I would think the goal would be to cross as many of the high-end coins as possible, with the end game being to have all nice coins in PCGS slabs and leave the junk to NGC. But yeah, seeing stats on how many they actually crossed, even just at that one "event" would be interesting to say the least!
Well, I would expect that PCGS was slammed, too! After all, they are headquartered in California. That would mean a faster turn-around whether submitted for the special or not. I live about 2 hours south of NGC, so my turn-around is always fast, and over the course of 8 years at FUN, NGC was always extremely busy. For almost two years, NGC was running a Morgan dollar special at the shows they attended with 24-hour turn-around (onsite grading) for $30. Naturally, they were slammed, too. Promotion is everything! Chris
Eh. The differences between the two companies are in marketing. PCGS used to be the only ones at every coin show and they have an excellent Public Relations team. But NGC is now just as good (if not slightly better) with marketing and P.R. Give it a little and coins holdered by both companies will bring the same prices. Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk
This is not a good scenario for the industry, or in the end collectors who use these services. Taking slabs and TPG's out of the discussion, you need to have at least a couple competitors who are regarded as the top in any industry and who are on close to level competition grounds. If there are no checks and balances from a competitor it could have a negative effect on product and pricing (higher prices) as complacency could set in since they get cocky because of their previous reputation. The playing field is likely to level out a little more between PCGS and NGC, as I think it has a little already - NGC already seems more accepted as a close competitor to PCGS, at least in the recent past I've been exposed to it. Although PCGS still commands the price premium on resale, I think their pricing structures creeping up are going to send more folks over to NGC not only because it's considerably cheaper, but the quality is deemed acceptable for the price and the product at least right now. For example I can get a coin graded with variety for roughly 30 bucks at NGC, meanwhile I'm around 50 bucks at PCGS. That's a significant difference over even as little as 5 coins. Enough to make me seriously consider NGC, even given the lower possible resale, if I'm considering more than one coin like that. The more money and coins that flow into NGC, the more experience they'll get with the coins, and the more higher-level expertise graders they'll be able to hire, and thus their product should continue to improve. That translates into better all around for us, competitive pricing for the grading, and better resale from either so it's less of a gamble.
