I've been watching these ridiculous coin shop at home shows for entertainment again. Recently I have seen NGC slabbed coins, that do not have a specific grade on the 70 point grading system. They are simply slabbed and graded as "Brilliant Uncirculated" or "Almost Uncirculated". Sounds kind of shady to me. Why would NGC grade coins like this? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the 70 point system, and TPG's? Whats up with that?
Hi Adam, Often times people will have a bunch of coins, say american silver eagles. Generally speaking they are in the ms 68-69 grade range, but you always get the bunch that don't meet the grade, which pretty much makes them scrap metal. However, if you slab them as "BU" or some other ambigious grade, someone new to coins will think, wow, that sounds awesome, and the coin looks nice, and they will buy it. It basically is a way for someone to turn junk coins, into something marketable. Just my 2 cents.
It's just a marketing ploy, PCGS does it too. Coin Vault pays them to do this, so they do. Someone who doesn't know any better pays to have their coins in plastic. The problem only comes when they try to sell them
Everyone pretty much hit the nail on the head. It's kind of like "well the coins are at NGC, might as well slab them and slap a label on there. Maybe we can sell them for 2x+ bullion".
I honestly don't know how they sell anything on those shows. I've caught it a couple of times but it's so slow and boring (and overpriced) that it's just irritating to watch.
I think NGC and PCGS cheapen their brand names when they participate in this sort of thing to make a few extra bucks. One of the first rules of business is, "protect the brand." They don't do that, and over time it will probably cost them dearly if someone ever starts up a new TPG with very high ethics and grading skill.
LOL! You guys pretty much confirmed my suspicions, that it is simply another marketing scheme. Cloudsweeper, I absolutely agree with you. And I don't understand why the TPG's with the best reputations would stoop to the lows of collaborating with these rip off tv shows. I guess everything has a price these days, even some people's integrity.
This does cheapen the grading services and I don't see why anyone would pay more than raw bullion prices for these.
