Breaking news at PCGS

Yes, I can. It means ABSOLUTELY ALL statements of the structure “It can’t be grade X because it has, or doesn’t have, attribute Y” are all BS. That is a relic of the now obsolete technical grading system. Multiple attributes interplay and mix in innumerable combinations to arrive at a TRUE market grade. Those attributes are a) state of preservation, b) strike, c) luster, and d) eye appeal. Anyone who denies that all four attributes are fair game in establishing a grade is a dinosaur who is out of touch with the profession’s currently accepted standards. That set of individuals includes a disturbing number of current and recent CT members and site managers.

Grading is an art, and must logically be, and not a science.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

But they can’t be monopolies. My network switch has eight ethernet devices on it, not counting wireless connections, and only ONE of them runs a Microsoft OS, and none have a Facebook app, nor have they ever. And Facebook appears nowhere on ANY of their browser histories, either.

 

Every player on the field won in those games. Their paychecks were still cashed. Now football where only the winning team gets paid, that would be entertianment lol.

 

Was that the XFL?

 

Nah they still got paid too, they could just hit harder.

Might be for the new XFL though.

 

edited

 

Well, earlier this week I was looking at adding some CLCT to my portfolio. Just trying to get an idea of how vulnerable the stock may be in a bad blood situation. Thank I will hold off and see what transpires.

 

I don’t own any CLCT, nor would I, but I would normally think that unless you are convinced that David was THE source of everything good about the company, this would be a bullish turn of events.

 

I going with the grades for preferred dealers theory. A hush hush termination could be for credibility damage control. What do i know?

 

I find your theory eminently plausible, but with no evidence. Everybody's doing it. Actually, if you read the stories carefully, the evidence IS there. Look at the insane accounts payable balances that DHRC is allowed to carry with PCGS. If you carefully parse all the data, it's right there. Ways to favor selected individuals are not limited to a few extra grading points. Using CLCT's balance sheet for excessive AP float for Dave Hall's other companies is another way. It's called conversion of corporate resources for personal use. Interest-free financing.

I predict that IF these sorts of arrangements were happening, the malodorous onion of CLCT/PCGS will get increasingly "ripe" as the layers are peeled away.

 

Grading is an art in that it is a subjective assessment of all of the qualities.

The science comes in understanding how the strike, luster, wear, etc are created and made, and what affects them. Understanding how the coin was made, and how it has been affected since it was struck is the science.

You must have both the Art and the Science of Grading Coins in order to fully understand, and properly grade, the coin.

Take it from me. I literally wrote the book

 

Yes, all true. But oil painting requires the science of pigments and oils mixing as a prerequisite , but that does NOT compromise the essential nature of applying it to canvas as an essentially artistic exercise. It could be a science in and of itself if we could agree on a method to represent the total impact of the four individual axes as a single scalar number, but we are so far from that, it's senseless to even think about it.

 

You wrote a book, I don't know that I'd go so far as to say you wrote the book. No offense intended, but self publishing a non-peer-reviewed book doesn't make you (or anyone else) the self-proclaimed expert.

However, I do agree with your assertion that grading is both a science and art. If that "grading" involves a TPG, it's also often a bit of a seemingly random process (lottery?).

 

Well David has always maintained that HE never submits coins to PCGS himself. It would be a conflict of interest.

Not likely NGC beat them to the punch on that about two decades ago.

Ever notice in Jurassic Park it's always the dinosaurs that win in the end.

 

This is not atypical for what happens when a company goes public. At the first sign of financial underperformance, the founding father is often quickly shown the door. That’s Wall Street.

 

It's the downside risk of taking all that payout to buy all those tacky Hawaiian shirts.

 

I don’t really view them as vulnerable to him nor do I think he really wants to try and bring them down given they’ll still need a working relationship for his business, but there is certainly some more uncertainty with the new team in place. Time will tell but I get the feeling this was very likely a we want you to give up some duties to these younger more innovative guys type situation and the only way to make that happen was to fire him.

I’m not saying to buy it and it does seem like changes are coming and we will need to see if they’re viewed as good or bad, but I’m cautiously optimistic that we may be seeing somethings that were kicked around last year like the video/liveshot TruViews