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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 3295262, member: 112&quot;]With that much, I agree 100%. I&#039;ve posted a great many times that the TPGs were the best thing that ever happened to the hobby. But the key word in that comment is were !</p><p><br /></p><p>From the day they opened for business and for almost 20 years the TPGs did things the way they should be done - they followed standards. They graded coins fairly, accurately, and with reasonable consistency. And if you go back far enough in the posts made here you&#039;ll even find where I said, on numerous occasions, that I would agree with the grades assigned by the TPGs about 85% of the time. And that&#039;s with the understanding that people claim I am one of the toughest, strictest graders they&#039;ve seen - too tough, too strict even. But yet their grades and my grades were almost always the same.</p><p><br /></p><p>But in 2004 all that went out the window - because that&#039;s when the TPGs began changing how they did things, how they graded coins. My standards didn&#039;t change, I graded coins the same way I always did, and still do to this day. But their standards did, and drastically so. The TPGs took the trust and respect they had hard won over the years and simply played upon it, took advantage of it. They threw their grading standards out the window and began grossly over-grading coins. And then to add insult to injury they loosened the standards yet again, and again. </p><p><br /></p><p>In the beginning I was one of the few who complained about this, talked about it openly. No I was not the only one, there were most assuredly others. Others whose names were well known, highly respected. And with time, as things became worse, that list of names grew, and grew, and then grew some more. And today there are far, far more, I would even say the majority, who agree with what I have been saying all these years now. That the TPGs, across the board, not just 1 or 2, are and have been for a long time grossly over-grading coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>So those bad old days of trust the sellers that you mentioned, today they have become the bad new days of trust the TPGs. And just about everybody knows it - just like they did back then. And there is little difference between the two.</p><p><br /></p><p>The question, the important thing, is how long will it be before the collectors and the dealers who are the very fiber of this hobby all get together, stand up on their back legs and demand changes. Changes that put actual unchanging standards back in place.</p><p><br /></p><p>And don&#039;t give me that crap about all standards change. Standards like these do not change for when they do they are no longer standards at all and we end up with what we have right now ! A mess ![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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