WoW!!! Would you pay this much for a Memorial????

In all probability the cent is accurately graded. This is not because I have any more confidence in third party graders than you do but because '79 cents are fairly easy to grade in high grade. For this date there is a little correlation between being well made and mark free. I've always suspected that this correlation is the result of the simple odds of having each individual involved in its production doing his job properly and to standard. Obviously for a coin to be ultra high grade there has to be a little blind luck involved as well.

If this were, say, a 1970-S nickel in MS-65 FS I'd have a little less confidence in it being graded properly because the correlation between strike and quality breaks down badly on this date. Also there's a tendency for the very nicest full steps of these to be MS-66 rather than MS-65.

There is grade inflation but this is caused by market forces. As more people demand more coins it naturally requires less quality to make the grade. The market tells the graders that they are grading too tight so they tend to continually loosen. And yes, people can, and no doubt will, get burned on this when demand turns lower. This will affect coins across the board though, not only 1979 cents. As is typical, collectors will probably come through this much better than investors.

No matter what the real grade of this cent, the simple fact is that if it's among the best now then it will be among the best in five or fifty years. If you can't tell on your own that it's a good value or have someone whom you trust to advise you then it might not be a good idea to pay $180 for it. Personally I believe there's huge potential for many moderns. Where some that are scarce in MS-67 will be quite common in MS-66 that is not true for all of them. This very coin is only about two or three times as common in MS-66 which still makes it much scarcer than most coins that cost $180.

 

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I handled the Mickley dollar raw before being graded, and Bowers was definitely off with his grade of 50 in my opinion. NGC's grade was far more accurate than the grade Bowers assigned IMO. I think Bower's was very conservative in his grade, even by ANA standards.

 

Well said. I agree wholeheartedly.

 

With regard to the Mickley 1804 Dollar, Breen graded it XF-AU poorly cleaned. Bowers graded it AU50. Bressett and Newman graded it "very nearly uncirculated" and when it was auctioned in 1867 it was described as having "been in circulation". I agree that Walter Breen was a colorful guy, but there is no doubt in my mind that he was able to determine that the Mickley Dollar was circulated. In fact, it's obvious that it's circulated just by the recent picture that appeared in COIN WORLD. My point is that grading today is a farce and NGC giving that coin a 62 grade is nothing short of being proof positive. As for the Bowers grade, he probably graded that coin back when there was sanity in grading standards. I checked my 1970 edition of PHOTOGRADE and IMO Bowers was being generous by the standards of the day.

Third party grading was supposed to standardize this kind of nonsense but as GDMSP accurately stated, everyone has their own standards which negates any ligitimacy of numerical grading. That's what is ludicrous, which was my point in my original post. The coin in question grades 67 only if one subscribes to the standards of the grader and has confidence that the grader was on his "A" game when s/he assigned the grade. Maybe it a 68 or perhaps a 66 depending on what standards are in play at the time. Furthermore, I too have been a firm believer that PCGS has quotas for the 70 grade which if true is pure manipulation of the market. Why anyone would consider the actions by those kinds of organizations to be ligitimate is beyond me.

Ya know, GDJMSP, If you are as knowledgable as many on this board suggest, then you know as well as I the various grading experiments that have been conducted over the years, and you should also be aware of the results. If on the other hand you really aren't aware, I'll be happy to provide you with several examples. In the meantime, since you have the email address of COIN WORLD, you could ask Beth Deisher about the experiment they conducted a few years ago. It wasn't that long ago that this very topic came up in a conversation I was having with her.

One more point about "market grading" where grades get inflated because the demand for certain grades cannot be met by the existing supply. Imagine if you will, going into a coin store looking for a specific XF coin and the dealer states that there aren't any available but if you wait a minute, he's got a few VF's that he will overgrade in order to meet the existing demand for XF's. Market grading is a cute little phrase but that's exactly what the process involves. Shame on me for thinking that changes in pricing rather than grading should be what creates equilibrium.

 

No.

Market grading isn't meeting demand for coins market grading is pricing of coins. Most collectors' first question is "how much is this worth?". They don't care about the history or grading they want to know what it's worth. The slabbers put a neat little lable on it and certify that it's genuine so they can use the price guides. Here is where the system is affected by demand; as it increases prices rise even faster than the guides can reflect it. If a coin is a liner between a guide price of $400 and a guide price of $800 in a hot market than the real prices might be $700 and $1,200. So rather than putting the coin in a $400 holder they put it in an $800 holder since being high end it's easily worth $800. When the market turns around it goes the other way.

There are other natural forces causing grade (pricing) inflation in rising markets but the grading (pricing) of extremely rare coins is mostly irrelevant. Buyers and sellers of these know their condition and know that they are being dramatically overgraded now. The 1804 doillars are an even poorer example since many of these have simulated wear which was used to help get them out of the mint. I don't know if this is one of them. But how would you grade a coin with simulated wear at the mint? Is it pristine if it has no new damage? Is it body bagged for the original damage?

Again I fully agree that coins should be graded to a standard rather than priced. But why get upset with the TPG's who are simply filling a niche and doing what they're paid for. This is a problem with collectors and it's collectors who need education. When enough people demand grading rather than pricing then coins will be graded. If not by the existing companies then by new ones.

And writing price guides will become a much bigger occupation. :wink;

 

What PNG did was not an experiment nor a real survey. It was an attempt to promote their favored comrades. I'm unclear as to why you even brought that up.

Anyway, Heritage also did a grading experiment which they called a "grading concensus study". The typical spread was 4 points in the MS range. A collector submitted the results of his personal experiment to NUMISMATIC NEWS which they published. He submitted either 9 or 11 coins (didn't log the exact number into memory) all dated 1861 and not a single coin received the same grade each time. One in particular was a proof gold coin that started out in an NGC slab, got body bagged on the first resubmission and slabbed again on the second resubmission, all by NGC. There is at least one more experiment that I am aware of but I have no inclination to go digging in order to justify my position further. I also know someone who basically made a living for several years by cracking out and resubmitting, getting higher grades approximately 75% of the time.

For the benefit of anyone interested, I'd like to offer an example of "market grading" that they can check out for themselves. When was the last time anyone saw a VF 1924S Buffalo Nickel with a full horn? For the record, the price difference between Fine and Very Fine is a multiple of about 4.5. According to David Lange this issue was "adequately struck", unlike it's 1926S counterpart, but is just as scarce in grades above Fine due to heavy circulation. He also specifically states that caution should be excercised when purchasing VF or XF examples that lack a full horn. Now, (I quess I have to include IMO) the reason all those half horn 24S nickels are being graded VF is because the supply of properly graded VF coins are either in XF slabs or just not available, so in order to increase the supply of VF coins, those "Fine" coins get "market graded". Check it out if you have any doubts.

I must be really old fashioned because I have always believed that in a free market society, supply and demand, not market grading, were supposed to be the governing factors in "quantifying the value of a given coin" in a given grade etc.

 

I am a little confuesed here i thought the TPG's puposely handed out lower grades to get you to resubmit the coins. if a coin gets handed a different grade each time by a respectable TPG (top 2) then its not a healthy practice. Let me know your thoughts. thanks.

 

I thought we were in agreement that grading as practiced now is mere pricing.

This is the main reason people submit; so they can just look at a sheet and see what their coin is worth. Once it's blessed and priced by a service it is not only genuine and fairly stable but everyone will agree that the base price can be found in the CDN.

Of course this system doesn't work extremely well. It can't work extremely well because two people aren't looking for the same thing in their coins. Bust collectors tend to prize pristine surfaces over almost everything else. If they can see nice cartwheel then they simply don't even see that the die was eroded beyond serviceability. Buffalo collectors tend to value strike. If they can see a sharp horn, tail, and braids then they might not notice the planchet scratching or the gouge in the field.

Say what you will but market grading is pricing and a couple of the principles have said as much. Sure they try to have a standard and stick to it but the simple fact is that coins are not run off cookie cutter style when any two alike. They start off very different and the longer they exist the more different they get because of enviromental factors. True grading would involve specifying what attributes the coin actually possesses and quantifying each of those aspects. Anyone with a few minutes training would be able to look at the grade and have a very accurate mental picture of the coin. But then even experts would have little idea of its value in many cases.

Since pricing can't work then it seems only logical to switch to grading. Then we'd know if the '79 cent is a 67/ 67/ 68/ 66 or a 68/ 67/ 67/ 66 (or whatever). Each individual bidding on it would know exactly what it looks like instead of what the services think it will trade at.

 

i feel much better now. thanks.

 

Unless it's one of the largest Third Party Grading companies where they have the ability to twist the fault or error; point the blame onto someone else and change the subject in a discussion forum via deleted topics or aggressive minions who challenge the veracity of the accuser.

Just my 2 cents, LOL...

 

Great stuff you guys, I like reading the perspective and opinions, both pro and con, this has been a most excellent thread !!



2 big articles/editorials in this weeks CoinWorld about TPG's.......

One from a dealer in SGS coins, the other an update on the Ebay lawsuit filed by accugrade and Centsless

 

bone you have to help me here what exactly are you talking about?

 

Oh, one of the largest Coin Discussion forums apparently has this bad habit. Not this one, but another one which is rather well known...

 

well since you and e are bitht here this si te only one that matters