Thoughts on cabinet friction from a professional grader.

Discussion in 'US Coins Forum' started by TypeCoin971793, Apr 26, 2019.

  1. TypeCoin971793

    TypeCoin971793 Just a random guy on the internet

    Same here.
     
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  3. GDJMSP

    GDJMSP Numismatist Moderator

    Yup, perfect example of how badly they over-grade coins - in both cases !

    Wear is wear, doesn't matter what causes it it's still wear. And if it has wear - it can't be MS. And no matter who it is that looks at it - there is no definitive way they can tell what it was that caused the wear. Sure they can guess, they can even make an educated guess - but a guess is still just a guess. Bottom line, the guess is just an excuse to over-grade coins.
     
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  4. Lehigh96

    Lehigh96 Toning Enthusiast

    So what, there is no definitive way to tell about the originality of toning either, but we use our best guess looking at indicators on the coin to decide if the toning is market acceptable. The TPGs do the exact same thing here. That second Saint shows only extremely minor friction at the exact places where the coin touches other coins when stacked and displays no other signs of wear at all. In other words, every indicator on this coin points to it being a mint state coin.

    Are you saying that since we can’t definitively determine the originality of toning that we should consider all toned coins problem coins with either environmental damage or questionable color?
     
  5. GDJMSP

    GDJMSP Numismatist Moderator

    Not at all, and what's more you know I'm not.

    The definition of a mint state coin is and always has been a coin that has no wear - period. So to say that this coin has wear, but it's still MS because that wear may have been, might have been, could have been caused by X - and certify it as such - it's the most ludicrous idea I ever heard of !

    It's like saying that mule over there is actually a horse because it was raised on such and such a ranch, and that ranch only raises horses - so that mule has to be a horse and we'll certify that it is ! But anybody who looks at it, can plainly see that it is a mule.

    The one and only reason that the TPGs get away with doing it is because people are willing to accept their certifications as having some kind of real meaning - when they really have no meaning at all.

    And toning, well at least with toning they don't even try to get people to believe that they can tell AT from NT. They tell you flat out - this is our best guess, but that's all it is, a guess.

    But they don't do that with grading, they don't do that at all. They say flat out, it IS a horse - when anybody with any sense at all would know it is a mule !
     
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  6. Lehigh96

    Lehigh96 Toning Enthusiast

    That entire post was junk, there is one simple reason why the TPGs don’t follow you little “wear is wear” philosophy:

    The two Saints I posted both have high point friction but are of vastly different quality, and it is wrong to grade them the same.
     
  7. Pickin and Grinin

    Pickin and Grinin Well-Known Member

    This is only an excuse for what you feel should be acceptable. More power to you, none here are condemning you, or forcing you to accept it. But as far as what is written about circulated and uncirculated conditions, both the coins are AU.

    An AU is an AU. The market should decide the value of the coin, not the grading company's. To see this coin as a 67 CAC is absolutely ludicrous. I thought I was gonna see a 63 to 65 on the slab, but a 67? Tell me you don't see that as an overreach by both of them?
     
  8. TypeCoin971793

    TypeCoin971793 Just a random guy on the internet

    No, it is wrong to value them the same. Not a single person worth their salt would disagree. However, due to misinformation, we live in a market that can’t get past the holder and believes that lower grades have to be worth less. If grades were not assigned, we would not be having this argument because this problem would not exist.
     
  9. Lehigh96

    Lehigh96 Toning Enthusiast

    So somebody wrote a rule along time ago that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. The TPGs made an “exception to the rule” in order to fairly grade a large group of coins, and you guys freak out. The simple fact is that the “wear is wear” philosophy doesn’t work. Allowing for roll friction is a solution to the problems created by “wear is wear” and represents progress in how we grade coins. You guys wanna pretend it is still 1975, be my guest.



    So PCGS and CAC think that Saint is a solid MS67, but some dude on a coin forum who doesn’t collect Saints and hates the TPGs thinks the assigned grade is ludicrous. The fact that you thought that coin might reside in an MS63 holder is an indictment of your grading skills, not a valid criticism of PCGS.

    I don’t have the money to collect gem grade Saints so my only real experience is scrolling through pages of them online and wishing they were mine. The coin in question is one of the finest I have ever seen, and I have no problem with the assigned grade.
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2019
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  10. Lehigh96

    Lehigh96 Toning Enthusiast

    I know you are young but have you ever heard the idiom “don’t throw the baby out with the bath water?”

    Eliminating grading would cause infinitely more problems than it would solve. It’s astonishing that you don’t understand that.
     
  11. Insider

    Insider Talent on loan from...

    So PCGS and CAC think that Saint is a solid MS67, but some dude on a coin forum who doesn’t collect Saints and hates the TPGs thinks the assigned grade is ludicrous. The fact that you thought that coin might reside in an MS63 holder is an indictment of your grading skills, not a valid criticism of PCGS.

    I don’t have the money to collect gem grade Saints so mey only real experience is scrolling through pages of them online and wishing they were mine. The coin in question is one of the finest I have ever seen, and I have no problem with the assigned grade.

    :jawdrop: I'm also some dude on a coin forum who doesn’t collect Saints. IMO, the coin is a 66 in spite of the CAC and slab. Liberty too scruffy for me, but when you grade these w/o magnification...:greedy::D:p
    That said, note the "Pedigree" on the label. I guess that :wacky: was good for the grade bump. I'd like to see the reverse.
     
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  12. Lehigh96

    Lehigh96 Toning Enthusiast

    No, you are a professional grader who has probably seen thousands of Saints in your career. And your grade of MS66 merely shows the inherent subjectivity in grading. That said, you haven’t seen the coin in hand, just photos, and if you had a chance to evaluate the coin in hand, perhaps exemplary luster might be the reason for the assigned grade rather than a reward for provenance.
     
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  13. TypeCoin971793

    TypeCoin971793 Just a random guy on the internet

    There are no grading standards whatsoever in ancient coins, and approximate grades are given just for cataloguing purposes. Guess what? Everything still works out fine. Nicer coins sell for more, as they should. There are dealers who have thousands of different types in different grades, and they never spend hours pricing each coin. Researching prices works just fine without grades. The only ones who can’t (or don’t want to) see that are those who are addicted to the convenience or those who invest tons of money into single-point differences. Of course it matters to them.

    Here’s a thought experiment: say the two double eagles were put up on the auction block with no reference to grade. What do you think would happen? I would be very surprised if the nicer of the two did not sell for multiples of the other. In the holders, the “MS-67” is worth about 5 times the “AU-58.” Does that seem wholly unreasonable?

    By the way, the whole “get rid of the grading system” thing is simply a thought experiment. There is no practical way to implement it in the US coin market with the market share the TPGs have. I thought I have already said this, but I guess you missed it. I know to you ancients are worthless and irrelevant. But I make the comparison because the ancients market has the same problems you would have in the US market without numerical grading (more-inconvenient price research, for example), and it gets along just fine. It actually self-fixes the assigning-higher-value-to-premium-coins problem quite naturally. By extrapolation, the US coin market would do just fine as well.
     
  14. BuffaloHunter

    BuffaloHunter Short of a full herd Supporter

    This whole discussion reminds me of a coin show I attended many years ago in Vegas. One dealer had nothing but gold in his cases. I bet he had over a hundred common date Saints, all graded the same - MS63. Many were priced at what should have been the going rate for a MS63 Saint at the time, but there were others that were priced higher. He had priced the better looking ones (coins that now would probably grade gem or higher) accordingly.

    I completely agreed with what he was doing and feel that the point @TypeCoin971793 is trying to make is valid as well. The market will iron out the pricing aspect on its own. If the TPG's would stick to the STANDARDS that are written on their own web pages, crack outs and resubmissions would soon come to a halt as well. When the AU coin keeps coming back AU but still sells as though its MS**, the market has done its job.
     
  15. Jaelus

    Jaelus The Hungarian Antiquarian Supporter

    This issue with the Saints highlights the real problem here; the absurdity of singling out wear as somehow being supremely special over all other detrimental surface conditions.:rolleyes:

    This bias against wear is the reason why experienced numismatists come up with nonsense grades when comparing the two coins. Replace the very light wear in your mind with a hit or other condition of comparable severity. There is no difference.:banghead: Wear is not special.
     
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  16. TypeCoin971793

    TypeCoin971793 Just a random guy on the internet

    If NGC and PCGS come out and publicly make that their official standard, then I would be okay with that. As said previously, standards evolve over time, but what makes them standards is that they are clearly defined as a reference to compare to. The current TPGs’ published standards do not indicate this, so they are violating their very own standards.
     
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  17. baseball21

    baseball21 Well-Known Member

    So whats the excuse otherwise?
     
  18. Pickin and Grinin

    Pickin and Grinin Well-Known Member

    What is evident is that as the company's bend their own standards you bend in order to keep up. Either you are one limber dude, or you see a chiropractor daily. Tell me this when that same Chiro puts on the glove and tells you to bend over, are you gonna just do what he says?

    I don't hate the TPG's but as already said, they do not follow their own grading standards. I refuse to condone any company that says one thing and does another. Gem used to mean something, and it surely isn't what they say it is today.
    The writing is on the wall you can be the problem or be part of the solution.
    Something needs to change either the written standards or the lack of sticking to them.
     
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  19. Lehigh96

    Lehigh96 Toning Enthusiast

    You can parrot Doug’s line that the TPGs have changed their grading standards all you want. Here is what I’m telling you. In my chosen series, Jefferson Nickels, I see no discernible change in standards over the last 25 years. I routinely buy Jefferson Nickels in old slabs and they look identical to the coins graded in the last few years. In all my years of buying and selling Jeff’s, I’ve had only one coin that upgraded two grades.

    You guys love to point at the exceptions or what you consider egregious grading errors and you conveniently forget about thousand upon thousand of coins that are graded accurately.

    Furthermore, the topic of this thread isn’t about overall grading standards, it is about the implementation of a market grading exception, the allowance of high point friction for coins with Cabinet/Roll friction, to right a wrong in the grading system. I have always contended that it is these type of advancements in market grading along with the inherent subjectivity in grading that is responsible for gradeflation, not a deliberate loosening in overall grading standards. I stand by that.
     
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  20. GDJMSP

    GDJMSP Numismatist Moderator

    Wear is wear. It absolutely holds up to scrutiny. And the reason it does is because it is the only rule/definition of MS that does hold up to scrutiny ! Which of course is why it was chosen to be the definition - its very simplicity is pure genius. Because it either is or it isn't - there are no maybes.

    No, they didn't make up an exception to "fairly grade" a large group of coins. They made up the exception for one reason and one reason only - to give people (their customers) the grades they wanted on their coins. And it wasn't for only one large group of coins either - they apply the very same exception to a great many other coin types as well !

    Yes it does, and it works very well. And it is the only philosophy that does work ! Why ? Again, simplicity. It's because there is absolutely no way to distinguish wear from actual circulation from wear caused by roll friction, cabinet friction, stacking friction, album friction, or any other kind of friction. That's because all friction/wear is simply friction/wear. IT ALL LOOKS EXACTLY THE SAME !

    And don't try and give me this nonsense that one can tell the difference because coins used in actual circulation get contact marks, hairlines, or scratches on them and coins not in actual circulation don't. That's horse puckey ! Coins can get all those things on them when they fall from the press into the hopper; when the hoppers are moved around, when the coins are bagged, and when the bags are moved - all of which happens long before the coins ever see actual circulation.

    And then there's that one other problem that simply cannot be denied, and that glaringly points out why the TPG exception DOES NOT work. What is it ? The simple fact that you can find coin after coin, in actual circulation - that has no wear on it ! That's why a coin being in actual circulation simply cannot be the defining factor to distinguish an MS coin. And that is precisely the reason used to "validate" the TPG exception - they claim these coins were never in actual circulation therefore they are MS.

    Well, that would all be well and good except for all those other coins that were in actual circulation but yet still are MS because they have no wear on them !

    There is only one "problem" created by wear is wear - people, collectors and dealers, simply don't get the grades they want on their coins. That is the one and only reason they don't want to use it !
     
  21. Pickin and Grinin

    Pickin and Grinin Well-Known Member

    Too each his own @Lehigh96 Nickels are a completely different beast than other coins. There is a point that this started to change. It was when the company's decided to turn their head. Call it what you will but this was none other than seeing value in it.
    If they continued to call these coins AU then they were no doubt leaving money on the table.
     
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