Bean Wars - CAC

Keep sending it in and eventually it will come back as AT UNC Details.

Maybe this is just punishment for not accepting the dealer's or expert's first opinion. He gives a CAC on an MS65, you question his opinion by reslabbing and resubmitting, he punishes you with "no sticker for you". Seen some of that attitude in a few topics.

 

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I have talked to JA in the past about a coin that didn't pass. He does take the time to explain his reasons. He doesn't take offense and does make himself accessible. In fact, when I called he was out, but within a couple of hours he called me up.

In the case of that particular coin he spotted tooling in the field above the date. The marks were very minute and were there to coverup some blemish. He said it was expertly done.

 

They will resticker a coin if you have photos of the coin in the slab showing the coin and sticker. The only photo I have is the Heritage photo, which may be good enough. It is something to think about. Thank you!

 

Never ever think the slab is always right!

 

<----- CAC hater.

 

Has everyone repeated their CAC pledge for the day?

 

So a few years back CAC thought this was in the upper portion of the MS65 grade. Today they think it's in the lower portion of the MS64 grade or lower. I think this just goes to show how arbitrary the single point grading system is. Can any of us really tell an MS64 from an MS65 from an MS66 -- and what is that difference exactly?

Take the same coin and submit it 20 times to PCGS and I'll bet you'll get a big spread of grades perhaps spreading over 2 or 3 points ... and might even go from Genuine (Problem) to Gradeable. It's just too imprecise a system.

Even if you look at the PCGS grading chart -- the words they use to differentiate grades are so nebulous and imprecise that I am surprised there is not more of a spread of grades. Just look at the words they use to separate MS64 from MS65 from MS66 ... "Few Marks", "Minor Marks", "Few Minor Marks". So how many is few? Is that 3? 5? 7? And what is the precise difference between a small mark and a minor mark? Idunno. I don't think PCGS or NGC does either.

This also shows how the grade one gets on a coin is so dependent on which grading team you get (or luck into). One grading team might be very lax on color and pass everything as NT. Another grading team might hate color and call anything not white, Genuine: Questionable Color. One team might look at your coin and think 66 ... another team might look at it and say 64 at best.

I also think that since most people might resubmit coins that they think are undergraded and not ones that are overgraded -- many slabbed coins might be "optimized" to show the highest grade possible to get (and might only have been achieved after a few submissions). So there might be a bias for slabbed coins to be slightly overgraded in general.

Honestly I think grading was better in the 1960's when there were fewer categories: Unc, Choice, Gem. I think the current system of cutting UNCs into a 10 point scale from 60 to 70 (even more if you factor in + or star) is just too fine a scale and makes people mistakenly believe that the grading companies can nail down grades so precisely with any consistency or accuracy.

IMO, what they should do is have fewer categories ... (of course that would never happen in reality) ... only then would there be more of a consistent result of grades on any given coin.

 

Which begs the question, why do people crack and resubmit to get those inconsequential and arbitrary one point differences -- sometimes even in the "wrong" direction?

I have argued for a long time that MS coins should be graded MS60, MS63, MS65, and MS67 (as in the olden days). Any nit-picking and hair splitting beyond that is all smoke, mirrors, and self-delusion. And, under that system, I could very well tell a "nice" MS65 from an "ho-hum" MS65 without the added ridiculousness of a holographic sticker or a "+" or any other such "PQ" hallmark.

 

And...for the record, 60 to 70 is an 11 point scale, not 10. Regardless, both are equally laughable.

 

Come on,we all know PCGS isn't consistent, and we know NGC isn't consistent. (Send the same coin back to them multiple times, get multiple grades.) And we know they aren't consistent with each other. Do you REALLY expect CAC to be consistent? They all give a grade or confirm the grade depending on how the grader feels about it on that particular day at that particular time. On a different day and time you may get a different result.

Oh so now he is saying the coin was altered (and therefore shouldn't have been in a problem free holder) but they gave it a bean anyway?

 

No, the coin that was altered is a coin that I submitted to CAC last year. I had called JA to find out why it DIDN'T sticker. His reason was tooling. Yes, it was in a problem free slab.

 

Based on the PCGS grading chart I posted, it's really an 18 point scale. That is, if you submit an MS or PR coin to PCGS, you can get 18 possible gradations of Mint State or Proof which lie between 60 and 70. It's just not possible to be accurate on such a fine scale with something as subjective as coin grading.

 

I believe the possibility for MS is a 33 point scale, since any grade can receive a plus or a star. That's 3 possibilities for every number.

 

It's a shame they downgraded it and it's a shame it didn't bean again.

 

You don't understand the star then. It has nothing to do with the technical grade. And, a coin can receive both a plus and a star.

Also, the Plus is not given for grades of 69 or 70 (at least by NGC).

At NGC the possible MS grades number 20:

MS60, MS60+, MS61, MS61+, MS62, MS62+, MS63, MS63+, MS64, MS64+
MS65, MS65+, MS66, MS66+, MS67, MS67+, MS68, MS68+, MS69, MS70

Of those 20 possibilities, MS60 is almost never used (nor its + analog), so functionally 18 possibilities. I'm not sure why PCGS (apparently) doesn't allow the + for grades of 60 and 61 (but it is basically irrelevant).

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The take away message is the same -- the number of "levels" of mint state is absurd, and it is understandable why a TPG can't even dream of being consistent upon multiple reviews of the same coin.

 

I also don't understand green stickers, gold stickers and I spend no time on analyzing labels. I do know what a sample slab is.

 

Either grade greed or grade curiosity prevailed.

 

It is simple to me - it should have got the bean again. Of course out of the two pictures the one on the left makes it look cleaner. So nobody is perfect on their grading - even the best make mistakes. To me it is pretty simple - I get to decide if I like the coin at the grade, at the price and for its eye appeal. I really do not worry about what the TPG's or CAC thought. At the same time I think CAC does a fine job in general. I also believe Doug is correct in his last post.

 

Neither. I happen to like my Lincoln's in PCGS slabs, just like I like my $2.5 Indians in NGC slabs. If this would have been slabbed by PCGS, in a 64 or 65, it wouldn't have been cracked.

I was actually satisfied with the PCGS grade. I just thought the CAC results were interesting.

I don't buy my coins to sell and 99% of those I do sell are usually sold at a loss. Greedy I'm not.