I don't think you answered my question.... The TPGs typically give one of 9 "canned" reasons for a bodybag. (See this link for details http://coins.about.com/od/coingrading/f/pcgs_genuine.htm ). These canned responses are nowhere near as verbose as the descriptions I received for the coins I sent to the CAC. For instance, had the TPGs caught the puttied coin, it would have come back likely with something like "altered surfaces". Yet I received the (key) information "puttied obverse". Which as a collector would you place more value in? Again, how is this any different from a coin that was bagged by the TPGs, then broken out and sold raw, or to use Mark's example, a coin which was sent to a TPG to cross, but did not? In both cases the coin has a "history" of being sent to a 3rd party for review and this information is not available to other parties. If there is an argument for deception and fraud, it is with the seller doing the deception, not the 3rd or 4th party grading firm, IMO. And by the way, it is my understanding that the CAC does have a way to track submissions, and a coin that has failed to gain a sticker once is not charged a second time if re-submitted in ignorance of the prior submission*. Compare that with the policy of the TPGs -- which will gladly allow the transitive nature of subjectivity grading to maximize the grade of coin upon resubmission (and collect grading fees each and every time), yet tell the collecting public absolutely nothing about prior results. * = edited to add = Contrary to the information I received from another collector and posted above, I've received a PM from someone who has been charged for the 2nd submission, so there is conflicting information on the CAC policy on charging for a 2nd submission. And I will submit none of the scenarios you described are materially different from the TPGs. I'm still waiting for the first "open hole" that isn't present in 3rd party grading. Hand waving and carefully crafted sentences do not make for a rational argument -- and an argument which nets out to "the coin market is going to crash, and the CAC better watch out because someone's going to point the finger at them" isn't a rational argument, in my opinion.
My definition of a collector in numismatics is one who collects numismatic items as a hobby or for enjoyment. This is where we come to the bit over what a person likes. Along the lines I have said before, what is "PQ" to one person may be abhorrent to another. We see this fact quite well with the toned vs. white debate. What makes the coin "exceptional"? Well, there are a number of factors, many which pertain to each person's own perspective of beauty. It also depends on what a person perceives to be more important. Do you value luster above strike? Is toning your game, or the blast red and white? Would you rather have hairlines or a distraction? Would you accept a distraction on a toned coin? Do you give more weight to a distraction in a secondary focal area than you do hairlines in a primary focal area? All of these things are subjective, and thus a "premium" coin for one person may well be unacceptable for another. We all like to tout that grading is subjective, but we need to understand that it is still subjective even when we do not personally agree with another's assessment, and our own biases do not invalidate another's opinion. It is especially when it comes to making determinations within a defined grade that subjectivity becomes most apparent. So, I guess in a way, yes I am saying just because the person is a collector, they would be able to pick out their premium coin from their poor coin for a given grade. Because it is the collector who knows what he or she likes or not. That is not to say that what they like is what you like. There are a number of factors that will determine if a collector is over-paying. One factor is ability to pay. People come from different lifestyles. Thus, they have a different view of money. Some people collect figurines. Some of these figurines cost $100 each. Did they over-pay? Well, that depends on what kind of residual income they had to spend to begin with, the amount of enjoyment they expect to get out of the figurine, the availability of the same figurine elsewhere for less money, the guarantees made about authenticity and warranty. Similarly, the coin collector has a number of similar factors. Risk is one factor. This is probably the prime factor that leads collectors toward authenticated and graded coins. PCGS and NGC are probably at the top, not just for grading consistency, but guarantees of authenticity and/or grade. Convenience is another factor. The amount of time and effort put into the transaction as well as the ability to view in hand. Return guarantees and privileges also factor into the equation, as well as return penalties. Yet, those are some of the "whats". As to the "hows", education is the best factor to consider. A collector should know what they are collecting. I gave you my definition of a coin collector, and it included the fact that the person did it for enjoyment or as a hobby. A hobbyist is, by definition, one who is setting off constantly to do something, or gives something attention unduly or to the weariness of others. Face it! A hobbyist is a fanatic. And as a fanatic, one would have the desire to learn everything there is to know about what they are collecting. Thus, a person would know what a proper price would be for what they like because they would know what they want, what they like, what they are willing to pay for it, and learn how to identify what they desire by learning how to grade and authenticate the coins they have an interest in. They can then research market trends, and even utilize trade papers and historic pricing guides to determine what others have perceived was a fair price for the coin. A hobby is time consuming, and there is a lot of learning involved in one. Then you have those who are simply doing it for enjoyment, and nothing more. They're not fanatics, and they do not spend their time unduly saturated in coins. For these people, the rest of us are here to help. The time to seek advise is proactively, not retroactively. I read quite a few posts, and respond to even fewer for the reasons that are already evident. The unfortunate thing about a number of those posts is that the question is usually followed by others such as "do you think it will upgrade", "what's the best way to sell it for a profit?", "I think I'll put it up on eBay and see what I get", etc. In others, the person is genuinely interested in the coin for their collection and, in my opinion, is simply looking for some reassurance that they obtained their coin at a fair price. Yet, just because somebody may be looking for reassurance does not mean they do not know what they are doing. In fact, there are a number of those posts that get replies such as "Good going! :thumb:", "Nice find!", and "Wow! ". Some of them I would call collectors. Some I would call investors, and still some I would call speculators. There are the occasional trolls. But, that is not to say that because you are a speculator, you cannot also be a collector. Nor that because you invest, that you are restricted from collecting. Each of us are a combination of each to a certain extent. But,in my opinion, we cannot be more than one at any given time, as they simply are not compatible with each other in the way we buy and/or sell our coins. I believe that the attempt to speculate while adding to our collections is one of the reasons for confusion over whether or not we "did well" with pricing and such.
It was this simple: I simply asked the CAC dealer to ask JA to include a reason for the refusal to sticker any coins. When I got my coins back, IIRC, I got an e-mail from the dealer with a description of the "problems", and my recollection is that my dealer spoke directly with JA. It was just that simple. Other collectors that I've spoken to with first hand experience with the service (in marked contrast to many who have posted to this thread) have had similar experiences, ranging from e-mails to one-on-one conversations with JA concerning their coins. Quite frankly, many of them sounded like you did -- that they know what they want, their opinion is the only one that matters, etc. -- until they used the service. To wit, I do not know of a single collector -- ranging from the novice to the 50 year collectors -- who didn't find value in the submission. Take care...Mike
