I have been looking at later year (2008-2010) Kennedy Silver half dollars with a 70 rating from NGC and PCGS. If I look at teletrade historical pricing over the last year, PCGS coins have been selling for about $120+, which NGC have been selling for about $30-40. NGC's cert verification uses Numismedia pricing for their evaluation, which doesn't have 2010 yet so I could understand a price disconnect there, but for previous years the pricing is comparable. Aren't these two grades supposed to be the same?
The two grades are the same. Unfortunately there are too many uneducated people out there who think that PCGS is tougher on grading when in reality they are not.
PCGS coins almost always trade for a higher premium over NGC coins. Modern commems, silver eagles, ETC are very prone to this
I believe PCGS coins trade higher, because they use higher values on their cert verification and price guides. If you compare the prices they list versus the past sales (on their site) you can see their prices are inflated. I believe the NGC prices are more accurate, since they are retrieved from Numismedia Fair Market Value. So I think I'll buy NGC PF70UC for $30, pay the cost to cert them through PCGS and then sell them for $150. That would be $100 round trip gain.... it would probably more than cover the risk that PCGS grades them less than PR70DCAM.
