The photographs are the actual coin I purchased raw on eBay. I'm not an expert in gold coins particularly and have little experience with them compared to silver and copper. Based on these photos do you think they are likely to straight grade or get details graded and why? I sent it to SEGS for their grading expertise. In my last batch of coins I submitted to them, 6/11 failed to straight grade, one of them disqualified from encapsulation. They're tough graders these days.
@40_mila_kokkina Why would you send it to SEGS? Why not NGC, PCGS, ANACS or even ICG? Have you considered that it's not that SEGS is tough on grading, but that maybe you are more inexperienced on grading than you think? With all of the fake gold that is floating around, I would think that you would be very leery of buying raw gold on the internet, especially when you consider the submission record that you gave us. Chris
Chris, I've been a numismatist since I was in grade school and did lots of studying. I am almost 40 now. I've looked at many many coins but not so much in the way of gold, this is why I ask others here for an opinion. Sometimes I don't give my coins the time needed to see that they're totally original, so I have others do the work for me. I've looked at many coins graded by PCGS these days and am baffled how much they're missing when they regular grade obviously cleaned coins. I would personally never use them. Actually SEGS is doing great according to what they tell me, so great they're having difficulty keeping up with the orders coming in now. Maybe you ought to consider trying them out too and see what you think. Give them some tricky coins if you want assurance they're competent. Now yes there are plenty of fake gold coins but really there are plenty of fake coins of every kind now just about. I could tell this coin I purchased is at minimum genuine as I compared it against many others of the exact kind.
Now I have no problem with PCGS, NGC, ANACS or ICG but what makes only these four so great either? Just because eBay recognizes them only doesn't mean eBay knows everything. I like eBay but don't like them being the monopoly gatekeepers for what goes on related to the coin field.
So I sent SEGS an 1888 $10 Gold Eagle and it graded XF-40 Details Cleaned. It's not like they're SGS and can't tell the difference of a good coin from a problem one. I have no problem giving SEGS good coins for an honest opinion because it's usually a good accurate summary they give. Many services give a coin an 8-9 second review per grader. Not them.
"...according to what they tell me,..." How often do you hear a company bad-mouth themself? "...having difficulty keeping up with the orders..." Maybe their graders are taking too much time on each coin as you suggested. I've owned many coins graded by SEGS from Early Commems to Morgan dollars, and when I sold them, I made some nice profits. Why? Because I was able to buy them for prices below their actual value. It's okay if you're buying them to flip, but if you're submitting them for grading, it might be a losing proposition. Chris
I have some really nice coins in SEGS holders. If I had plans to sell them, they would be cracked out and sent to NGC or PCGS. As a normal, SEGS slabs don't bring strong prices.
Many collectors treat SEGS graded coins like raw coins. It’s not a matter of treating SEGS as a bad company; it’s just that they don’t have much influence in the market. I think that they can do a good job at spotting counterfeits, but their grading opinions don’t get much respect, even when they are correct. When I was a dealer I had an 1848-C $2.50 on consignment. I have forgotten the exact grade, but the coin was really nice for a Charlotte gold piece, something like MS-63. The owner wanted to net roughly $5,000 for it. At the same time a dealer had an 1848-C $2.50 in a PCGS MS-63 for which he wanted $20,000. It was a little better, but it wasn’t four times better. I sold the SEGS coin to a major dealer at a show. The PCGS coin sold too, probably for close to the $20,000 figure. What I am saying is if you have a really good coin, you might be leaving money on the table when you sell them in SEGS holders.
"SEGS is doing great according to what they tell me, so great they're having difficulty keeping up with the orders coming in now." --- Wow. Great reasons to use SEGS I guess instead of PCGS or NGC. (Not)
You will first have to determine if it is even gold or not, before taking the next step. If it's not, you will have to start the Ebay paperwork rolling, item not as described, counterfeit etc. Take photos of the coin when it arrives in and out of the holder/ packaging. How can Ebay determine, if the seller has made a switch, or, if the buyer has made a switch? Let's say it's fake and you email the seller and say: "This isn't even gold." Then, they say, "We sent you gold and you switched it, trying to scam us." When you start getting into expensive items this seems to be a problem. Anytime money is involved, anytime gold is involved, someone is always trying to cheat someone else. Greed. This has been going on for thousands of years.
Exactly what everyone is advocating. I've read it at least 1000 times on this forum to "Buy the coin and not the holder".
If much more than 10% of the coin market actually cared about the coin instead of the fancy slab it is in, then we would not be having this discussion. However, the posters here have to stoop to the reality that most of the coin market buys holders and shuns perfectly good coins simply becuse of the holder they are in. Thus it is much harder to get what the coin is actually worth if it is not slabbedby PCGS/NGC. A coin’s value is COMPLETELY dictated by what the graders at NGC/PCGS grade it (or might grade it), regardless of whether that grade is correct or not. Because they are inconsistent, raw/non-PCGS/NGC sell for far less than their true value because it MIGHT grade lower or “details.” This is particularly bothersome when the value doubles between, say, VF-35 and XF-40. This mentality is not condusive to enjoying a collection of raw US coins, much less buying/selling them.
As a dealer you can't pay as much for raw coin becuase you have to spend more money on it to sell it. When I was a dealer I bought things like 1909-S-VDB cents, 1916 Standing Liberty Quarters and 1877 Indian Cents raw and never got burned on them, but I had to pay to have them certified and I had to leave myself room in case the slab company low balled me on the grade. Believe me, it can happen. I would not sell a coin that has been heavily counterfeited like a 1909-S-VDB cent raw. There are too many hastles coin switching and claims that the piece is not genuine.
I agree. CAC is pretty much ended my market participation in the U.S. coin market. I love the coins I have, but can't allow CAC to dictate what goes into my collection. There are collectors who claim that they have sold every coin they had which was not approved by CAC and won't buy a coin unless it has CAC approval. To me that is just crazy.
However, that is exactly what the general public does when they categorically refuse to buy anything that isn't prepackaged in a PCGS or NGC slab. There are good coins in all brands of slabs...there are bad coins in all brands of slabs. There are even (gasp!!) good coins outside of slabs. Try to convince some people of that, though.