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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 2548994, member: 19463&quot;]Averages can be deceiving but any way we do the math, a 400 coin day works out to a minute or two a coin.&nbsp; Knowing nothing about the process of inserting coins, sealing and other administrative tasks, I can only say that the only way there is time to research a questionable item is if many of those coins were &#039;decided&#039; in a few seconds each, possibly in bulk as might be done with a hoard group.&nbsp; It does not seem like a plan to avoid slip-ups.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>I visited a local dealer whose knowledge of ancients was not high.&nbsp; He showed me a pile of coins returned from NGC without having been slabbed.&nbsp; A couple were (correctly) flagged as having active corrosion; a couple were modern copies; a few were marked as unable to determine authenticity.&nbsp; (Working from memory so I may not have the terms right.)&nbsp; It is this last group that will provide us with most of our problems.&nbsp; People who send in coins in the hope of authentication are likely to already have some question on the matter.&nbsp; I do wonder how many of the &quot;12 <a href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/fakes/index.php" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/fakes/index.php" rel="nofollow">fakes</a> didn&#039;t get slabbed today&quot; were the sort of thing we call &quot;dangerous&quot; and how many were the &quot;usual suspects&quot; (Black Sea Hoard, Slaveys, tourist fakes etc.).&nbsp; I suspect that the vast majority of the 400 coins were sent not for the feature of authentication/opinion but realizing that anything in a plastic box will sell for a premium due to the increased demand in that new part of the market that prefers plastic over paper (Sear certificates?). </p><p><br /></p><p>Opinion: NGC made a decision in the very beginning that traditionalist collectors viewed as a slap in the face.&nbsp; By inventing a grading system making their product look &#039;better&#039; than what was previously standard, the new idea appeared sleazy rather than professional.&nbsp; Grading ancients AU and MS alone tripped a first reaction, &quot;These guys don&#039;t know what they are talking about.&quot;&nbsp; In coins, Athens was very slow and gradual when they moved from archaic style tetradrachms to new style.&nbsp; The almond eye was reassuring to the spending public who wanted to be given that good old money like grandpa had.&nbsp; I believe that a system either completely different (not using what I call &#039;fine and friends&#039; at all) or being conservative (recognizing that not all coins have to be MS) could have avoided this negativity from the start.&nbsp; Obviously, following either of these paths would not have been successful since people would not send in as many coins for grading if the expectation were a label telling the ugly truth.&nbsp; We were told that the product was not marketed to the traditional wing of the hobby but aimed at new blood who did not have any idea that ancient coins existed or that they might own one.&nbsp; That is exactly how I got into the hobby c.1960.&nbsp; I had issues paying more than ten cents for a dime but the local coin shop had a dish of dime size denarii that struck me as a deal at $2.&nbsp; I was encouraged to handle them all (something we did not do with $2 dimes in that same store).&nbsp; That dish put ancients out there for a new market sector (kids like me) while the old guys asked to see the boxes behind the counter.&nbsp; I believe the dish of denarii served the same marketing purpose as the slab does today.&nbsp; It opened the hobby to new people.&nbsp; Today, I generally pass up dishes of ancients at my favorite dealers&#039; show tables.&nbsp; I&#039;ve moved up to the half price/discount box.&nbsp; Will people who the slab sellers brought to the hobby someday move into making their own decisions?&nbsp; Some will.&nbsp; Thinking back, I doubt that all of the kids fingering those coins in the dishes went into the hobby quite as deeply as I did.&nbsp; Some did.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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