OK - as some of you have read on my Fugio thread in the U.S. Coin Forum, I bought one of these coins recently :hail:. My coin was graded by PCGS as a VF25. I would like to post another Fugio graded the same by PCGS and point out the tremendous inconsistency between the two coins. Now, some footnotes. My comparison is only between two coins and thus does not substantiate a trend. Secondly, I do think colonial era coins have probably gotten more leeway in grading versus newer coins. Nonetheless, this example was bothersome to me. Here the dealer's PCGS VF25 (club rays variety, R4). I would guess it was minted in a later die stage like mine: Here is my VF25: Can you see the differences between the two coins? As you've surely heard ad naseum, "buy the coin not the slab." One would think that in lower grades, more grading consistency would occur versus the uncirculated levels. Do you have examples to share showing similar inconsistency? Comments?
Well I don't know much about early coppers but yours is definately a better coin by quite a bit . Maybe they grade them so inconsistent is because they came off the die the same way , very inconsistent . Just food for thought . Nice coin Catbert
Wow...no comparison between your coin and the dealer's. Not sure how to grade this series, so I don't know what the real grades are.
Personally I believe you can have two correctly graded coins and one is nicer than the other. I also believe that weak strike and wear are extremely hard for me to take into account at times. Now that does not mean that I have not seen scratched or harshly cleaned coins in PCGS holders. For the two coins pictured I believe the bottom coin is the nicer coin. Not really knowing enough about these coins it is hard for me to say which coin is incorrectly graded - tpg's do make mistakes. In this example I might pay more than VF25 money for the bottom coin and maybe VF20 money for the top coin. This is one of the reasons I do lose some auctions.
Well, Mark, ironically the first coin is about 3 times more expensive than mine (probably because it is an R4 versus my R3)! The seller of the R4 is very reputable to boot and almost always only sells great eye appeal coins that drive his pricing too. But I agree with you that between these two examples, I prefer mine hands down. Does anyone else have some examples to share that demonstrate inconsistency in grading and/or reinforce the "buy the coin, not the slab" guideline?
Do you think it is a fair comparison to pick two different varieties? The most inconsistency occurs with circulated coins. The graders are generally asked to split the MS grades much more often than circ grades.
I think this is an excellent example of the dangers of technical grading. (We hear so much about market grading, its nice to see the tables turned a bit.) If strike quality makes THAT much of a difference, I feel its important enough to be reflected in the grade. Most importantly, it reiterates the fact that you have to LOOK AT THE COIN! PS - Flippin' amazing Fugio cent, Catbert. I wish I had the patience for a layaway plan like that.
I think VF25 is too high on both coins, but that's just my opinion. I think they overgrade almost all coppers from this era. Also, Greg has a good point about picking different varieties.
The vast majority of coins submitted to the TPG are in the 60-70 area. This appears true even if your exclude moderns. The graders spend their days deciding if a coin is MS62 or MS63 much more often than deciding if a coin is VF25 or VF30. Also, most dealers seem to concentrate in trying to tell a one point difference in grade on the 60-70 coins. If they call a circ coin a VF30 and it comes back VF25, they probably didn't lose a lot of money. If they call a coin MS66 and it comes back MS65, they could be out a lot of money. Split the grades meaning splitting VF into VF20, VF25, VF30, VF30 or AU into AU50, AU53, AU55, AU58.
Actually, I do with this coin. I'm looking at Newman's book and I don't see that the distinctions between these two examples (other than perhaps the club rays of the sun) would invite differences in wear effect. Tell me more about your view on how a variety difference would matter as it pertains to wear differences?
Not wear, but strike. The conditions under which each variety were struck could be dramatically different. They could have switched from one variety to the other due to problems striking the coins fully. They could have been struck on different machines. There are lots of possibilities for the differences in strike quality.
Fair enough, Greg. But when you look at the two coins, do you not see wear differences (versus strike) that indicate inconsistency by PCGS (in determining a grade due to wear)? I just do not see how these two coins could grade the same.
I don't think Greg would ever say that PCGS is not inconsistent. He is merely pointing out that with this particualr coin there are many possible reasons for the coins to look quite different but yet both be worthy of the same grade. This coin just isn't a good example to point out the inconsistency of PCGS because of that. But I can assure you that there are a great many examples of other coins out there that do. Several of them have been posted about in recent days.
These coins aren't in my area of expertise, but what I notice about them is that the top coin appears to have strong definition on the links toward the rim. Looks like lots of detail there. In fact, most of the entire links are strong - including where the crossover to the next link - except when you get into the center of the coin. Based on how much detail is "missing" in the middle of the reverse and how much is around the rims, I'd assume a weak strike caused the missing center detail and grade based on the better struck areas. On the obverse, the face on the sun has good detail, the lettering around the rims is well defined, but does clearly show significant wear. The flat area is again the center which corresponds to the flat area on the reverse. The second coin appears to have nice detail on the links, but there is clear wear there especially toward the rims and there is significant wear on some of the links where they crossover to the next link. The center (States United) looks to have been full at one point, but is now worn down. There are a couple of digs and a scratch on the reverse. On the obverse, the detail on the sun is about the same, but better on the wording around the rim. Center detail looks originally solid except for the upper position, but has been worn down. There are also two scratches on the obverse of this coin which may have resulted in a downgrade of a point or two. Yes, I think the bottom coin has less actual wear than the top coin, but not that dramatically. Given the problems on the bottom one, I can easily see knocking it down a point or two in order to slab it.
