Body Bag Question

If I have a coin with full steps (Jefferson Nickel) that might come back in a body bag from PCGS, do they charge full price for this, or is this just a service. The coin I have is not so very common a find 1949-S Jefferson Nickel, and rather hard to find in Full Steps. I believe it may have a touch of PVC damage (green ick), but I don't want to send in a hard to find coin (for me) and then have it sent back after charging me full price to tell me the coin itself is gunk.

Thanks in Advance

 

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If they think it is, they will.

Unfortunately they charge for reviewing the coin, not for holdering and labeling it.

 

I"m probably alone in this, but that sort of treatment borders on a scam to me, even if it is disclosed. In my opinion, TPGs have an ethical, if not legal, obligation to slab every coin sent to them regardless of what it is because that is the service the customer is paying for. I'm not sure what their problem is with just slabbing it as a "1949-s full step MS64 with PVC damage" -- or whatever it is. But as long as customers [i.e., the sheep] permit themselves to be sheared, the practice will continue.

How long would a quick oil-change business be permitted to continue in business if they hung up a sign, "We reserve the right not to change the oil in your car if it looks clean enough to us, but we plan to charge you full price anyway." Maybe they could say they are paid to review the condition of the oil, not for changing it.

Anyway, thanks for listening to another one of my pet peeves.

 

WRONG!

The service the customer is paying for is the (allegedly) unbiased opinion of an (alleged) expert. Whether that opinion is "PF70 Full Steps", or "Irreparably damaged by cleaning", you get exactly what you're paying for. The choice of whether to return it to the submitter in a plastic tomb or a plastic body bag is just a side effect.

 

If they slabbed it with the PVC you would soon have a coin coved in PVC...they do you a help by sending it back.

Speedy

 

Roy - Like I said, I don't expect people to agree, but that's how I see it. The people running the TPGs are, in my opinion, bad businessmen/women/persons. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong.

Speedy - Good point. For the most part my objection to the short sighted business practices of the TPGs has been related to cleaned coins. I think their busines would grow substantially if potential customers knew they could get back a professionally slabbed and graded coin even if it was cleaned. Just label it "cleaned." I still think everything should be slabbed that is submitted, but the PVC coins would probably have to be broken out and restored if the owner wanted to keep them in any sort of acceptable condition. If the owner knew that it WOULD have been a high grade valuable coin if not for the PVC, it would help them make an intelligent decision about it.

 

Even fake coins?
If you just want everything slabbed....go with ANACS and PCI...they should do everything but fakes and some token like coins.

Speedy

 

If all you are after is a plastic tomb, Coin World slabs are a lot cheaper than any of the TPGs.

 

Speedy, I would say they should even slab a counterfeit and label it as such. They've been paid. Maybe this will keep the owner from reselling the counterfeit to another unsuspecting collector, or at least make them go through the trouble of breaking it out to comit fraud. Maybe it would be the beginning of a market for counterfeits. Nobody knows. To me, EVERYTHING sent to a TPG should be professionally identified and slabbed regardless of the coin. I'm not sure I understand what the objections to this would be. It appears to me that there are many people in the hobby today who believe they should decide for all time for all collectors what should and shouldn't be collected. I take a more simple view that everything should be preserved and identified and let future collectors decide what they want to do with the coins. Cleaning used to be acceptable. Now it is unacceptable. Nobody knows what attitudes will be 100 years from now. Lets stop trying to impose our will on unborn generations of collectors.

 

Fakes are fakes...and I see no reason why they should be slabbed...
But we both agree on one thing...and that is to agree to disagree!!

Speedy

 

TPGs have a reputation to uphold. TPGs like PCGS makes a lot of tough decisions but I think they are the right ones. These days, it is easy to make fakes/counterfeits of coins.

There is no reason to have slabbed junk coins, TPGs would be wasting their time and money slabbing coins that have been cleaned/damaged or faked. The reason to slab coins is to provide authenticy and to keep collectors from getting scammed.

Coin grading is expensive, PCGS employs many professional graders which are not free. There's a lot of overhead in that kind of business. Whether or not your coin is slabbed is completely up to them. If they do not slab it, then it's their professional opinion that it shouldn't be. They should be given the respect they deserve. Just because your coin is bodybagged, does not mean that it was not professionally graded.

Coin scammers have come up with ingenious methods to make fakes. There are chemicals and other methods to retone cleaned or problem coins. Some are masters at creating authentic looking fakes. One example I read about on this forum is taking a 1909 V.D.B. reverse and mating it with a 1909-s obverse to fake a 1909-s V.D.B. Before the hobby protection act, there were restrikes and copies of just about every coin out there that for all intensive purposes looked authentic. Graders have a hard time with some old copies and restrikes.

If a coin has active corrosion on it, then slabbing will just make it worse. Slabs are designed to keep coins the way they were when they were graded for the years to come. A coin with verde gris or active PVC will eventually turn into dust whether it's in a holder or not. It defeats the purpose of slabbing in the first place.

 

What you say is quite true, and I would go along with most of it with the exception of the statement on who's time and money would be wasted. It is my oppinion that both would be the person sending in the coin, who would be the looser. Am I wrong on this thinking?

 

I would say both parties are at a loss. Charging even though they bodybag is a good policy. Coins go through the grading process whether or not they are encapsulated or not. TPGs still spend money even though a coin is bodybagged. This discourages people from making thousands of submissions of fake or altered coins in the hopes that one will slip past the radar.

 

I'm not sure of which is the best to slab or not to slab. However, if a coin is sent to an organization for the purposes of grading and slabbing, that is what should be done. Even if damaged, fake, bent or whatever. If you pay for a service you should receive that service. If that organzation has a policy of not slabbing certain types such as fakes or damaged coins, they should so advertise. I see nothing wrong with slabbing fakes, counterfiets, damaged, etc. if that is what someone wants done.
Suppose you take your car in to a place to be painted red. You come back for it a week later and they tell you they didn't do it because they don't use red paint. Why not say that in advance? Same with the slabbing of coins.
Then there is the errors made at some grading services. One dealer told me he sent in a 16D to one organization for grading and it came back in a body bag. He tried another organization and it came back graded and slabbed. HUH?

 

Your thinking is quite correct.

 

But they DO....

There is either the chance that it was cleaned and he sent it to PCI or ANACS and then they slabbed it or it was a fake and the last person didn't pick up on it...

Speedy

 

To me this sounds like an admission that the hobby would have been better served if the first TPG slabbed the coin and identified it as cleaned or fake or whatever they found wrong with it on the holder. Now someone, somewhere has more of a chance of being deceived into purchasing a coin with a potential unknown problem, and two TPG fees had to be paid. So the first TPG made a little more money and another customer or maybe two were the losers. The TPGs really have people brainwashed into thinking that this is an acceptable and even desirable practice. To me this should be unacceptable whether it is disclosed or not, and hobbyists should be pressuring the TPGs to change. Oh well. Ain't gonna happen.

 

Well Cloud
I see your point...but to me as a collector who doesn't collect fakes, cleaned coins, or the like I see why the Grading Co. don't and I'm glad.
Now one point that you missed....every grading Co. DOES slab cleaned coins...PCGS and NGC all slab them as long as they aren't harshly cleaned--

Speedy

 

That's just one more bad coin out there for someone to buy.

At least that's a start.

 

But where I don't buy them....some people collect cleaned coins...
So its not that its a bad coin....they aren't...its that I don't want them in my collection--and many others agree...I think my collection will be better for it that I don't add cleaned coins....

Well I don't like that....I wish they wouldn't but even an expert can be fooled by a cleaning sometimes.

Speedy