Coin grading

Have... have you ever actually seen a CAC sticker?

I won't presume to speak for @Lehigh96, but I can tell you why I've used BIN instead of auction.

With BIN, I offer the coin at what I think it's worth, and entertain offers from potential buyers. If all the offers are very low, I can adjust my expectations, and my pricing. I can accumulate this information over weeks or months.

If I post a coin at auction, I'm gambling that at least TWO people who know what the coin is worth and want to buy it at that price will happen by during one particular week. For rare or unusual coins, and for small-time sellers like myself, that's unlikely to happen. I sold at least one coin that would've gone for less than $200 in a one-week auction, but eventually went for $700. It just needed to appear long enough for the right collector to come along.

 

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+1

I agree with everything in this post, but by no means does this exhaust all the reasons I would rather use the BIN or BO listing method than running auctions. That said, I don't owe this guy any explanation for my business practices.

 

This dealer is NOT wrong... Many coins have listed values that you could NEVER manage to buy the coin at... I'll give you 2 great examples from my collection... 1st my most recent...MS70 2015 W MOD Dime.... PCGS lists this coin for a whopping $22 and NGC for a mere $70... Yet I wish you luck buying one for under 100 BINs top out at about 170 and auction prices seeing sales as high as 150 and averaging 100+
Another coin (not modern) is the 1857 large cent, grey sheets and TPGs list the lower grades of these large cents as $20-50 coins yet if you can find one in any condition selling for under 100 buck you doing awesome. In the end it comes down to how much you want a specific coin and it's availibility. Price guides are just that "guides" and a coin is only worth what some collector is willing to pay.. The TPGs and Grey sheets are not omnipotenet (sp) they are just best guesses about a commodity that can change value at the drop of a hat. As for the sellers... they out to make a profit for themselves, if they know someone will pay 2-3x list for a coin, why in hell should they sell it for less???

 

Back to @Joshua Killian's post; If you are thinking of sending in the coins you posted in post #7, I wouldn't. The rule of thumb is that unless the value of the coin is worth more than the cost of having it graded by a TPG, it just isn't worth it. There are always exceptions, like the item has sentimental value and you wish to have it slabbed to protect it, but then you could self-slab cheaper.
Just my opinion but I think I would learn a lot more about coins before I'd spend the money to have ANY TPG grade my coin.

 

I think I had someone on block and took them off in a change of heart over the coincorgi post last week and now regretting I did. Didn't start seeing this person again, but apparently they've been around. LOL we will try again I suppose it's been a couple years.

NGC and ANACS are unrelated business entities. you could argue about founders of these businesses, and them moving on to found competing businesses. but the businesses themselves are unrelated to each other.

As far as TPG ranking, it's very clear by sale prices, the "market" trusts,,, in this order:
1. PCGS
2. NGC
3. ANACS and ICG. My personal opinion, one is just as good as the other with these two for what they do, but resale values after grading aren't as high as NGC, and PCGS is even higher than NGC when you go to sell.

Just a fact, NOBODY wants to shell out the money for grading, to get 2nd best money on the return, or 3rd best money on the return, unless at a decent discount for the grading. The proof is in the pudding as the saying goes. You may have your biases, but the numbers are the proof.

As far as CAC or MAC, one is for older coins, the other is for Moderns. they provide a service on where a coin is solid or better for the grade it was given, it gets their approval sticker. Maybe you don't like their service, or you don't trust their service, or you don't think the opinion deserves the price bumps it gives the coin, that's fine, but many people do think the opinion matters and will pay for it. the fact is, there are low end MS65s and high end MS65s. within the grade and if the CAC Sticker means it's a high end MS65, which it does, people are willing to pay high end money for it. the same applies at every grade. theres top end that makes you say "why wasn't this graded higher?" and there is low end that makes you say "jeesh, what were they thinking, this is wrong."

and yeah, a POP1 or POP2 coin at top grade commands a significant premium over a coin that is POP423 in that grade. Why would anyone having a pop1 or pop2 top population coin take grade lower money or baseline for the grade, for it if they just sit tight and someone will come along and pay stupid for it? That's just capitalism in general, the way the world works, the richest can afford to spend stupidly on the nicest things that not everyone can have. It's how we end up with an economy and trickle down. LOL

NOW, I'd say a CAC sticker SHOULD increase the value of a coin against it's immediate peers, HOWEVER it shouldn't increase it's value into the grade above by any means, EXCEPT when it's a top population coin with few peers. At that point the sky is the limit really. yeah a normally $1K coin could take $4K or $6K to actually buy if you want that particular coin.

I don't like any of the grading companies, or the certifiers, I don't use their services, I may never use their services. But I at least recognize that a person is paying them for their opinion on their coins, and they provide that service for a fee, and there's clearly a market demand for that service. and prospective buyers are willing to pay more (or less) depending on which TPG has done it, and more (or less) with or without a CAC/MAC sticker on it.

 

Very interesting thread Been eating my popcorn this whole time.

 

John Burgess, posted: "NGC and ANACS are unrelated business entities. you could argue about founders of these businesses, and them moving on to found competing businesses. but the businesses themselves are unrelated to each other.

Good Post John. Clarification: The founders of NGC and PCGS NEVER, ever, had any connection with the founding of ANACS. They were probably too young at the time. However eventually, they were possibly members and big supporters of the ANA. I don't know for sure.

 

I think it all fell out of the ANA and their ANACS as a base model, and some randoms along the way with ideas on how to do it better and compete, possibly also part of the ANA to some degree.

But yes, Insider, you'd be correct, I can't really confirm where the connections are to tie them back really without knowing information I don't have.

I have to wonder if ANACS was the start of collectible authentication and grading in general, like did anyone do it earlier than ANACS in any of the other collectible fields, like cards or comics or stamps even??? Hmmmm I wonder... I know there were experts that would write opinions or give a COA, but wondering now if anyone was doing what ANACS did before ANACS did it...

 

How is it possible to be so wrong about everything.

 

You clearly seem to have very little idea about CAC and you really need to stop comparing CAC to random third party stickers.

 

You're confusing MAC with QA. QA has a little market acceptance

 

I kind of did have it a little confused. but still Macablege or MAC does Moderns also, same as QA. MAC is similar in what they offer at CAC but for Moderns, but without the "we will buy it" that CAC has, although I've never seen the price lists for what they would actually pay for a CAC stickered coin if CAC did actually buy it. No idea how that works or if it'seven done, I mean I can offer to do a lot fo things but until I actually do it, it's meaningless. anywho.

QA literally just gives you their opinion if your coin is "quality" for the grade it was given with a sticker.

I don't know. again I don't use these services, TPG or the verification companies, maybe one day I will use one or some, but I don't really have a need for the validation from any of them currently.

 

CAC is in an entirely different league, they're not even close. CAC doesnt do any of the designations and honestly I dont even know why other stickers are even in the discussion. CAC is the only one with wide spread market acceptance, Photo Seal is popular for Indian and Flying Eagle enthusiasts, and Wings/QA have a little bit of acceptance in their respective areas

 

I didn't mean they were the same service, or were accepted equally, I meant they offer the same type of service, a sticker as an opinion on a slabbed coin that someone else has already made an opinion on, if it's "top of the grade", CAC doesn't do Moderns, MAC and QA ONLY do moderns. both appeared in 2015-2016.
I wasn't trying to discuss market acceptance either. in time perhaps MAC or QA get that market share. CAC started in like 2007 or something.

Other stickers are in the discussion because CAC refuses to do anything with modern coins at all, so other companies have popped up to fill that void.

And totally unrelated, but on topic, the guy I was thinking about in the earlier post that was all over the place was John Albanese, co founder of PCGS in 1986, Founder of NGC in 1987, and founder of CAC in 2007. it all falls back to the ANA and coin dealers, a few dealers in particular, endorsements that are paid for, who advises who of what should or shouldn't be accepted on Ebay as "graded" (that was Albanese also) . I mean, I'm no conspiracy theorist but I am one.... Seems like this guy had it out for ANACS and/or thought he could do it better and made some money by making some competitors against them, then making CAC to double verify those select companies he founded for some more money basically to cherry pick the sweetest coins for him and David Lawrence.
Nothing against the guy, or his business sense, he figured a way into a lot of people pockets over the years. I'm alright with that. Just saying, Albanese would have been 13 when ANACS came on the scene, but, before he turns 30 he's an expert and founding companies to compete against them.... literally he appears in the hobby at 19, in 1978, and he's one of the biggest names out there 40 years later. I'm a bit jealous actually LOL!

 

QA is the one that only does moderns, the other does everything including world coins but there's really no reason to talk about it.

In general the more niche stickers get talked about the more someone may think its something the market desires. Theres only 4 stickers that the market as a whole have really shown any respect too with CAC being head and shoulders above the rest and 2 of those 4 almost no one seeks out but people say the coins with the stickers are generally nice.

 

CAC's biggest fault is to not even recognize other slabs, the market is dependent on more or less one single set of eyes.
This CAC bubble that most serious collectors live in drive the market. I would be poised if I was in the sticker business to take up the reigns, this single sided idea that only two businesses can get recognition?

Is that a monopoly or capitalism?

 

Well considering I suppose the two tpgs that CAC will recognize are the two the guy also founded. I don't know how it works now, but earlier on, John Albanese was the only person looking over coins to determine if they were getting a bean or not, and he also buys the coins he stickers, I guess it just boils down to him collecting a $5 fee to tag coins he'd like to handle at a future date if the owner wishes to sell.... kind of a preview. How he convinced people to pay for that service, no idea seems crazy to me that people don't see it for what it is, but there are appraisals that people pay for as "normal", but then again I suppose if it has a bean it puts the coin on the radar of John Albanese and David Lawrence and the likes, the heavy hitter coin dealers that pay and sell top dollar, so I suppose that's worth something when it comes time to sell.

A private owner in a capitalist system can have a monopoly, it can't happen in a free market system. So I'd have to say its both capitalism and a monopoly.

 

PCGS's marketing shenanigans get on my nerves. Trouble is, not only are they probably the most respected TPG, they have hands-down the most attractive slabs. Added to that, they enjoy the highest market premiums. This presents a real dilemma for me.

Unlike some, I find ANACS grading to be comparable to the big duopoly. But their slabs are ugly. Aesthetics matter.

 

I could get beyond the ugly slabs, and they could "modernize" also, what they can't seem to do is get a database worked out for what they have slabbed. maybe thats why they are cheaper than the others, I don't know, but I'd think if they had a decent database for the coins they grade, they'd probably get more respect than they do, however it holds strong as the "old guard". So maybe they aren't really looking for a bigger market share. Maybe just satisfied doing what they do as "good enough".