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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EyeAppealingCoins, post: 3237688, member: 96749&quot;]1.) What do you think market grading is?&nbsp; It is an attempt to rank coins by relative value, which necessarily considers prevailing market preferences and considerations.&nbsp; Markets and market preferences change.&nbsp; Coins that were once market acceptable and net graded may no longer be market acceptable and vice versa.&nbsp; Standards also tend to tighten in weaker markets.&nbsp; CAC has had some effect.</p><p><br /></p><p>If there are no changes in standards, then how do you explain the following?:</p><p><br /></p><p>(i) blue and purple copper with the putative &quot;MS70&quot; look were once routinely straight graded but are not usually straight graded anymore and the coins will not sticker;</p><p>(ii) the standards for PL/DMPL/DPL Morgan Dollars have unquestionably changed (and become much stricter);</p><p>(iii) luster was not as significant of a factor for richly toned coins (particularly at NGC) and deeply toned coins with muted luster were accepted at higher grades in earlier years;</p><p>(iv) PCGS no longer encapsulates most of those horrible AT silver eagles;</p><p>(v) changes in preferences for toned coins and color bumpage; and</p><p>(vi) take a look at Saint Gaudens double eagles and MS66 Liberty Nickels.&nbsp; The populations of the latter are smaller and more feasible to see substantial percentages of extant populations.&nbsp; There is a palpable loosening in recent years.</p><p><br /></p><p>2.) PCGS&#039;s David Hall and NGC&#039;s Mark Salzberg have both admitted that their&nbsp; standards have changed at least once and that the services were still &quot;learning&quot; or were overly &quot;conservative&quot; in the early years.&nbsp; There is an interview with Salzberg on the NGC website somewhere and forum posts from Hall somewhere if anyone really cares enough to pull them up.&nbsp; I don&#039;t.&nbsp; Keep in mind, these comments were made well after the 1990 FTC suit against PCGS alleging a lack of objective and consistent grading and despite claims that PCGS standards represented &quot;a permanent grading standard-a grading standard that will never change.&#039;&#039;</p><p><br /></p><p>3.) When was the last time you submitted coins to PCGS?&nbsp; Yes, inconsistency is an issue and can explain much of it especially when dealing with small sample sizes.&nbsp; On the other hand, if the tighter grading is widespread then it really does reflect a change in prevailing standards and not outliers.</p><p><br /></p><p>4.) Gradual changes in standards can add up overtime.&nbsp; It isn&#039;t necessarily saying that the CEO/President of CU wakes up one morning and decides to change standards.&nbsp; There exists a limited number of graders.&nbsp; As they die and retire, they are replaced.&nbsp; With significant turn over, fresh blood creates plenty of opportunity for individual grader biases/preferences to take over and cause shifts in the application of standards.&nbsp; We can argue whether that it is a change in the standards themselves or&nbsp; change in the application of the standards, but the difference is really semantic.&nbsp; The net result is the same.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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