Grading Services

Discussion in 'US Coins Forum' started by SouthGal, Dec 25, 2007.

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  1. GDJMSP

    GDJMSP Numismatist Moderator


    Those things are totally meaningless. What would you be saying if you saw ICG or ANACS at the top of that list ? Think it doesn't happen ? Well it does. ICG has been at the top of that list many times, so has ANACS, so has NGC. I've seen PCGS place as low as 4th more than once and 3rd more times than I can count.

    There are reasons that PCGS coins sell for higher prices, the primary reason is that they had a better marketing campaign. People remember things like brand names. Another reason is that the majority of the people who use grading companies can't grade themselves, so they can't honestly compare coins graded by PCGS to other TPG's. Then you have the word of mouth issue - if you hear something enough times and from enough people you eventually tend to believe it. That doesn't mean it's true. Then of course you have the registry game, if you wish to participate in the PCGS registry your coins have to be slabbed by PCGS, they will accept no others. So there is great deal of competition among registry collectors to buy coins slabbed by PCGS. This raises prices all by itself. Then throw in the fact that NGC would not even slab modern coins, which by the way comprise the vast majority of all slabbed coins, until 2001. This meant that PCGS had a virtual monopoly on the modern coin slabbing market. Then throw in the 70 issue - PCGS hardly slabs any 70's. Or at least used to not slab any. Of course everyone would conveniently ignore the fact that PCGS would even admit that they refused to slab 70's. However they would never mention their quota system.

    You add all of these things together and you have a self perpetuating myth - that PCGS is the best and has the tightest grading standards. Horse puckey ! Learn how to grade yourself and do an honest comparison. You'll soon find out it's not true.
     
    GDJMSP, Dec 27, 2007
    #41 + Quote Reply
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  3. GDJMSP

    GDJMSP Numismatist Moderator

    Oh they have standards, it's not that they have something to hide - they've just never published them in book form. PCGS is the only TPG that has.
     
    GDJMSP, Dec 27, 2007
    #42 + Quote Reply
  4. Speedy

    Speedy Researching Coins Supporter

    Nothing too big---If I remember right, it was right around the same time the FSNC came out with their grading sys. and in there they also use 5FS and 6FS. Just to be fair--I think they were going along with what the market said. I have coins in slabs by NGC that are graded 5FS and 6FS---they could have just put MS67 FS, but they went a "step" beyond that!

    Speedy
     
    Speedy, Dec 27, 2007
    #43 + Quote Reply
  5. clembo

    clembo A closed mind is no mind

    Congratulations Speedy!

    You have just won the 2007 MOST HORRIBLE PUN OF THE YEAR AWARD!

    Tell him what he's won Vanna!
     
    clembo, Dec 27, 2007
    #44 + Quote Reply
  6. GDJMSP

    GDJMSP Numismatist Moderator


    I've never submitted a coin in my life clembo - to any TPG. But I have purchased thousands of slabbed coins and compared hundreds of thousands. I even used to go so far as to buy multiple examples of the same coin, date/mint, grade all slabbed by the differnt TPG's and then compare them.
     
    GDJMSP, Dec 27, 2007
    #45 + Quote Reply
  7. clembo

    clembo A closed mind is no mind

    Well,

    That makes total sense. Send me several thousand dollars (thinking high end six figures) and I'll do my own research. Hey, it will be educational! ;)

    clembo
     
    clembo, Dec 27, 2007
    #46 + Quote Reply
  8. GDJMSP

    GDJMSP Numismatist Moderator

    It'll be there second Tuesday of next week ;)
     
    GDJMSP, Dec 28, 2007
    #47 + Quote Reply
  9. Phoenix21

    Phoenix21 Well-Known Member

    OUCH! Lol, that was a good one. :thumb:

    Phoenix :cool:
     
    Phoenix21, Dec 28, 2007
    #48 + Quote Reply
  10. Speedy

    Speedy Researching Coins Supporter

    One bit of interesting tid bit---
    I was reading some back issues of The Portico, and noted that this change that NGC did was something that they had been working on for awhile. It seems that alot of those guys sent many emails to NGC requesting this change as they thought/think, it was and is needed. Their hope was to get NGC to go as far as SEGS has gone and to list the steps useing the FSNC's grading guideline---such as: 5-5-6-5, 4-4-5-5, 5-5-5-5, you get the point ;) More to come soon about that type of grading on VarietyNickels!

    Speedy
     
    Speedy, Dec 29, 2007
    #49 + Quote Reply
  11. vavet

    vavet New Member

    vavet, Dec 30, 2007
    #50 + Quote Reply
  12. Bonedigger

    Bonedigger New Member

    Bonedigger, Dec 30, 2007
    #51 + Quote Reply
  13. cwtokenman

    cwtokenman Coin Hoarder

    I don't deal with many different tpgs, as only a few have entered the cwt/exonumia market. NGC is by far the most prevalent, but I do not think they have read the entire book on how to correctly identify Civil War tokens. IMO, they perform rather sloppy work, frequently making id errors (I had seen groups of early NGC cwt slab offerings on ebay that consisted of an over 10% id error rate), and they also seem to have all too frequent problems just copying the merchant's name from the token to the label. A number of cwt ids have been 100% incorrectly identified by NGC, and I predict that trend will continue until someone there figures out how to read the book. If they can not be accurate with the definite (identification), I certainly have no faith in their guess at the subjective (grading).

    To answer the OP's question, I would say learn to do it well yourself and then you will have little to no need to pay others for their opinions.
     
    cwtokenman, Dec 30, 2007
    #52 + Quote Reply
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