Grading Reform

If they were to reform grading what do suppose
it might entail and what might be the consquences?
For example:
A) Would an accepted entity such as PNG or ICTA
have to put forth new standards that they could all
agree on?
B) Would collectors or investors with big bucks tied
up in slabs resist that reform if it entailed more conservative
standards?
C) What would happen to price of existing slabs grading
on the "old system?"
D) How would the grading companies do with this? Would
it be be something like: Yeehaww, we're starting all over again!
E) Would it work? It certainly would not be the first time
grading was reformed.
F) Anything else that might pop out of the pandora's box?

 

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It's not likely to happen anytime soon but eventually coins will be graded on absolute standards. Each parameter will be measured independently. There will be only benefits from this except that pricing will be more difficult. But look at the mess with pricing now; coins in the same grade can vary 300% on the market. Worse yet, as collectors tastes change the grade also changes since it is market grading employed at the current time. After people understand the new system almost all coins will be sent in for regrading.

This change will be facilitated over the next several years as computer optics improve. It will start with moderns since they are much more readily graded on absolute standards since surface variations are less extreme.

 

The Evolution of Grading

Hello Longnine,

Keep an eye open for my grading report The Evolution of Grading it should explain my position well.

catman

 

I will Catman. But are you certain it's evolving?

 

I guess I will have to let you be the judge of that. It sure will give everyone a lot to talk about.

catman

 

I had you in mind, catman, when I clicked on this thread.

 

I don't know about that Doug. I try not to judge the ability of the other collectors. I have came across both sides. Thos who couldn't grade and thos who were really good at it.

The article I will be putting up is the evolution of grading as I saw it happen. The results as I see them and what I think needs to be changes. The last part of the article has real merit. However I will never turn my coins over to someone else to grade. If they can't produce a guide that everyone can use...I don't and won't deal with them. It like having someone come up to you and pat you on the back and say "Hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

catman

 

Your article still makes a lot of "sense" to me!!

 

You don't remember the three weeks of articles Coin Would ran regarding the 1943 Copper cent and shortly after the term "Market Value Grading" appeared..? Is that what your referring to..? I don't mind admitting when I'm wrong. Tell me where to look to find the term in use before this event.

catman

 

I work in the color measurement business. That is...an object is measured with a number of differant devices so that many factors are all consistent: light source, receiver, processor, etc.

You see my company's products in everything to Home Depot (match paints exactly) to Auto Body shops (match the front panel to the side panel), to printed ads (Coke owns their color red so it better be the same red from ad to ad).

Before, it used to be done with the human eye and one person's opinion of what is the color was not necessarily the same as the next person. Necessity produced these accurate devices and I see a day when laser scanning and color measuring devices will "grade" a coin without all the variables that we argue about.

You can change the grading scale all you want, but as long as human subjectivity is involved, people will always disagree.

I have seen this technology work with other industries and my co-workers tell me they have "bigger fish to fry" than dealing with the numismatic community. I have seen a state quarter laser scanned for all of its detail and reproduced on a milling machine...just for demonstration purposes!

If a perfect coin is "X" and deviations from a specific data point would then be "Y", the greater the difference, the lower the grade. Until that day, I will lobby those in these industries that the coin community needs this, so I guess until that day, we only have our opinions.

 

"In my opinion far too many of us THINK we know
what we are doing when it comes to grading."---G.D. Prather WINS article.

I agree with that GDJMSP. How do any of us know
that we are correctly grading coins? If you grade a
slab with the grade covered up and arrive at the same
number as what is on the slab, it does not mean you
graded it correctly. You may have assigned too much
weight to one factor and too little to another for a wash.
And you will never know that because all your *allowed* to
see is a single net grade number. Learning to market
grade? Learning anything is a matter of making mistakes
and correcting those mistakes. How does one correct a
mistake if they can never find out if a mistake was made?

Net grading is the darling of speculators who don't want to know
and don't want to learn. And since we are now
told *relentlessly* that the so called bull market is collector
driven and not speculator driven, then maybe it's time the
grading companies stop acting like a bunch of medieval
alchemists, clutching parchments to their chests, and start
giving us some real information. Information that we can actually
learn something from and are actually entitled to have.
Since information is what we are actually paying them for.

Of course, that might not be in their best economic interest.

 

No Doug that's not what I mean. I don't think the grading servives should be grading at all. If they want to put a coin in a slab they should simply authenicate it and that is all. No collector I know can carry around a computer to figure out how to grade a coin or if the dealer or other collector has graded it correctly. Its just not practical. Which Grading System do you use,?

catman

 

Droped into this thread and there for a minute I thought I was back at Coin World! I've traveled this road before and will let you guys hash it out again if you want to. You got some new blood here, and it could be interesting.

 

"there must be a method and reason as to why they came up with the conclusion
they did"

Opinions loosely based on changing standards.