@Conder101 Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the major TPG's employ 2 or 3 graders in the process to grade each coin? If that is the case, then Coin Wisher is way off base. Chris
In which case you now have to bribe at least three graders and get the submission router to send the submission to each of them in turn. So now you are up to having to bribe five people making it more and more expensive and it is becoming less and less likely.
Who does the final entry of the grade given by the 2 or 3 graders, and how much decision process is there in that step? Does that person have any information about the owner of the coin, or the size of the submission, or about the value of the coin and the swing factor for each grade? Is there a quality check after that step to ensure proper (or perhaps improper) grade is assigned?
Bribing - I guess it could happen. Anyway the biggest ripoff occurs on ebay as far as I am concerned - with people not always understanding what they are doing. Then you have coin shows - which sell over priced items in my opinion. Even then you can get coins that are overgraded from a tpg - but not sure it would be attributed to a bride. Could be just an honest mistake. All just my opinion.
I see the flood of Chinese counterfeits to be much more concerning than the potential of bribery would ever be. If our new member police officer would really like to help the hobby, this would be the place to start.
If you have questions concerning integrity of the "premier" TPG, just do diligent research on grading standards for the TPG that now have a secondary service grading (i.e. pass/fail) their efforts. I believe you'll find the secondary service accepts far less than 50% of the TPG product as being a proper grade representative for established standards. JMHO
True, but that was just straight up fraud from multiple sources and even their accounting firm was covering it up.
Point being Enron is an extreme example that is unlikely to repeat anytime soon given how that turned out for all involved and that one of the largest accounting firms in the industry destroyed their business over it. There was also a lot more revenue at stake than is involved with the TPGs. The other point is Enron worked in the energy field where companies aren't built on trust there like with the TPGs, energy companies are built by supplying a need.
In my opinion the biggest chance of finding a crook would be in the mid-level or lower auction houses. From shill bidders bumping up the prices of their own coins to selling varieties as regular coins to their hepped up minions then getting them attributed properly and reselling them. That is if they don't merely skim off the key dates while they are "appraising" them all happen way too often. The top level auction houses would not be directly involved in any of that stuff but they sometimes fall victim to crooked employees who don't care about the damage they do to their boss' reputation.
That individual grader that's the way I would start....I'm also surprised the grader gets paid well that's a big point
The top level auction houses reserve the right to bid on anything they are auctioning, I am not sure if Legend does as well as far as the elite auctions are concerned. Before anyone says GC, I don't consider them to be on par with the elite houses
