NGC EBAY deal

I thought some time ago, Barry ) @Barry Murphy ), stated they offer Ancient Certifications without the sonic welded plastic cases... I thought that was interesting... Barry?

 

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Marcos why are you so concerned about someone offering opinions on your coins? Someone can get opinions on your coins from NGC, on Facebook, here, Forum and about a dozen other places. What are you so worried about?

Barry Murphy

 

As a general rule, NGC only issues photo certificates for coins that are too fragile to holder, and the occasional valuable coin that a dealer wants our opinion on but doesn’t want in a holder. Case in point the Eid Mar denarius in the current Triton sale. It’s not a service we generally offer.

Barry Murphy

 

Barry Im concerned when NGC says a coin for example ..is unauthenticateable (if that is a word)
the potential buyer will have a seed planted in their head that all this sellers coins by association are suspect now, many newcomers to the hobby are likely to use this service.
You are saying that when ngc provides an opinion on a coin (using a photo mind you) that their is no one affected by this.That is not true unless you are in the minds of everybody in the marketplace which is impossible. potentially many legitimate businesses that operate on ebay that specialize in raw ancient coins could lose a customer and a potential long term customer all because of a company that wishes to profit when it opines on coins from a picture. this is like me standing outside a jewelery store saying give me five bucks and Ill tell if thats a cubic zircon or a real diamond before you buy it from them with out opening up the display case and Ill tell you that from afar.
It is true anybody can get opinions on a coin authenticity from a social board but this is the first time ive seen somebody monetize it before the coin is purchased. Congratulations by the way to ebay and ngc as they have a figured out a way to keep fakes on the ebay marketplace and figured out how to make money off of it without hiring a soul its actually quite genius on their end taking a cut like that.
it seems they need to keep fakes on ebay to fulfill the demand of this new side gig they have developed.
Now I dont think any coins I sell will have any problems. but still some of the points Ive mentioned should be considered by ngc and ebay. best of success on this venture I hope it works out well for everybody but in the end it will probably just cost us raw coin sellers as ngc tries to continue to commoditize this market.
no disrespect I appreciate a lot of the posts you add to the conversations on these boards.
Peace

 

It's impossible for eBay to keep staff on hand with expertise in every possible numismatic area just to review coin listings. That service would be prohibitively expensive and would make them no money, plus it sets a precedent. Do you then expect the same service when someone lists other collectibles? Given the volume of sales they have in this area (it has its own top level category) it is an unreasonable expectation to have that they would do this.

That being said, NGC's service fills a need. It does not enable eBay to not police their auctions, rather eBay's obvious inability to do so creates the market for this service.

Ebay is what it is; a person to person marketplace. Ebay is a facilitator and does what it is obliged to do under the law. Nothing more. If you don't want problems as a seller, sell authentic coins and take good pictures. You should already be doing this and have nothing to complain about.

 

As I said previously I only sell authentic coins this is not the issue I don't need you to remind me of this. The issue is the idea of authentication from a picture... its easy on a lot of fake coins sure,, but many authentic ancient coins can look odd if the photo isn't exactly dead nuts perfect. And these coins photos submissions will come back as uncertifiable or whatever and that's where the problem lies. And I feel many submissions will fall into this category. Maybe I'm in the minority here but this is how I feel. And also if ebay can create an algorithm to stop me from listing new sales in my store because of an tiny inventory error on my part...surely they can have an algo that removes a fake seller who posts too many fakes. Hopefully they have something like this in the works but I doubt it.

 

Well, it's an interesting point you bring up. You're saying buyers will be put off from making a purchase if any answer other than "likely authentic" is given, and that with ancients, that would be a common response due to the difficulty of judging them from all but the highest quality photos?

 

Yes Jaelus that's exactly my point. I could be wrong but look at all the pictures of coins that are borderline that are submitted for an opinion here and forumcoins.. It seems many are obvious fake but quite a few are borderline and just need to be seen in hand. heck even coins I've had that I know are authentic look kind of odd when I photographed them for whatever reason. Overcleaned coins can look very odd in photos is the 1st thing that pops in my head because if the light hits the edge just right it can make it look like they have an edge seam even when there's nothing there.

 

Well, not much you can do about that.

Having said that, you're really talking about raw ancients eBay buyers who are not savvy enough to judge for themselves or ask in a forum such as this one for free, but are savvy enough to know about and use the NGC service, and yet are also then not savvy enough to understand the answer properly.

I'm not sure that's a significant enough demographic to really warrant this level of concern.

 

Well then lets hope you're right and put this thread to rest.
Peace

 

It seems that the obvious solution is for sellers to take high quality photos that don't make the coins look "odd", or show edge seams that aren't there. If NGC can't decide from a photo because the quality of the photo is too bad, what chance do buyers have?

 

MONEY. ebay just cares about the Benjamins.

 

I've been selling coins on eBay for many years, but I'm still not clear how this service works. As far as I know, NGC has never authenticated or condemned any coin that I've sold. So how does this happen? Does eBay initiate this service, or does a potential buyer request it? Who pays for this service, and how much does it cost? What happens if NGC flags a coin as fake? Does it notify eBay? Will eBay shut down the auction?

 

All details here : https://coinsweekly.com/ngc-pmg-and-ebay-partner-on-expert-review-service/