As many of you know, several coins are posted on cointalk every day to be evaluated as genuine or counterfeit and graded. On most of these threads, there are atleast 5 or 6 opinions on the coins grade. So I was thinking, what if we made that into a kind of grading company. I thought to call it CTGA or cointalk grading average. Lets say five people make a grade on a coin. 1.Vf-30 2.Vf-25 3.Xf40 4.Vf20 5.VF25 You would then add up all the grades (30,25,40,20,25) and average them together. on this coin, the average grade would be a VF-28 which in turn would round up to a VF-30. then, the way to check to see if the coin that is graded is actually the real coin. The slab could also have the username of the poster of the coin, the title of the thread they started for the coin that they wanted graded, and the date it was posted. Heres My mock up of what it could look like. The only thing it doesnt have is the date the thread was posted. Let me know what you think, I know there are problems, like a user who just tries to throw off the grade by calling an unc coin ag-3. But who knows, maybe sometime in the future, CTGA would be just as respected as PCGS or NGC
Only the picture of the coin would have that grade, the coin itself could be mis-represented by the pictures. But if everybody wants to send me their coins for grading I would be more than happy to try. Just make sure you apply appropriate postage and insurance. We can start with treashunt and bonedigger sending me their collections. I have a nice big safe and a fancy alarm system.
One possible solution to the grader "who just tries to throw off the grade" is to toss out the top and bottom grades and let the rest generate the consensus. This is done in a lot of scoring systems. Of course it would help if we got more like 7-10 grades.
Cool idea ~ who's slabbing it? are we going to have a hologram so no one counterfeits our CT grading slabs?
I have no idea how we are going to slab them, I see it as everyone can just do it there selves. So you would get the grading consensus on here, lets say vf-30, then just make your own little label, put it in a coin world slab or just tape it to a 2x2. Then as long as you have the name of the thread, and name of the poster of the thread, and the date the thread was posted on the label, anyone can search on cointalk and find the exact coin your talking about. Then they can compare that coin to the one they have in the slab to make sure its the same coin. Of course it would be wayyy cooler if we actually had a sonic sealer and a couple thousand dollars on our hands which we could use to start up our own cointalk slabbing company . But for now, I think the other idea is the way to go. monkeyman
Couple of problems - perhaps the most obvious is that it's pretty tough to grade by pictures. Second problem is, and I mean this quite respectfully, there are a lot of people here who do not know how to grade. Third problem - what set of standards would you use ? Wouldn't do much good, even if the folks did know how to grade, if they didn't all use the same set of standards - your grades would be all over the place.
well. you guys grade it and i'll issue a green, silver, or gold sticker to put on it to "certify" it is average, good, or higher for the grade...or a black sticker to say it is lower for the grade........for a nominal coin talk certtification fee, of course.............................
you had to burst the bubble just when i was dreaming of what my new jets color would be from all those grading profits
It sounds like a cool idea, I've thought of it a few times, but there comes up the problem with grading coins by photo's really. But it is a good idea IMHO, just need to iron out the flaws. Phoenix
Boy do I agree with you on that. I am not qualified to grade some types of coins - I may try, but I would not bank on my grade and would not want it included. And when it comes to DJ's morgans I will stay completely out of it from now on - those are out of my league and I will readily admit it. The third problem would be easy - we would use the ANA standards. But that creates a new third problem - interpreting them. In places where my book says things like "traces of wear" and "significant" - there would be disagreements over what those meant those.
