Third Party Grading vs. You, the Amatuer

I'm not so good at determining the grading of a coin based on somebody else's scale, but I know what coins I like. I won't pay any extra for somebody else's grading opinion. That being said, on some coins where a large amount of value is at stake, I would probably get a slabbed coin for the sake of a proffesional opinion on authenticity (say Trade Dollars, especially since this are commonly faked). Otherwise I buy almost all my coins raw anyway. Just my preference.

 

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cwtokenman, I always enjoy your posts. Very informative about an area of the hobby where good information is hard to obtain.

 

I am not qualified to be a TPG grader for a "real" service. If I were I wouldn't be sitting here typing this.

There have been some excellent points made here. There are VERY few people that can stand up to a professional.
Dealers that I feel are at last close to being qualified are dealers I like to buy from.

When I started getting back into coins about 15 years or so ago I wouldn't grade a coin PERIOD! I trusted the dealer that I really frequented back then and luckily he's strict in his grading. I still go to him and he taught me a lot about grading.
One of those guys that enjoys sharing information you know? I'd bring in coins that I won on ebay with my idea of a grade (after he convinced me to get an ANA guide) and then he'd give his opinion. Usually we'd match but I'd take his opinion over mine if in disagreement.
I trust his honesty and experience.

One can look at how grading has changed over the years as well. I think I'm pretty good at grading 2 Cent Pieces (especially circulated). Why? - because I've dealt with them extensively.
Used to be I'd look at a coin with easy F+ details but no real WE visible and call it a G4. Same coin would probably slab at VG10 or higher and I've adjusted my thinking on that.
So now you're getting into variables such as strike, die states etc.

A professional has a lot more knowledge over a much broader spectrum that the average collector or even dealer.
Ask me to grade a Peace Dollar and I'll run away.
Never could grade them, don't collect them so my knowledge is horrible when it comes to grading them.



GRADING IS SUBJECTIVE: This is true but three of the uglier words I think one can string together. It is used all too often by those that "subjectively" over grade for sheer profit. I think you know where I'm going here - the MS67 coin that is really an AU55 but planting the MS67 "seed" sucks in the truly clueless.


I'm comfortable with my grading and buy mainly raw coins because of this. This in NO WAY makes me comparable to a professional grader.

 

Thanks for the compliment cloudsweeper. To illustrate a few of my bones of contention with them, I need only look at a few current cwt offerings on ebay housed in NGC slabs. It irks me that these "professionals" have not yet figured out how to use the numbering system, and it is really not that hard to comprehend. In fact, the Fulds developed such a good numbering system for cwts, that many other areas of token collecting have adopted the same or a similar system, depending upon their particular needs.

The id system for storecards consists of:
the appropriate state's initials in upper case,
a three digit number designation for the appropriate town (numbers can be used only once per state, but can be used again in other states),
a upper case letter assignment (starting with A)for each merchant within that town, followed by a dash,
a series of numbers, begining with 1, listing each reverse die, die pairing, or variation of a plain or reeded edge, for that merchant's name,
last is a lower case letter to designate the metal used.

The system used for patriotic tokens is much simpler:
a 1, 2 or 3 digit number to designate the obverse die use, followed by a forward slash,
a 1, 2 or 3 digit number to designate the reverse die use,
a lower case letter to designate the metal used.
some die numbers may be followed by an upper case letter, these letters are part of the die identification number. I suspect that these dies were added to the system after the initial number assignments had been made, so in order to group them with similar style dies, the upper case letter was added to keep them together. The lower numbered die is always considered to be the obverse.

In looking at NGC ids on their slabs in active ebay auctions, here are a couple of id examples as they appear on the slab labels:
NY F-890E-5B
F-345A-4D
F-18/300 A

I can't figure out what that "F" is that always appears in NGC cwt ids. My only guess is that it indicates the "Fuld" system, but since they don't really follow the Fuld system, I am not sure. Note that the second id, which was for a storecard, failed to include the appropriate state's initials. You would think that for an R-10 (1 known) token, they would try not to make a mistake on the id number. Note also that none of the above id number include a lower case letter as the metal designator. NGC is alone in using the system that they do, but I can not tell you if they intentionally created it on their own, or just don't know how to use the system that essentially all cwt collectors use. If they are trying to use the Fuld system, they need to re-read the parameters of the id system and follow them so that they look more like they know what they are doing. They could also drop the "F", since the Fuld system has been widely used since the 1960s. Before that, the Hetrich & Guttag system was in use, but it was a considerably different system, and was not near so complete as Fuld's, so it was quickly abandoned about 40 years ago.

As far as their attributions, again, I feel they could do a better job, although they may have improved over the past year without my being aware of it, since I now ignore most slabbed cwt auctions as they are likely to go for way more than I feel they are worth, so I simply do not waste my time viewing them. There are some photos of the dies that were mismatched to a die number. It is those error matchings of picture and die number that NGC has not come to realize, and hence, any attribution they made using those particular die photos, were in error, and continue to be in error. I would think that "professionals" should be aware of such things, especially when the errors and accompanying corrections were noted in the exact same book that the die photos are in. All they need to do is read the book. At home, I admit to not always reading the instructions (OK, most of the time I don't), but at work, I always do.

I had mentioned before about errors of copying a merchant's name from the token to the label in the slab. Collectors of regular coinage may think "what's the big deal over that?" The big deal is that it is not an extremely rare thing for an issuer of a cwt to have several spellings of his name on his various tokens. Apparently some diesinker's were not too good/careful with spelling, and after making and delivering a number of tokens to the merchant, the merchant may have insisted on correctly spelling his name, or his city's name on future tokens. A spelling variation of a merchant's name requires a different id number for that token, hence, how a name is spelled has significant meaning. When features like a name are incorrectly copied from the token to the slab label, my perception is that the slab is a product of sloppy work. See enough examples of sloppy work, and what is one to think?

I realize that the time a grader has to grade is only a few seconds. If that is true for those grading cwts, and if that person is also is doing the attribution, they are setting themselves up for certain failure. If that is the case, then I do applaude them for the level of work that they do, even with all of the errors, as I can easily spend a few minutes just on the attribution of some tokens. I compare the die photo to my tokens very closely, as not all dies are listed, even after 140+ years. I have perhaps a dozen and half unlisted cwts as the result of my examinations, and I admit that I am somewhat proud of that. One of them was even in an NGC slab, a victim of a poor attribution for whatever reason. That particular merchant had only one variety listed in the book, and that was the id on the label. I am sure that the attributor never bothered to verify the reverse die was the listed one. Since I was closely checking out slabs at the time, when I went to verify the id on the label and saw the listed reverse die number in the book, I knew immediately that the token was incorrectly identified and was unlisted. Not bragging, but I have identified so many cwts, that I know the id, or am within a die number or two (on the very similar ones) without looking at the die photos, not counting the seldom seen ones.

I could continue, but the above examples should adequately convey what I am trying to point out. While my skills are by no means perfect, I feel the tpgs, in my area of interest at least, are considerably less perfect, even to the point of making mistakes that rank beginners might not even make (assuming they read the book(s)). I have seen way too many id errors to have any faith in the tpg's abilities to accurately perform that task. If I can not trust them to even tell me what I have, and then factor in the extreme range of minting practices, materials, diesinker's abilities, and overusage of dies, how could I possibly trust them to tell me how good it is?

 

i simply don't have the experience of a professional grader. i will only buy a coin in which i agree w/ both price and grade (slabbed or not). however , when collecting, i am not on a timetable in which i am forced to grade the coin in a certain amt of time, or to have a production goal required. i have read, if memory serves me, that David Hall would make a decision on whether to buy a coin or not, in 20 seconds. have also heard rumors that graders who work for the services have to make a decision w/in a similar amt of time. i can say that i am not nearly as efficient or confident in my grading skill to do that.