Learning to Grade: Looking at a ton of coins of EBAY

I used to scour eBay every single night for all the newly listed Franklins, and in the process it helped me tremendously in getting familiar with what certain grades looked like.

 

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Tried posting a response awhile back going in depth about my changing from refusing to pay more for CAC to embracing it fully and having zero issue paying a premium but I lost connection before posting.

The cliff notes are that once I started type collecting the value of CAC coins became apparent to me. I am comfortable with the series I know but when I am looking to spend $1,500 on a coin in a series I've never owned I will gladly pay a little extra for the peace of mind that chances are good I'm getting a quality example. Sure there are dogs with stickers but it's not the norm and when I'm buying from pictures I want as much chance at getting quality as possible and CAC increases those chances significantly.

Old school collectors will tell me to read the book first, but I don't want to.

 

He put it very elegantly and I agree with his take on it.

It certainly shouldn’t be the default position that the TPG and CAC is wrong when a collector disagrees or doesn’t understand a grade and sticker

 

Thanks for replying. I am wondering if you shared the idea that CAC started out as a confirmation-of-grade service for TPG work and then evolved into a selective indicator for the better 20% of the given grade?
Mr. Fortin, and I think he should know, opined the latter in the above citation -- that CAC was created as a response to the grade inflation problem. Seems that would not limit CAC to sticker-ing the best of that grade, so it's fair to wonder why the aim was narrowed!?
I am trying to gauge if this distinction might be the root of a common misconception.

 

I was just replying in general not necessarily to the Fortin article (which I'll read when I get a minute). In general, I look at CAC as having a stricter set of standards so when they agree with a grade that implies it is nice for the grade. Although PCGS seems to be quite strict themselves right now.

 

Honestly I think the root of most common CAC misconceptions are just people spouting off that have a lot of posts on various forums who either have a dislike/vendetta against them or are just misinformed from someone else.

I personally think it's pretty straight forward what CAC is doing and am amazed by what people type about them in various places.

 

I appreciate that perspective. No doubt there is a lot of that going on.
I've been wondering about a standard of grading down to the single digit on a continuous 1-70 scale. Although it would give the TPG's room to grade inflate just a little, extreme exaggerations would become easier to detect. So it would have slowed the degradation of the hobby in a CAC-less world.
With so many coins slabbed by now it might be too late to change. But if a start-up company were able to hire top-notch graders, they could offer continuous-scale grading and it might catch on.
Either way I guess mid-range and high-end collectors would still pay the premium for the enhanced certification that CAC provides.

 

Some of that’s sort of happened already. The plus grades being implemented were the start of decimal grading making it into the mainstream. At this point I don’t think we will ever see a true continuous grading scale and we will always have that hard line drawn in it.

CAC has always been intended for the middle/higher part of the market. It was collectors and collector demand that opened it up to kind of the whole market. Though CAC has raised their prices recently twice which does seem like they’re trying to discourage some of the lower value stuff. It makes sense to me at the higher end as an extra opinion never hurts especially with gold which they’re VERY good with.

 

Yes they are tough on gold. I just failed another $5 lib which is super PQ and thought had a good chance. Am curious to call in and see why John didn't pass it (one of the greatest benefits of the service to be able to do that). Small sample size but I'm 0-6 on gold coins now. Have one left I think has a chance then I'm done even trying gold for a bit.

 

Golds my worse percentage too, with two that are a head scratcher for me. From most of what I’ve seen they’re a big difference maker on anything gold that has numismatic premiums. If you get the chance I’d give them a call and see what they say