Case Study: 1938-S PCGS MS68+ "FB" Dime $364,250 - Everything that is Wrong with Our Hobby

This has been an interesting thread to say the least. I guess the bottom line for me is let the 1% throw their big money at the coins that are either are out of my league or ones I flat out don't accept as superior to lower graded examples. I'll be more than satisfied with my well struck MS 65-66 coin with great eye appeal over a top pop coin which doesn't do anything for me.

 

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True story though lol

 

Yeah right. That'll be the day.

 

Couldn't have said it better.

 

I was wondering earlier how many of us buy the coin and not the slab.

How many of us actually buy a coin that may have a problem that it needs to be cracked out for restoration. Then a regrade. I would bet that it is very few.

 

If I can flip it for a fair profit for the risk involved, I do it. I bought a monster toned WLH that has some dip residue on the reverse. I paid 5x guide premium for it at the time I purchased it. I'm about to crack it and conserve the reverse before resubmitting.

 

I almost wish the graders, finalizer, and submitter were listed in the cert verification tool online for all coins. Old ANACS photo certificates included the original submitter's name.

 

That is an interesting idea.
However, I believe it would be easy to get around. Those Anacs photo certs usually had company names just as often as individual names. Someone who would want to distance themselves from a coin could just use a different name on the submission form.

The finalizer and grader names would be harder to manipulate but it could still be done internally (if the need arose). I also think the employees might object to having their names made public (which can be a legitimate concern).

 

Wait. They paid what for a *what*?

 

I agree, but I think you could see patterns even if pseudonyms are used. If I recall correctly, Laura suggested that some of the graders were less than completely objective and that she hoped Charville would straighten things up.

 

First of all, you're a Monday morning quarterback. The grader didn't have the benefit of that large photo. He's looking at the coin for 5 or 6 second before he assigns a grade. Secondly, he's probably attracted by the color. Everyone knows that coins get an automatic bump for eye appealing color. Thirdly, there are idiots out there who will pay mad money for attractively toned coins. It's not collecting, it's speculating, and the purchaser is hoping to sell the coin to a bigger idiot than him.

 

Yes, but I'm right.

Reducing the magnification doesn't help. With that much interruption in the bands, it shouldn't matter. There is enough metal fusing the bands together that it should be obvious even with a quick in hand inspection. On another note, I'm not the one holding myself out as an "expert" grading service and charging others large sums of money for an opinion. If you stand in those shoes you take the amount of time it takes to get it right. A MS68+ FB dime is definitely going to be top pop or near top pop so the graders should know that their opinions matter even more and can make tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of difference.

That's fine, but this goes beyond color. The coin received at least 3 different grades spanning almost 2 full points in a year. This is disturbing even assuming we accept color bumps. When we have two point grading swings then it tells you that the grading is inconsistent, and if we are giving two point color bumps (or better) then we are really grading the color and not the coin's level of preservation at that point.

My thread wasn't intended to bash the price so much as it was to bash the loose application of strike designations, grading inconsistency/grade inflation, and the major effects that grade inflation is having in this hobby. So the next time someone goes on about PCGS/CAC only "protecting" the collector, I hope you and others will remember this thread and others like it.

Edited to fix awkward grammar.

 

My thread wasn't intended to bash the price


Then why include the idiocracy?

 

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I don't understand the question.

 

Can you please cite my exact post that you are referencing?

 

Someone was burned badly whether you view it as the guy that paid $364k at the end or the ones who sold it for $750 or $3k because the services can't keep their act together. So my post wasn't meant to say, "Hey he's an idiot for paying $364k..." so much as it is saying that there are negative influences in this hobby creating discrepancies and innocent people are getting hurt.

 

Innocent people......you can't save the world my friend. Stupid is as stupid does, as in a few years time, that dime is gonna diminish in value possibly by 50%. All we can try to do (as you have well done) is to report the truth of things.We can't save people from doing stupid things, we can only try and educate them. But we are dealing with a world way out our element. We can't compete in these circles. We can only watch their folly and failure

 

I agree that you can't save everyone, but it is important that new collectors understand the market if they are going to invest large sums of money. This is an extreme case, but it shows everything that is wrong with this hobby. The grading services and CAC were started supposedly to "protect" collectors; however, they now engage in the same abuses that the services were started to supposedly combat. It is worse now because people are lulled by claims of objective third party grading and given false senses of security because of vague grading guarantees that might not be honored (but that is a different can of worms).

 

That is why all collectors need to learn to grade, and not rely on 2nd hand opinions. I (and I suspect you also) have seen coins in holders that are way overgraded. What to do? You pass on buying the coin. Others, less experience rely totally on what is printed on the plastic. We can only try to enlighten these fellows, but we can't save them if they don't want to learn.