I have heard that PCGS has initiated a new presidential review policy for their certified coins. Is anyone familiar with the details ?
If you have a PCGS slabbed coin and disagree with the assigned grade, you can resubmit the coin to PCGS for "Presidential Review." David Hall will review coins submitted for presidential review and will consult his graders for their opinion. If a majority agree that the coin deserves a higher grade, the coin will be reslabbed. The fee for this review is $20. Of course, you could just resubmit the coin regularly and hope for a higher grade as an alternative. The idea here I suppose, is that the coin gets more "personalized" attention.
spypondac, Perhaps this is what you've heard about?? I don't know if I'd really call it a policy per se, since it's more of a one-time deal in reaction to some members' shock at the grades their submissions and re-submissions received. You can read some more about it here... well, kind of. Several days' worth of replies to that thread were deleted. And the main thread (from what I remember) that set this new situation into motion has, from what I can tell, been completely removed. Basically, there were/are a small number of experienced numismatists who have regularly submitted their coins to PCGS over the years, fairly confident in the results they would receive back (based on their experience and prior PCGS gradings). Recently, though, these individuals claim that PCGS has started to grade coins on a much more stringent basis, even downgrading by 2-4 points coins whose grade had previously been assigned by PCGS. I have neither the money nor the coins to engage in TPG submissions, so I'm a complete "outsider" here with absolutely no knowlege of the "system". The above information is just based on the replies I read on the PCGS forum a week or so ago (from the thread that's no longer there). Hope that helps. - Andrew
The Presidential Review is nothing new - it's been around for quite some time, several years at the least. It has nothing to do with PCGS supposedly tightening their grading standards.
To me the "Presidential Review" is an inane PCGS policy that basicly says that the people working here are inept and let me, David Hall, have a look and perhaps I'll change the grade for you. Pathetic! Just money making at its worst.
Personally, I think the policy is simply another means of generating profit from its existing customer base.
I think the idea is that PCGS gets more $20 notes in their wallet. ok I want to start my own "tradernicks" review. send me your pcgs coins...heck send me all your coins. I'll only charge $10 each and I'll tell you if you should resubmit them or not If I advise you to resubmit and the grade isn't raised, I'll refund your $10. Now I just need a big rubber stamp that says "DO NOT RESUBMIT THANK YOU FOR YOUR MONEY"
The oddity of the proposal by David Hall was that for coins graded between 5-17 & 05-31-05 he would review up to 20 coins for a submitter for free. The first link submitted by Brocster detailed this policy. He then promised to share the results of his review. I eagerly await his reply. There seems to be no good answer. If he says that the coins are being properly graded, he confirms the knowledgable submitters opinion that the standards have tightened. If he says that the coins are being under or over graded he basically states that in his opinion his graders are incompetent. As I said, I can't wait. Ed
The strange part about all of this, that nobody has realized yet, is a report that was published in Coin World a couple of months ago. If - and I stress if - PCGS has tightened their grading standards - that report is the reason why. It's no secret that PCGS advertises and promotes themselves as being the toughest or strictest grading company of them all. But when that report was published, in a nutshell what the report showed was that this was definitely not true. So it really wouldn't surprise me if PCGS HAS tightened up their grading standards - again - in an effort to rectify that. In my personal opinion PCGS is probably the single most inconsistent grading company of them all. It seems their grading standards rise & fall like the tide.
I got a email the other day from a dealer that I have delt with saying that (this was an email to a email list of buyers...not just me) they had found a roll of 2005 ASE and had sent them to (I think I'm right) PCGS and they came back MS69 FIRST STRIKE....How in the world could PCGS say that they are first strikes...they didn't see the coins come off the dies...it made me kindof mad... Speedy
The First Strike program was something just started this year by PCGS. ANY 2005 silver eagle submitted before Jan 31 2005, or any sealed green monster box that had a packing slip inside it dated before Jan 31 woud be slabbed as a First Strike. It has NOTHING to do with when the coin came off the dies. It was just another promotion to try and increase the number of submissions and the bottom line.
