CAC Coin Price Chart

I'm right with you Doug, but not with several others.

Third party grading was instituted because too many coin buyers too regularly lost excessive money on high priced purchases where they relied upon their own unrefined skills to authenticate, grade and value the coin, and therefore were unable to suitably quantify their risk. Third party grading was intended to address coins misrepresented to be of high value, when in fact they were not. For true students of the hobby, this was generally less necessary than for those who had a fleeting interest, often of a purely investment nature.

The TPGs also filled another important void, and this is the most critical thing for us to ponder . . . Until the advent of third party grading, there were only 2 dimensional publications of the industry grading standards to reference . . . and a very limited sample size of just one pair of photos per grade, making it impossibly difficult to understand all factors contributing to a given grade. Third party grading has given us an enormous sampling of graded coins in the marketplace with which to hone our understanding of the industry standard . . . far better than any single publication can. Even though there will always be low end coins and high end coins, by examining a large population of coins, one can assimilate the standards as well as one chooses, and far better than one would have from a book in the 1980's. Even if CAC did not exist, the tools are already in place for market participants to learn what they need.

For that reason, I feel that CAC is really unnecessary, other than to make comfortable those who would not learn to authenticate, grade and value coins for themselves . . . little more than a . . . a crutch, if you will. That is the reason ToughCOINS deemphasizes the importance of CAC stickers on coins.

This thread is getting tired, so I'm signing off.

- Mike