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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 1748549, member: 112&quot;]While I will be first in line to tell you that there are some dealers who do exactly what you describe above and for those reasons, there are also plenty of others who would simply be giving you their honest, and accurate, opinion.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>For example, I am no dealer and never have been. But there have been a great many coins slabbed by NGC and PCGS both as MS64 that I would never grade any better than AU, especially those slabbed after 2003. And I&#039;m not trying to buy the coin. You see, more than a few dealers are convinced of the same thing that I am - that the TPGs have been over-grading coins for some time now.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>As for your own ability, that is exactly what you should do. But at the same time you need to have a certain level of grading ability, and be accurate with it. And that is not always easy to do for it requires a good deal of expertise and experience. But if you have confidence in your own grading abilities then the first thing you should be questioning is not necessarily the opinions of others on the grade, but the opinion of the TPG. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>An experienced and discriminating collector will completely ignore any grade assigned by a TPG. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>That&#039;s because there is no other method. There are a great many coins that have been submitted to TPGs for grading that should never have been sent to them at all. Now there&#039;s a multitude of reasons for that, but one of the most common is that the person who sent the coin in over-graded the coin. In other words they look at the coin and see a 66 when the coin is actually no better than a 64. (Those numbers are arbitrary and only meant to illustrate the point.)</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I guess when it comes right down to it the only deciding criteria for having a coin graded is value, or making it easier to sell. And those are not the same things nor should they be confused as such. In regard to value, the deciding point will vary greatly by person. But to me, if the coin is not worth over $200 then don&#039;t even consider it for grading. As for making it easier to sell, it is an absolute fact that there are far, far, more plastic buyers out there than there are coin buyers. So having a coin slabbed greatly increases your pool of potential buyers. But, doing that, in my opinion anyway, lumps you into the same category as those larcenous dealers you described above. For all you are doing is taking advantage of gullible people in order to put money in your pocket.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I wouldn&#039;t put much faith in this if I were you. Those &quot;like&quot; images you mention are based solely on the descriptive terms that identify the image, labels in other words. And that does not mean that those labels are accurate.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>If you want to use pictures to compare coins then use the pictures you find on Heritage of like graded coins. But I warn you, it takes a great deal of skill to interpret pictures for pictures can be greatly deceiving. But if nothing else viewing those pictures on Heritage will illustrate to you what I was talking about above, namely that you will see an enormous difference between coins of the same grade.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Your best bet by far is to go to as many coin shows as you can go to so that you can view the coins in hand and gain the experience that will actually do you some good.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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