This is interesting. I sent off several Morgans to Accugrade way back in 2000. I am in the process of completing my inventory of CC dollars to sell and came accross a slabbed ASA (accugrade) coin stated (printed in the holder) to be a 1889-O MS-64. I was thrilled to see the coin to add to the Carson City coins and key dates for a better selling price. Well, As I studied the coin per the instruction of the buyer, (a dealer) due to the (now to me) well known fact Accugrade coins are overgraded, The coin is minted 1899-O NOT 1889-O as the holder indicates. I called Accugrade only to learn that "human error" does happen. They want to charge me postage and a re-grading fee to fix their blunder. I would like to seek legal council to get my 1889-O MS-64 coin as they state I should have. Now knowing the mass problems with Accugrade coins, I think this is a fantastic coin to have in a coin shop to serve proof positive that Accugrade (in my humble opinion) sucks. I will still fair well in my collection, but I will never use Accugrade in the future.
You can do that, but you'd have to put a high value on being right in principle. Legal counsel of any kind would cost FAR more than the re-grading fee. It's best to either suck it up and pay the re-grading fee, leave it as is...or crack it out and send it elsewhere (knowing there's a good chance it won't come back 64). As for getting an '89-O instead of a '99-O, I'd take that up with the dealer. Careful -- you might get sued. A couple of months ago, I auctioned off a cleaned 1934-S Peace Dollar which was once entombed in ACG AU-50 plastic (with no mention of cleaning). I cracked it out and sent it to ANACS and they gave it the appropriate designation -- AU details, cleaned, net EF-40. In the spirit of the offering, I resolved to donate the proceeds to the ANA Legal Defense Fund, and I raised $200 for them by selling that POS.
This is not unusual. If it were one of the Big Four (ANACS, ICG, NGC, or PCGS), you might get obvious human error fixed at their expense. However, I believe that the fact is that if you read the fine print, they are not responsible for such mistakes. You start with a mistaken date and the next thing you know the collectors wants a higher grade because, well, "obviously the grader made a human error when they failed to see this coin for its true grade..." Again, you would have to read the actual wording of the contracts. I look to "fitness of use" exclusions in software. If you buy the hypothetical TaxLedger 2004 for Windows and you get audited and fined, you cannot come back on the software developer or the store that sold it. The licensing agreement says that the seller offers no warranty as to fitness of use or mechantability. It has become a tiresome cliche in the hobby for some people to rant about Accugrade and the Hagers. To me, this is just picking on the smallest sister: it makes the others feel prettier. In other words, there is nothing special about Accugrade for better or worse. If there is, it can only be a matter of degree, not of kind. Every grading service has problems. Every service makes mistakes. Every service issues opinions only -- as the largest has admitted in federal court -- and those opinions are argued by buyers and sellers. Again, an obvious blunder might be remediated as a matter of good will. I think you will find, however, that none of the Big Four does it as a matter of policy.
I sent coins to ICG and they forgot to slab them with the Intercept Shield. I called them, and they were very apologetic and gave me their Fed-X number and paid for the S&H to and from my home. Also, they gave me a credit for the mistake and didn't charge me. It took about a week to reslab the coins with the Intercept Shield. I was happy. They owned up to their mistake, fixed it and didn't charge me for it. Way to go ICG!
Well some companies appreciate the business given to them and some don't. The nice part is that we can share the good ones without fear of being sued. I wish more people would concentrate on sharing the good ones.
This is one of many reasons to appreciate ICG. I personally place them as the #1 firm in grading, though, perhaps the majority does not agree with me. I just came across an article by J. P. Martin written in French. You cannot find a better group of numismatists. I am not surprised that they value good will as an asset.
ICG overgrades very high-grade moderns in my opinion, but other than that I think they're every bit as good as any other service.
I've never used Accugrade and I find it very interesting to read about the experiences of others. Coin Talk has been a great learning experience for me.
