Why are PCGS and NGC so lenient.

Why are market acceptable cleaned coins able to straight grade in PCGS and NGC holders. I have noticed the low end of the AU grade is typically scratched up with hairlines/circulation marks and old cleanings. How hard is it to buy an original AU coin with out any of this? Just curious what others opinions are on this?

 

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Coins which fall under a grades written definition for details, and in the case of AU/MS which have mint luster showing, are assigned a grade first. If defects such as scratches, environmental damage, tooling, cleaning and so forth they become factored in after the fact and duly noted on the encapsulation. As to the difficulty in finding a specific grade not details graded, from my own observation I'd say two in ten are details graded. That said, I don't see things as being lenient where grading is concerned. I myself have and would buy a details graded coin dependent on what it looks like overall. More often than one might think a cleaned coin has equal eye appeal as an original straight grade. Add the fact that on average the cost is about half of the same straight grade. So the question becomes, are these conditions something you can overlook? The one below is my latest as an example.

 

They have to please the dealers who send coins to them. I used to send coins in when I was a dealer. I got “gifts” and “disappointments.” The first was to keep me coming; the latter was to get me to re-submit.

 

AU covers coins that are "gem" with friction (58) all the way down to beat up crap (50).

 

Reminds me of the problem we have with bond ratings agencies like Moodys. If they're too harsh with their ratings, they lose customers; same dynamic is likely at play here, leading to rampant grade inflation.

 

I just struggle with how PCGS or NGC can miss a cleaned coin and put it in a holder with a clean grade. I know to buy the coin but you also want to have some backing from the TPG companies too.

 

You do have that

 

The answer to the first question is in the first question. Market Acceptable. If the market accepts it, it gets straight graded. As for the second part, you want low end AU coins, coins that have circulated, that do not show signs of circulation? Uh, that's not going to happen, by definition.

 

QuintupleSovereign, posted: "Reminds me of the problem we have with bond ratings agencies like Moodys. If they're too harsh with their ratings, they lose customers [for a while to the other TPGS]; same dynamic is likely at play here, leading to rampant grade inflation.

I'll bet you have no idea how right you are!

 

I'm holding off until the end of the year with grading.
PCGS is super tight right now.

Re-holders only but the last TrueViews came back looking like cell phone pics.
I'm guessing they are all up to date with taxes on the beach house.

 

As a fairly new collector (around 1.5 years) I am baffled by the amount of coins that either get graded as Details-Cleaned or that other collectors or dealers look at and say "oh, that's cleaned". I often wonder, is this really the case? Or, have some characteristics that may come from cleaning, but also normal handling, now are just assumed as cleaned. Who are all of these people doing the cleaning? I have never thought about scrubbing down a coin to make it look better, before or after I became a collector. Anyway, I'm sure I'll get trashed for this post, but it just seems to me that many of the coins that get called "cleaned" actually aren't. At this rate, in 10 years, there will not be a non-slabbed coin available that isn't "cleaned"

 

Some coin series have a very high majority of "unoriginal" coins. I'd say that 80% of the coins I've seen over the years I would not touch with a pole - most of the time they have been mishandled in some way, usually cleaned. Folks like shiny coins. By the time a serious numismatist get's them after a hundred years or so it is amazing that original coins still exist but they do and there are plenty around.

It seems to me that a large number of collectors have no clue so THANK GOODNESS FOR THE TPGS.

 

I don’t think they “miss” them, but they rather decide a coin’s condition is market acceptable. Such coins often receive a net grade, which is a straight grade, but slightly lower than the actual grade.

 

Watched an interview with either the head of PCGS or NGC, can't remember. Anyway, they were discussing one coin in particular and mentioned that it was cleaned slightly. The three people that looked at it gave it 53, 55, and 58 grade. Since they couldn't agree on the grade they gave it an AU Details slab. That struck me as odd.

 

That strikes me as a PERFECT SOLUTION. The coin is slightly cleaned and AU covers all three opinions.

 

True, but what if all three would've agreed on AU55? The coin still would've been cleaned, but now it's in a AU55 slab and selling for more than an AU Details slab. The coin was cleaned and I have no problem with the slab it's in, but it was weird how the justification for putting it in that slab was that they couldn't agree on a numerical grade.

 

ArthurK11, posted: "True, but what if all three would've agreed on AU55? The coin still would've been cleaned, but now it's in a AU55 slab and selling for more than an AU Details slab. The coin was cleaned and I have no problem with the slab it's in, but it was weird how the justification for putting it in that slab was that they couldn't agree on a numerical grade."

Let's pretend that you are my brother so I can be totally honest with you. Because of the way the ANA Grading Guide screwed up the grading system by combining the amount of wear on a coin with how beat up it was (AU Choice or AU Typical), we cannot be certain of how many marks or how much wear is on a coin graded AU-50, 53, 55, or 58. We do know this: Three professionals graded a coin AU.

The other thing we know for sure is the coin was not 100% original. The problem now is what does "slight cleaning" indicate. Apparently, it was market acceptable as three professional graders straight graded the coin at first.

That leads to what I called the perfect solution above: AU, Details.

Unfortunately, you and I have no say in the matter. The TPGS does not need to "justify" anything they do to us. They run the grading game and there are no fixed rules - only concepts. Trying to figure things like this out is like trying to figure out a woman (sorry ladies).

BTW, "Sounds like a perfect solution" was just my GUESS.

 

Now that's a grading scale I'd like to see!

 

The scale as we used went from 1 - 10.