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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 3104221, member: 112&quot;]Ya know, I could go along with grading standards changing once in a while. As long as once in a while isn&#039;t defined as every year or two. And as long as it was not a change to loosen the standards across the board. Changing the criteria for a given grade for a given coin or two, that I could live with and even understand. But there would also be conditions that go along with it. Primarily that notification that there even was a change be given, and a listing (explanation) of exactly what that change was, and who made it. And that any changes made can go both directions, as in tighter and looser, not just always looser !</p><p><br /></p><p>But as it stands, not even 1 of the 4 major TPGs can or will tell us, or anybody outside their companies, what their current grading standards even are ! Not a one of them ! And the only TPG that has ever actually published their grading standards was PCGS with their book in 2004. But even that book doesn&#039;t list actual standards, it just kinda gives us rough ideas. There is however one sentence in the book that says a coin with wear can be graded as high as MS67. And in a way that kind of says it all.</p><p><br /></p><p>Another thing I&#039;d really love to see is for all the TPGs, all the dealers, and all the collectors to actually use the SAME set of grading standards - whatever those grading standards might be ! As it is all 4 of the TPGs each use a different set of standards, and nobody outside the company even knows what those standards are. And dealers, and collectors, each one of them pretty uses their own set of grading standards too. I mean everybody is grading coins differently. What kind of system is that ? Shouldn&#039;t there be some sort of consistency somewhere, some actual standard ?</p><p><br /></p><p>As it is there&#039;s not even any consistency with a single TPG. Coin after coin after coin has been upgraded time and time again - by all of them. And I mean the exact same coins. A year or two ago it was a 64, today it&#039;s a 65. 6 or 7 years ago the same coin was a 63. And 15 years ago it was a 62. And it&#039;s not just the MS grades, it&#039;s the circ grades too. Coins that were in AU or XF slabs in some cases are all in MS slabs now. And what used to be VF is now XF, and F now VF. And so on and so on.</p><p><br /></p><p>The same kind of thing applies to problem coins. Some years ago it was body bagged or put in a problem coin slab, but today it&#039;s sent in and given a clean grade. What kind of sense does that make ? What kind of consistency is that ?</p><p><br /></p><p>And if any of you think that all of this is NOT what has happened, all I can say is you&#039;re fooling yourselves because it IS what has happened.</p><p><br /></p><p>In Bowers&#039; book Grading Coins By Photographs there is this line - <i>&quot;the interpretation of Uncirculated or Mint State is more liberal than it was 30 or 40 years ago&quot; and, &quot;Today, such coins that used to be graded About Uncirculated (AU) are now often graded as MS-60, MS-61 and MS-62.&quot; </i></p><p><br /></p><p>That book was published in 2008. And yes, the statement refers to grades from 30-40 years ago, but it was also true of coins graded by the TPGs in the early 2000&#039;s, only 15-18 years ago. In the early 2000&#039;s coins with wear were still being graded as AU.</p><p><br /></p><p>Today, coins that were graded as low as AU50 15 years ago are being graded as MS. Is that really the kind of grading standards that anybody wants ?</p><p><br /></p><p>If you&#039;re trying to sell your coins, sure I can see it, you&#039;d be overjoyed and just laughing yourself silly all the way to the bank. But what about the guy who buys that coin today because he accepts what the TPG says because he can&#039;t grade for himself. What about him ? The coin was in a TPG slab before, and graded the lowest AU there is, but today it&#039;s in an MS slab. And it was sold to him for multiples of what it was originally worth, even though current market prices for the coin are the same as they were 15 years ago. And don&#039;t try and tell me that isn&#039;t true either because it is. Current market prices ARE the same they were 15 years ago.</p><p><br /></p><p>There&#039;s been a lot of discussion about ethics on the forum lately, what about those ethics ? Or does nobody care ?</p><p><br /></p><p>So do I have a problem with today&#039;s grading ? You bet I do.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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