I just ran across this sale of MS70 quarters on e-bay http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=39462&item=3953694466&rd=1 I thought MS70 was a very rare coin. Educate me please.
The seller also runs the 'SGS' grading service. Every coin sold by this seller is graded MS70 or PF70 by SGS, so it's just a way for the seller to get people to pay too much for sub-MS70 coins. The guy is a crook and Ebay knows it, but they won't do anything about it.
You are correct: coins graded MS-70 are few and far between. There are those of us who consider that there is no such thing as a "perfect" coin and, hence, no true MS-70 coins. I have a PCGS-graded silver American Eagle dollar graded MS-69 which, under magnification shows flaws. In this auction, SGS -Star Grading Service- has been the subject of many threads on this and other forums (see eBay's Coins and Paper Money forum for an on-going thread on this very subject. http://forums.ebay.com/db1/forum.jsp?forum=8 ). In this instance, SGS is owned by the seller who tempts and targets unsuspecting buyers with fraudulent "MS-70" coins which probably wouldn't grade much above MS-63 by a legitimate firm. There's quite a few more third-party grading (TPG) companies which are untiered (not rated by the Professional Numismatists Guild http://www.pngdealers.com/public/surveyresults.html ) including ones with deceptive initials such as NNC, CRC, PGS (three of these) to list just a few. Avoid them. Go with coins graded only by the top four TPGs: PCGS, NGC, ANACS, and ICG. Unless you really, really know what you're doing or have a lot of money to throw away, you're gonna get burned by the others.
This is excellent advice. Along with, "Buy the coin, not the slab". Keep in mind that just because a grade is stated on the slab does not necessarily make it so. It's always a good idea to learn how to grade for yourself. When you know how, you can look at the coin in the slab, decide what grade you would assign it and set your price accordingly. After all, the coin is going in your collection, not the TPG's.
