Extremely Disappointed with PCGS

Hello, fellow Coinees!

Hope all is well.

get to the chase:

I have been a member of PCGS for years, and I can't remember how many years.

Every year they debit my credit card, send me a Polo Shirt( this year it was XXXL, a real TENT), send forms for eight ( 8) "Free" submissions good for the year.

Never had a problem with PCGS at all, not even a bad daydream.

But I guess I will find out of I truly got what I may have deserved...

Three( 3) of the 8 coins...hmmm...

Two of them, Franklin Half Dollars, should have gotten the Full Lines( FL) designations.

One was an Indian head cent w/ VF "Details" some sort of "scratch". I got this one cheap, so no big loss per se.

I asked an eBay aquaintence, I will paraphrase what he wrote me:

" What were you thinking? That ANY grading company is going to grade a coin you send in on Economy Tier is gonna let you go to Heritage or Great Coll. and make $30,000? You can get a big-shot to send the Franklin's in FOR you, and that is what several coin folks do. You got what you deserve".

Opinions??

 

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https://www.ngccoin.com/ switch

 

Out of town - will post pics when I get back.

 

PCGS slabs are glued together with pureed kittens.

Evil.
So very evil.

 

Looking forward to the photos.

 

Soon after I started collecting, I sent several coins to PCGS for grading. Like you, I was disappointed with PCGS when I received the graded coins.

What I’ve come to learn is that I shouldn’t have submitted the coins for grading in the first place (to ANY coin grading company). Simply said, the coins I submitted were not worthy of being graded/slabbed. As a new collector at the time, I had unrealistic expectations about how the coins would grade.

This is likely a lesson learned by many new collectors.

 

I did the same with ANACS three years ago...5 coins, first submission. The costs FAR OUTWEIGHED the value of the coins...Spark

 

lol.... that's NGC

 

I did the same with NGC once... of the five coins, two or three were worth the cost, the others... two definitely were not.

 

I'll get blowback for this; however, I like to submit coins as part of learning how to grade them. While I realize we've several pro-graders here at CoinTalk I'm very new to the process.

Having a set of polished/cleaned coins, or coins spread over a range of grades, means I've a little library to study in order to get my feet wet.

It can be a good exercise to put together a collection of 10 coins, grade them the best you know how, and send them into ANACS for about $100.00. While the coins may not be worth the money you spent I think the education is very worthwhile.

I've a polished Peace Dollar that cost me $30.00 plus $10.00 to grade.
The Peace Dollar is worth about 1/3 what I've got into it; however, I can now spot a polished coin from across the room. In short, the upfront investment will save me money in the long run.

 

The GOOD news is that you only wasted something they gave you for free. If you had paid for the privilege of being disappointed you would have many people who are sympathetic to your plight. Are those free grading certificates transferable? Maybe you could sell them and make a profit that way.

 

That would work IF each slab had a visible indication of Graders and Finalizers, such as "
GRADER A11H3 FINALIZER: BH4....but that is not their business format. Why do the Frequent auto renters get the clean newer UpGrade and not once a year Joe X ?? Repeat business is the key for profit.
IMO, Jim

 

Clearly written by someone who has no idea what they are talking about. Upgrades have nothing to do with repeat business or not, the only people who think that are people that have no idea what they're talking about who should be ignored

 

Well said. I did the same thing. Got ticked off a few times but it helped me learn.
When a coin came back lower or higher than what I thought, it was time to study why PCGS called it the way they did.
To be honest, after a bit of study, I had to agree with PCGS, most of the time.

 

I don't mean any offense but, usually when people complain about third-party grading being inaccurate, the problem is more often that the submitter does not know how to accurately grade.

 

Maybe a little off topic but I sent my first submission into NGC not long ago. 9 coins. Two that are really nice but I suspected were cleaned, did come back as being cleaned. One was a MS-63 IHC formerly in a PCGS slab that was cracked out. NGC graded it a MS-63 as well, never knowing what PCGS gave it.

Also a Buffalo nickel that was a MS-65 cracked out of an NGC slab was regraded as a MS-65 again. A 20 cent piece that was graded VG and was also previously cracked out came back in a new slab as VG once again. I was impressed that they nailed them 3 for 3. Granted this was NGC but I guess the point was on a small level to reinforce that the TPGs have professionals doing this on a daily basis, that have seen it all. They regraded stuff for me that I normally would never have regraded and they repeated what others had thought in the past.

 

@GDJMSP Yes, but FBL still means FBL. That designation hasn't changed.
This is not a gray area where a weak strike or late die state could affect the grade. It either is or it isn't.