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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;superc, post: 1824089, member: 44079&quot;]Yup.&nbsp; Coin prices are determined by the market, i.e., what the buyer is willing to pay.&nbsp; Not by what a third party thinks it is.</p><p><br /></p><p>You add a dose of reality I had forgotten on the whole grading issue.&nbsp; I simply forgot that the grading services are companies that can be bought and sold and change hands and change policies from day to day if some Board of Directors, CEO or manager feels like it.&nbsp; Silly me, I had been viewing them more as a guild with members that vote on standards (such as SAE or the AMA) rather than a company subject to the whims of management.</p><p><br /></p><p>This has consequences for all of us of course.&nbsp; We have all (if over 30) seen it before in many other industries, from guns and cars to food stuffs and appliances.&nbsp; One year the company makes a great product, 5 - 18 or 30 years later they are turning out junk.&nbsp; What happened?&nbsp; Someone bought the company and decided to count on name recognition to ensure sales while at the same time turning out a cheaper product.</p><p><br /></p><p>What does that mean for us?&nbsp; That maybe someday someone will buy a well respected slab company and really lower the standards.&nbsp; This could impact in all sorts of ways from lost coins to worthless certifications.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Pick a slab company, call it XYZ coin rating.&nbsp; Because it is a private company it gets inherited.&nbsp; The kid has poor judgement or a drug habit or likes life in the fast lane.&nbsp; Next thing you know, although XYZ slabbed coins once had an impeccable reputation, not only have they begun grading junk as MS, rumors of counterfeit coins being slabbed and certified as genuine have also begun to percolate.&nbsp; Worse, their newest slabs look just like the older slabs.&nbsp;&nbsp; What would that do to your personal coin collection&#039;s value, if all of your coins had been slabbed by XYZ coin rating?</p><p><br /></p><p>I suspect the best solution (which because I got out of coins for a few decades and wasn&#039;t paying attention when slabbing started had assumed (there is that word) that slabbing was being overseen by one of the associations) is for one of the coin guilds or associations to begin a slabbing company literally owned by the group rather than a company begun by one person.&nbsp; Yes, I know, someone always dominates.&nbsp; This can probably be offset by the guild choosing a CEO who reports to the guild, rather than a member of the guild directly running the company.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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