Are the PL graded Morgan's worth the extra premium versus a non PL graded morgan in the same grade and year? (I.E. 1904 o ms66PL vs. 1904 o ms66)
What Dave said, beware PL Morgans in older slabs especially.... That said - its possible to cherry pick an undergraded 65PL that would/should achieve 66PL upon resubmission. If you know how to grade that is........
In reference to your comment on the older holders; is there a good possibility that the grades were not as accurate as they are today?
There's a good possibility that the older grades are more accurate than today's. In fact, I'd call it a certainty.
No, not at all.... What I AM saying is: ive seen old slabs labeled as PL that would not make the PL designation today. In other words-grading standards have loosened, yet, PL/DMPL standards have tightened recently
This is generalizing, and like all generalities, exceptions abound. But.... TPG's originally hewed pretty closely to ANA grading standards, how you and I learned to grade back in the day. As time went by, they gradually loosened those standards, because it was in their best financial interest to offer their customers higher numbers (therefore more value for them) on the slab. It reached a head when John Albanese, who had been in on the founding of both PCGS and NGC and was NGC's first President, got so sick and tired of not being able to trust the numbers on the slabs that he founded CAC to cull the dogs away from the coins actually worthy of the grade. In response, the TPG's kinda lurched back into stricter grading. I say "lurched" because they're running their operations so tightly these days that mistakes - although perhaps not as frequent as before - are far more egregious. These days, we seem to see equal amounts of "what were they thinking?" to either side of the appropriate grade number. And, they're so paranoid about artificial color that it's pretty hard to get a toned coin into a genuine slab. So, even after a decade or more of the older slabs being cracked as fast as people could buy them for the new, higher grade, even the ones that are left tend to show more consistent and accurate grading than anything since. If you buy a nice PL coin in an older MS65 slab, it might well become 66PL today. Or 63.
Which is good. So to be really a good coin buyer you have to be educated in grading and have I have heard of CAC and no nothing about them. Are they another independant TPG? And is it really worth the second opinion from them?
Call them a "verifyer." Like I said, they were started by a guy who helped begin the TPG revolution in the first place, so - as a bigtime dealer back then and still now - he could more easily convince his customers to trust his coins, and more easily buy/sell back and forth between dealers. "Sight-unseen" dealing was problematic, since no universal standard existed, despite the ANA grading standards. Everyone interpreted those differently. TPG's theoretically evened that playing ground, so if John Albanese had a customer who wanted an MS66 St. Gaudens and he didn't have one, he could call his friend across the continent and have one in a slab shipped, knowing his customer would be OK with it. Nothing worse than getting a whale customer a promised coin that they hate.... Except, it got so he couldn't trust the TPG's he helped bring about. Enter CAC, who only (theoretically) sticker slabs which meet that "sight unseen" standard. It's not to make him rich - nobody who sells six-figure coins really wants to waste their time earning $15 evaluation fees - but to make him better able to sell those six-figure coins. And the consortium of dealers which make up CAC make the market for those stickered coins, by willingly and widely buying them at fair prices. When CAC was founded, Albanese expressed the opinion that many issues in many grades had become undervalued due to the preponderance of dogs in inflated slabs dragging the market down. I don't know if/to what extent that's true - I don't swim in those waters - but the way CAC coins play in the market one might be led to think he's correct. Then again, maybe it's just people paying for the sticker and not the coin.
I would highlight the "If you know how to grade that is" part of your statement. While it is true that the grading standards used by the TPGs have loosened over the years...older slabbed coins still had a range within each grade. There were still high and low sliders for each grade. Because it is so known that the grading standards have loosened...a great many of those older slabs have been picked through and upgraded. I would bet that the majority of the coins that remain in the older slabs are in fact the lower end sliders from that era which might not be as firm of an upgrade.
Thank you for sharing that with me, very interesting. I have a few GSA CC Morgans that were just taken out of there sealed boxes that I want to get graded. Which TPG would be best for these ? And would they automatically recognize a VAM and label it as such?
By "sealed boxes", I hope you mean the cardboard boxes the slabs came in were opened and not the slabs themselves. You can and should have the coins graded by submitting the GSA slabs themselves. A particular coin is worth more if designated GSA by a grading service. This can't happen unless the coin is submitted in an original, intact GSA slab. Only a few VAMs get automatically recognized. Otherwise, you can pay more for variety attribution at the time the coins are submitted. Cal
I just opened the white cardboard boxes the GSA slabs were packaged in. They are in the original slabs and with the coa and box.
Is it possible to know the year without opening the boxes? Printed on outside? X-ray? Use stealth opening and re-closing? 83's and 84's are most common. I'd hate to sell a sealed box at a common date price and find out later it had an 89 in it. Cal
With the exception of PL DCAM ect. Either they're harder on those today than they were or the majority of the stronger older ones have been resubmitted, probably a little bit of both in my opinion.
Agreed. Sealed white GSA boxes only play to the gambler, and eliminate the customer wanting a specific coin. Six of one, a half dozen of the other.
No pics, but they are an 82 and 83 in high grade I believe. And these are not cheap when you buy them like this. And SuperDave is right, its a gamble.
