More self slabbers are being born everyday.

Just ran across this on craigslist. http://lansing.craigslist.org/clt/1103873645.html

If you think you have the desire, work ethic and a little knowledge about coins I have a great opportunity for you. If you've ever bought or sold coins on Ebay you may have already seen our product, we supplied the slabs to several of the people who started their own grading companies to sell coins online the last few years.

 

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Shame, shame!

This guy is like a pharmacist that sells 100 boxes of Sudafed to someone (who obviously plans to use it to make methamphatimine). He may not be making the drug (or overgrading a coin) himself but he is part of the process and is profiting at others' expense.

 

Wow, nice product. Not very good though for coin grading companies to just spring up based on the availability of slabs... they should probably know something about grading! LOL Oh well, most people with even a minimum of research know which companies are reputable... it is all subjective anyway. Of course, then there are counterfeit slabs.

eBay does have rules in place for this I think that are, theoretically, supposed to nullify the benefit of this. If I recall, you can only mention grades in the title (the default searched field) if they are from certain grading companies. Well, that's the theory anyway... too bad they don't enforce most of the rules.

Regards,
Michael

 

In case you are interested in his full pitch see here
http://coinholderman.com/

Jim

 

My oh my! Nothing like spelling and gramatical errors to top it all off! LOL

 

I want to do it to!

My company will be NGC - Numismatic Greentea Corporation!

 

I notified ANACS & PCGS about the copyright violation with the border pics. :goof: I'm quite certain the seller will be getting a nasty-o-gram shortly from their legal departments.

Ribbit

 

Why not go for it, we could do with some one who understands Ancients and is honest

 

He's been aroun for some time. He originally started out marketing NGC multi-coin look a like holders and then started his own grading service SCI Silver Coin Instutute with his own slab shell design. Then he stopped grading and simply moved into marketing his shells to other people for their own self slabbing firms. While I don't care for his helping the expansion of self slabbing services, I do like his slab shell. It's much better than the off the shelf generic shells that many self slabbers use.

 

I don't see what the deal is? People put way to much trust into slabbs. Although we bought some in 'fake' slabs. Funniest one was an Ike with so many bag marks you may not even want to call it BU and they graded it at MS70! LOL.

By the way although it was off the topic, You can't buy that much sudifed at one store.

 

Try this web site and go to top of page and click on tab for Grading Services.
http://coinauctionshelp.com/page16.html
And from what I remember there is a list somewhere of well ove 100 TPGS's now in operation.
For real there is no law against that either. Remember when VHS tapes were just coming out with movies on them? Little stores all over the place were opening up to rent or sell them. Now most are gone since that thing faded.
Once Beanie Babies were sold everywhere. Those too are almost all gone.
Since this coin boom is so hot right now, why not start a grading service?
I'm sure that PCGS, NGC, etc were all new at one time also. And who knows if you start one yours may be the latest, newest, fantastic one that everyone uses.
Now if we all got together and started one from all of us it could be the CTGS for Coin Talk Grading Service. I would hold all monitary profits from that organiazation and I'd split it with all of you if you could find me in the Carabean.

 

Awesome, I will too. Operations like this fool newbies and hurt collecting.

 

True but people do put to much faith in the slabbing companies. The thing is they don't have to use ANA grading standards. Just cause I call a coin VF others may say it's a Fine or XF. It's why the reliance on slabbing companies is in demand. The thing is they are not perfect either.

Although on Youtube this guy praises Slabs he also warns of those 'fake' or at home slabbing companies. Check out Spare Change Ep 01

 

Gotta love this bit:
"It is easy, there are no licenses needed. Anyone can give an opinion on the grade of a coin. Even the top grading companies do not have any special licenses. If you have an opinion then you are a coin grader."

 

jloring you forgot ...

"Earning potential is unlimited"

 

And if as a coin collector, you buy,sell or trade a coin then that makes you a specialized broker....haha.....histrorical,coin,silver,gold,copper...naming your broker is endless...hahahaha.....Just always remember.......BUYER BEWARE.....alot of us have been burned....

 

The deal is, although grading is subjective, and everybody has an opinion, he is pitching the fact that these may be used in order to be deceptive in utilizing his slabs in order to make money. His pitch includes the use of an industry standard in a deceptive manner in order to financially gain. Depending upon the exact situation, this could be conspiracy to defraud.

Actually, they put too much trust in third party opinions of those who are proclaimed amongst themselves to be experts, whom you have probably never met, and have no idea of their ethics and morals. But, the basic premise is correct. People DO put too much trust into slabs.

Out of curiosity, when you say "fake" do you mean self-slabbers, or first party slabbers? That is to say, those who take their own coins and slab them into these cases themselves and sell them? Because there truly are fake slabs out there that manifest themselves to be PCGS (or other TPG) slabs. Some with authentic coins, others with fake coins.

I personally have nothing against first party graders so long as it is known up front that they are first party and their standards are declared and published. This is absolutely no different from the first party graders most of us are familiar with: dealers.

Yes, a dealer IS a first party grader. It does not matter if the "slab" is an encasement of plastic, or a mylar or plastic flip with a grade written in pencil or ink. It is still first party grading.

Yes you can...just not lawfully!

 

Never thought of it that way but you are right. Honestly I would be more likely to trust a PCGS slab than a dealers white handwritten flap. That is unless I knew the dealer well and he had proven his honesty to me.

Dealers can be very shady... while PCGS is at least consistent and has nothing to gain by grading a coin high or low, they already have their fee.

I am cynical and have been burned by a dealer I trusted.

 

As upset about the apparent deception in advertising a you probably are,let's get more realistic here. What copyright violation?

In order to be a copyright violation, that exact image must have been produced by PCGS and/or NGC and used without permission. Now, is it logical that PCGS would use an NGC slab in any of their copyrighted works? And vice versa?

The PCGS and NGC slabs themselves are not able to be copyrighted. A photo of said slabs may be copyrighted, but the copyright is extended to the producer of the photo, not the producer of the photographed object.

Even a patent on the design would not be violated. A photo of a patented object is still the copyrighted work of the one taking the photo. Now, photos of the design schematics and production facilities may be protected under trade secret rules, but not copyright nor patent.

Finally, the only possible recourse either PCGS or NGC would have would be trademark violation. In such case, they would have had to register they're slab design AND label layout in their trademark. And in the matter of trademark, they would have to actively defend their trademark in EVERY case known to them.

That means that any photo listed on eBay of a PCGS or NGC slab would have to be brought to legal action for trademark violation. That just does NOT happen.

I think this information is important (though may be a bit offtopic?) because any precedence like you suggest would mean that even you violate the TPG's imaginary property rights by posting any slab in its entirety, even for purposes of discussion and debate.

 

And this is the grave difference between a First Party Grader and a Third Party Grader. The Third Party Grader does not hold (or at least is not SUPPOSED to) any vested interest in any of the coins graded by their respective companies. The First Party Grader holds a true vested interest in the coins graded by the respective company.

However, this is also why I have problems with the TPGs as well. If you investigate the current board members of the TPGs, you will find that some of them STILL have vested interest in the numismatic coin dealing industry, and even hold vested interest in companies that sell coins graded by their respective graders.