PCGS "Old Green Holder" - Price Premium

Do the graders at those services make so much money that we can assume they're not going to self-deal on grades? When the amounts of money in question- separating a 64 and a 65- can be extraordinary? And there's not only no chance of being 'caught', but there's literally nothing to 'catch'?

If anything, the faith the markets put in those grades (particularly high end mint states) is just naive... The fact it's all based on the absolute voo-doo that is the Sheldon Scale and it's so entrenched that it's never going away, well, you don't get what you pay for. Ya get what ya deserve.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

In general yes. Every generation

That’s not true at all. Plenty of people that know exactly what they are doing place a premium on them for various reasons. Wanting a set in all of those, showing stability in color/toning, showing stability in general, just liking them better etc. Those holders themselves have some collectibility aspect as well though other versions have significantly higher premiums

They could stop grading Classic US coins this second and be perfectly fine. This is such an internet driven myth that they need crackouts and regardes to survive. They could easily live off moderns and world coins

 

I wonder if they ever did such a study. Obviously most Classic coins are desirable to have represented under their own label , even though much fewer in number compared to the many more modern coins which are commonly lesser priced and considered "real coins" .

If I was in ownership I would suggest spinning off separate entities such as Classic ( TPG name) Coin Gems and Modern ( TPG name) (1940 to Current) Gems if it came to the need to diversify.

Heck, maybe even starting a Graded Facsimile Grading ( GFG) for all of the others not originally made by the countries mint..

Jim

 

Well, if I were you, whatever I had absolute confidence in upgrading, I would send them back in for review and either upgrade or crossover. I had one cross over and jump 2 grades from the old slab. Don't be afraid of leaving in the slab. If it deserves an upgrade, they'll give it an upgrade. I'd want the old grade firm as a base line. Piggyback with someone else or a dealer when sending to save costs.

 

It’s easy to see. Collectors Universe is publicly traded and you can actually see PCGS financials including the international office revenue. Even easier than that is the population report. For PCGS ASEs are about neck and neck if not already surpassed Morgan’s (which there’s no shortage left to grade) as the most graded coin with each accounting for over 3 million coins. World population reports are quickly rising as more and more keep coming in.

There’s no shortage of coins left for them to grade and still plenty of people cracking out coins for albums that will eventually make their way back giving an even larger amount left to grade. Both PCGS and NGC have been expanding their world offices over the last several years as well and there’s still large untapped areas for that that could potentially be ventured into in the future. Neither the PCGS or NGC parent companies rely solely on them for revenue either. Both groups are on very firm ground for the future and neither needs to do gimmicks like changing the grading scale or anything like that to get revenue.

 

I don't think we've seen all the Old Green Holders on the market by any stretch of the imagination. I'm sure there are collections out there that have been sitting undisturbed by the buying public ever since they were graded.

 

The problem with the Coin World study was they sent each coin to each service ONE time. No measure of consistency in grading or of the possibility of grading changing over time. Just a one shot for each service. They did find greater consistency between services for the MS coins, but the circulated coins were all over the map from one service to another.

One interesting out come though was that if you took the range of grades assigned for each coin and determined and "average" grade from that range, there was one company whose grade that hit that average on every single coin.

Accugrade

This is true, and the EAC community where it arose tried for years to tweak it and make it work. Finally scrapping it as unworkable. A few years later the ANA saddled the rest of the numismatic community with it.

And since the forgeries are getting so good they now need the specialist collectors to identify the fakes that they have slabbed as genuine.

 

Only in extreme cases and at least one has already taken steps to combat it. By no means is that a usual occurrence or are the inept at spotting fakes

 

Pretty much all of the recent hyper-fakes have gotten past the TPGs before they were spotted by the specialist collectors. There are few numismatists, if any, who could have spotted them all without knowing exactly what to look for.

 

While it’s true no one could pick up every single one first time it was ever seen, there have been a lot more tried than the few that got through. PCGS is the only one that shows their statistics and in the last 12 months they’ve had over 16k fakes, it’s a pretty safe bet that a number of those were these super die transfer ones.

Early copper seems to be especially susceptible as you can easily corrode and damage them etc and it looks just like a lot of the real prices normal life. On the bright side at least there’s a guarantee if one does.

 

Your post initiated a lot of replies. Please keep us informed on what you do with your coins. Thank you.

 

Which is just so unfortunate as the market-gravity is now such that its pretty much impossible to collect higher value coinage without engaging aftermarket grading.

There's always been a pretty good opportunity for people who strong grading instincts, to buy undergraded raw and submit for fun and profit. With high level fakes, that market is basically gone now unless you're a super-mega specialist and can recognize the most subtle (and unknown to a Google search) die indicators or you're a serious gambler and willing to take the large downside risk for small upside reward.

 

I had a friend who made it his business based on his eye for several years. He has an eye for silver roosies and georges.

He looked at proof and mint sets from the 50s and 60s.

If he found one superb or 2 really nice coins in one he would buy it. When he had enough of each date he would send them off.

Made a killing on high grade registry bait.

I'm not saying that the massive inflation in really high end coins there is totally due to one guy... But he had to give it up when he realized he cleaned out the entire state.

Except for onesie twosies that come to market from an estate... Pretty sure any proof set you're offered in the 3 state area is one of his rejects...

FWIW, he's moved on to hanging paper. Easier on the back.

 

My old green holder is shown at the top of the pic. I can increase the value of any coin in a slab by transferring it from a newer blue holder (bottom of pic) to the OGH.

Cal