Grading better or worse than the old days?

@charley If interested, and you know how to PM me with particulars about your interested piece. I'll give you an objective opinion, worth at least the Pro Bono price paid.
If I'm to understand what you've posted, the coin in interest is a 1908 NM MS64 or less, CACed?

 

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Grading has gotten worse in the last 25 years. There is a reason why people gravitate toward PCGS Old Green Labels and NGC fatty holders. The grading was more conservative on average, but there are exceptions. Coins were over graded in those holders too.

Today, “grade-flatiron” is the rule with the grading services, and CAC is moving along with it, not stopping it. Coins that were graded years ago are often more accurately graded.

If you go back to the ‘60s, it was a jungle. There were honest dealers, but over grading was the rule. I learned to grade using the Brown and Dunn book, then “Photo Grade” with the “school of hard knocks” administered when I tried to sell or trade something. That’s how I learned. It was through study and practical experience.

 

Motto. 64.
Legend # 1254-25538915.
PCGS 805
NGC 326
CAC 51
Last 64 sold 11/21 $4830.00- NO CAC.
The Dome Collection piece is Very High End for the Grade.
In hand-speaks for itself.
@5K, and compared to the 11/21 piece, pulled the trigger.

 

Motto. 64.
Legend # 1254-25538915.
PCGS 805
NGC 326
CAC 51
Last 64 sold 11/21 $4830.00- NO CAC.
The Dome Collection piece is Very High End for the Grade.
In hand-speaks for itself.
@5K, and compared to the 11/21 piece, pulled the trigger.

 

Don't know how that happened, guess I held the button down or pushed it more than once. I have been doing that with the water closet flush handle, lately. I am old. I forget stuff and do stuff again.
I apologize.

 

You were just excited to get that coin.

 

Yep. At my age, I will accept sexual gratification in any form that does not offend society.

 

Totally agree. Yes, TPGs have helped eliminate counterfeits and the grossly overgraded, as well as denoting "problem" coins, but grading is, ultimately, subjective and standards have deteriorated because of market forces.

 

Could you clarify? Is it your total agreement that TPGs have helped eliminate counterfeits and the "grossly over graded" and denoting problem coins, and, by extension, you agree that CAC....a 4PG.... has not assisted in improving the market and the CAC standards have deteriorated?

 

My experience is that CAC "confirms"-grades per current standards, which have deteriorated over time.

 

I appreciate the response.

 

I would have purchased a CACed NGC MS64 1908 "MOTTO" St. Gaudens for $5000 in a moment without any further thought, especially if it met my desired clean "cartwheel" fields and undamaged rub free devices.

I have a nice collection of the 1908P and D Motto St. Gaudens coins, which have always been difficult to locate. More difficult than the very scarce S mint.

I hope that's what you found/purchased!!

Good price if purchased for $5000!

JMHO

Rich

 

The D is tough, at that level. Legend has a nice D piece.....7.5K, I think.

I completely agree with your comments. I am not to proud to say SaintGuru was a mentor, and HE certainly would endorse your comments and the 08 I am referring to.

For any excess pieces you have, I am certain you know there is no better time to take profits. I simply back doored into the 08.That won't happen again, without a hefty wampum penalty.

 

I believe that although the D is a more desired coin, the P has better "market value", as D sellers price themselves out of the market. The D has a proper lower "Grey Sheet" value, where I would purchase all that could be delivered at same, none. You made the best choice!

The general street value of coins means nothing to me, as I'm a strange eccentric collector that has more than I need in Fiat.

One of the coins I acquired? this week was a scarce undervalued/undergraded 1908-D NGC $20.

I believe in an internal "influence" that guides good fortune.

JMHO

 

I despise the new grading. It's not really "grading" at all but rather is a "pricing" scheme. The process today overemphasizes the value and demand for coins and underemphasizes desirability and rarity of coins. The process weights demand above all else and disguises the rarity of very desirable coins.

Modern clads are all scarce or rare in Gem condition but this is simply unknown because there is only enough demand to push up the price of the 20 or 30 best coins of each date. Everyone assumes that lower grades exist in abundance so nobody wants to collect them. Collecting things like beautiful pristine Gem 1968 cents would very quickly show this is a rare coin. Of course hundreds wouyd come out of the woodwork if there were much of a premium but in the old days there were hundreds of thousands, millions even, of collectors for a '49-S Lincoln and tens of thousands might want a nice Gem example.

I suppose this is my primary problem with current "grading"; it entrenches the status quo. Many still seek the '49-S but everyone still believes the '68 is common.

Ideally we should have "grading" rather than pricing. Each coin should be rated on each of its attributes and this should be the grade. The grading services would simply change into "pricing services" which they already are.

 

In the interests of full disclosure there is another reason I hate the way coins are "graded" today". Very few of the coins I love and consider scarce are even gradable in Gem because they are common enough that even if the were widely sought would be worth only $5 to $100. Most wouldn't be worth the cost of grading even with "normal" demand.

F, VF, XF, AU, Unc, chU, gemmy, Gem, and very chGem are more than sufficient to grade almost every single collectible modern but instead there are hundreds of different grades applied to moderns by services, collectors, and dealers, and nobody can tell from any of these grades what a coin looks like without seeing it. There's something seriously wrong with this current system.

 

But wait. Wasn't TPG grading supposed to give us a sight-unseen market? Do you really mean you can't grade a coin without looking at it???

I am shocked. SHOCKED.

(Before you get upset, please note that this post was intended as irony.)

 

If you're bonded I'll hire you on an absolute performance basis to obtain a like-grade cross-over from PCGS for some slabbed, graded coins of others. GOOD LUCK!! (Post also is tongue-in-cheek/facetious)

 

Indeed! No coin can be graded or visualized sight unseen using the current practice of pricing coins instead of grading them. And, yes, I believe this is detrimental to classic coins as well. But in the case of classics it does not hurt the markets themselves so much as it hurts the grading of coins. The services do a good job of pricing which probably means it helps these markets far more than it hurts them. it gives people with no expertise the ability to know about what the coins are worth encouraging them to buy coins creating more demand.

I don't approve of the current system for classics either. If the services just came out and priced the coins while assigning them a complete grade it would still help the newbies and it would help established collectors to know exactly what they are buying.

But with moderns it is highly detrimental to the markets themselves. Since few moderns are worth the cost of encapsulation everybody assumes they are not collectible at all due to being too common. If this weren't detrimental enough price guides like the Redbook list prices for moderns that are unrealistically low while pricing older coins unrealistically high. How can a newbie pay market price for a rare modern (if he can find it at all) when there are no collectors and the price guide suggests it is exceedingly common?

I was the biggest champion of grading moderns back in 1996 and most unfortunately I got exactly what I asked for. It has been a very predictable travesty ever since with common moderns sold to the unknowing at high prices and the rarities going unnoticed and uncollected.

Moderns will do OK in the long run whether grading is fixed or not because collectors always gravitate to rarity and quality in the long term but I had been hoping that they would become appreciated back long ago when it might have done me some good. Collectors are only now starting to notice something like a well made and pristine 1982 quarter is a rarity. Nevermind if Redbook calls it a $15 coin because you probably won't find one anyway even if you're willing to pay the real market price for a coin that is priced by a "technical grade" rather than the quality of its surfaces and the dies or by its strike.