Does PCGS owe me?

You can also put me and everyone else that understands the "King's English into that category because "We don't know is an opinion" just as "This particular post should not have been necessary" is too!

 

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Ahhhhhh, now I'm back on your side and in total agreement.

 

I have been in the renovation/construction business and trade my whole career. Most honest contractors keep in mind, if I were the customer, would I want to pay for this. There is a time where you stop, estimate what you think it will cost to make things right, and correspond with the owner. If you can't figure out the problem, charging the customer for your time that is basically your lack of education, isn't good business. When you advertise your experience over all others, charging for what you don't have, in my opinion, is unexceptable. Your education is something you pay for, not the customer. After you have it, then you can charge for it.

 

This was pretty much Doug's point. You paid for their opinion on authenticity. Their opinion is that the coin cannot be authenticated without qualifiers. That is the expert opinion that you paid for. If you were an expert in the field, you wouldn't need to pay for their opinion.

It's entirely possible that there are too many qualifiers, in addition to the uncommon stamping. Maybe someone recreated the punch or it was stolen at some point in the past. If that's the case, it's not likely to be easy to verify authentic v non-authentic punches.

It sounds like the issue is with the holder, not the service. If PCGS simply refused to holder the coin and wrote "counterfeit," would you have felt better?

 

I wouldn't feel better but at least I'd have a definitive answer. It doesn't matter how confident I am in the coin, the marketplace responds to plastic.

 

Actually, it does matter how confident you are in the coin. If you were confident in its authenticity, you would be able to guarantee its authenticity for life. As for the coin in question, how about you just view the coin as potential buyers would: It's not authentic.

 

So, are you more of an expert in Azores counterstamps than PCGS? They couldn't say for sure that it's not authentic so why can you?

 

Be careful what you ask. There are some members on CT that may know quite a bit more about some things (C/S for example) than the guys at PCGS.

Long ago, a questionable coin such as this would never get into a slab. Today, they do. "Micro O" Dollars, Henning nickels, etc. Why, ICG even slabs counterfeits for "educational purposes." No doubt, other services will follow eventually.

 

I never said it wasn't. I said you should view it as your potential market would.

 

I know I'm beating a dead horse here but that is not what they said. They did not say anything negative or positive, they were neutral. "Unverifiable" is not the same as "questionable". You are assuming a negative when they were specifically neutral.

 

Let's review. You paid money to send a coin to the #1
TPGS and the "best experts" in the country did not say anything one way or the other. Where does that leave you? Are you going to get another opinion from NGC? Are you going to keep the "gem" in your collection? When you sell the coin are you going to tell a potential buyer about this experience? Just curious...

 

So why do they have these 2 different codes? You seem to think they're the same thing.


86 No Opinion – our experts are unable to determine a coin’s authenticity –
fee not refunded

90 Questionable Authenticity – the coin is most likely a counterfeit.

 

To the OP, if you want an expert opinion on a world coin, don't submit them to PCGS. They don't really know what they're doing outside of US coins.

Of course. They should do the exact same thing you'd expect them to do if you submitted a genuine US coin with a private counterstamp on it. Slab it as a details coin with a details "grade".

Personally I think it's nonsense when you pay for a TPG's expert opinion and their opinion is that it's questionable (both for authenticity and color), and that they should give you a full refund. Obviously if it's questionable, that may be why you submitted it to the "experts" for authentication.

 

Would you take your car to a mechanic that couldn't tell you what was wrong with your car, but charged you for their time just the same?

You're paying for the results not the time it takes them to come up with them. The results in this case is the authentication of the coin. They need to either say, yes this is authentic, or no, this is not genuine, for you to have results.

I absolutely agree that if they cannot make a determination they should tell you that, but they also should not charge you, because they haven't done their job.

 

These random non-analogous analogies are getting irritating. If you hire an attorney to defend you in court, and you get the death penalty, do you get your money back? Equally as absurd and incongruent.

 

In the future, if you don't understand something, you might want to say nothing instead of embarrassing yourself.