I am somewhat new to the group and wanted to get some opinions on what I call Grade Inflation. I define it as where people are too optimistic on grading there coins. It seems like this always holds true with coin dealers or anyone selling there coins. I have been seeing a lot of coins being pass it off as AU grades, when in reality it is a XF grade (clean in a lot of cases). It is very common to see coins for sell based on one grade too high. I have even caught a dealer cleaning coins. When I questioned the dealer, his claim was he was cleaning MS grades only. I guess you can argue the coin is still in MS but it is not UNC. I thought he was pushing the envelope. Are other members in this group experiencing this frustration or am I just being too meticulous?
you certainly aren't being too meticulous, you should demand that the coins you consider buying be up to your standards, including properly graded and not cleaned (MS or not). Stick to your guns on this one, you will be happier in the long run if you do.
The dealer you caught dipping coins is doing it for a reason: He believes there is a market for them. So, why does he believe that? Dealers regularly overgrade coins and coins collectors regularly undergrade them. I believe Abe Kosoff said dealers turn off the lights and collectors put the coin under a microscope. Gradeflation is what TPG was suppose to put end to but instead they only institutionalized it.
keep in mind, as more people collect coins, there are less of any said grade of any said coin available to the increasing population of coin collecters. therefore, that ms60 that you would have passed over for 20 bucks, doesn't look so bad compared to a ms64 at 150 bucks anymore.....
Smon - It seems to be a huge problem to me. Two of the three dealers near me clean and grossly over-grade their inventory. The one dealer can't understand why I won't dip my Morgans to increase their value. Fortunately, the third seems to run a pretty honest shop. However, the whole dealer experience has me buying more TPG coins from the internet these days and very few from the shops.
Indeed! The idea that coin collectors should buy the highest grade they can afford, IMO, is an idea that made a lot of sense in 1930 but not today. Back then a VF, now called a EF coin, might cost a dollar and the highest grade was a Unc that might cost $2 or twice the VF now EF price. Getting the higest grade possible back then for 2X the EF price was probably not a bad deal at all. Now with 11 Uncirculated grades it's probably a bit tough to get a MS68 for 2X the EF price. The 11 point Unc grades are here to stay, so we are told, and market grading is here to stay, so we are told. And that we just have to "adapt" to these new market realities. Where does it say we have to use old methods--(buy the highest grade possible)-- to adapt to new situations? Why shouldn't we use changes to our advantage instead the advantage of those foisting the changes?
longnine, I completely agree, but you expressed the idea perhaps better than I have in the past. If the "highest grade" used to be 2X, and gradually moved up to 20X, it might be a little naive to expect this trend to continue forever. Is it going to continue until the spread is 30X, 50X, or 100X? I think probably not. At a more practical level, I frequently see coins where the MS65 price is 5X the MS64 price. Personally, I'd rather have 5 MS64s than one MS65. The current thinking that "the higher the better regardless of price" reminds me of the tech stock bubble of the late 90s when the investors buying Cisco at $80 per share thought they were getting just as good a deal as those who bought it at $5 a few years earlier. At some point, price matters as much as quality.
The first case is grade inflation and it is a real problem. The brand new ANA grading guide has backed off on the standard definitions of grade in some cases (Full Horm for VF on a Buffalo Nickel, for instance). This is not a new phenomenon. There was a time when there were four grades and no "About Uncirculated" between Very Fine and Mint State -- and nothing higher than Mint State: Unc was Unc. But that was 100 years ago and in 1905 despite the writings of one numismatist, no one collected by Mint marks, just years. You can expect to see the grades between VF-20 and VF-39 get filled in with intermediate numbered examples being offered. Your second statement is a bit curious. Technically, you are correct dipping a coin is cleaning it. However, we do not recognize it that way. It is true that an over-dipped coin loses its luster. Still, Jeweluster or the equivalent is not considered harmful to a Mint State coin. I disagree, but I do not define the markets. As for dipping and other forms of "coin doctoring," I believe that in the near future, these alternations are going to be apparent via new technology and training. For instance, there was a time when collectors varnished their coins. Then, they cleaned them with a "harmless" pencil eraser. Then, they "dipped" them in acid. Then "professional conservators" restored them. At every point, coins damaged with the old methods were discounted. The new technology and training will be laboratory grade instrumentation today made cheaper tomorrow. We accept binocular microscopes and gram scales as common tools, but they were professional scientific instruments in a previous generation. Never do anything to "improve" a coin. The more natural the surfaces, the more money the coin will fetch.
Hmmmm. The only reason I like Robert Chambers is, he is taking off the market, his 3X overpriced Morgans. Every time Shop@Home sells 1000 NGC MS64 Morgans for $120 each, I know that those 1000 will not be back on the market soon.......
