RIP Life Savings of Franklin Collectors

What would PCGS have to gain by just arbitrarily lowering its price guide numbers?

Probable answer: Absolutely nothing.

 

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No, I mean common courtesy as in referring to someone as they would like you to, not as what fits neatly in a box.

I once had a mentor who advocated that you not treat people as “you” want to be treated as has been taught for decades, but as the people themselves would like to be treated.

That’s the evolution of thought and humankind.

I understand that change isn’t always easy or even welcome, but we progress as a species in spite of this fact.

 

Thankfully I'm not an idiot who would put their life savings in Franklins. My life savings is in Ikes, hopefully PCGS doesn't move to them as their next target to kill!

 

Are price guides descriptive, or prescriptive?

That is, does the price guide describe the state of the market over the recent past? Or does a price guide dictate that these are the prices you should pay in the near future?

I would argue that they were intended to be descriptive, but we treat them as prescriptive.

 

If it works the way this guy thinks it works, I might try to hack pcgs's system, change all coin values to $5, then go buy all the high relief gold Saint Gaudens I can, since people will not buy a coin for more than price guide says it's worth. Then, after they get it corrected, SELL BABY SELL! haha

 

No worries yours was the kind of discussion I was trying to stimulate and your input was/is appreciated.

 

Ikes are next lol.

Grade rarity early coinage is worse off. Coins with rare auction appearances become based off of the sale of 1. If a key date low pop Seated Quarter drops you will see the value drop to just above the sale price, as also happened to me recently. PCGS price guide dropped $5000 based purely off of the sale of a single coin.

 

Actually , it may be that All Coins will like the 'next' in the future.

 

For an example of how wrong the PCGS and NGC guides were for Franklins, take a look at this sale:

In 2015, the PCGS guide for 1963 MS-66 FBL was $25,000: https://www.pcgs.com/pricehistory#/?=86684-66

However, this coin sold in October 2015 for $17,600: https://coins.ha.com/itm/franklin-h...5-3357.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

THE NGC GUIDE CURRENTLY HAS THIS LISTED AT $37,000!!!!! What a ridiculous load of bollocks. Anyone following the NGC guide is going to be in for a rude awakening.

You'll notice in the PCGS guide linked above, the values started dropping shortly after this sale. There have been no sales on Heritage since. However, the value listed in the PCGS price guide now corresponds to the last recorded Heritage sale..... coincidence?

I chose the 1963 in 66 FBL because it's the one coin I keep track of in the Franklin series. I built an award winning set on the NGC registry, but sold most of it a few years ago. I kept this coin because it is an amazing beauty, and I couldn't part with it. Currently graded NGC 65+* FBL, I'd put it up against any 66FBL you could show me:

 

NGC price guide has never been accurate and for that reason no one has ever used it. But pcgs price guide is used heavily, especially as a negotiation tool.

One thing about NGC Franklins though is the rarities do tend to sell more then PCGS. I think for a while they used to grade FBL by the upper and lower lines which as PCGS has only ever graded the lower lines (they may still but not likely judging by some I have seen lately lol). Also NGC populations for FBL coins are much lower then PCGS.

I will note though that though all the PCGS guide drops NGC realized prices have remained remarkably stable and PCGS coins are dropping to realized prices more consistent with their NGC counterparts. Perhaps the market is shifting?

PCGS is ONLY king because of registry set collecting. Their standards are no better or worse then other graders though many rookie collectors that have read an online blog would probably disagree with me.....but have not been buying enough multi thousand dollar coins to see they all get it both wrong and right.

Then there is the other two:

ICG has gone completely crazy since ebay seller centsless hung up his self slabbed NNC holders and found a way to get ICG to overgrade his junk.

ANACS is very good but their best stuff is picked though and crossed to PCGS. That leaves a lot of the over graded stuff in the market.

 

By whom? In almost 15 years of talking about this stuff on the Internet I've never once heard an educated opinion (as in, coming from someone who knew what they were talking about) that the PCGS price guide was anything but an exercise in wild optimism on their part.

 

PCGS price guide has never been worth talking about until about 2 years ago. Feel free to read the first post of this thread to see what I was talking about.

 

"RIP Life Savings..."? Good grief Charlie Brown. That's dramatic! Anyone who puts their life savings...well, let's move on.

From the buy-the-coin-not-the-slab dept: I'm a collector and not a dealer or investor. One of the collections I'm building out is a set of Frankie 65-FBLs (except the 53S...not paying that much for a coin). I use the 65 FBL for filtering purposes but in the end, I'm buying the coin. As was mentioned, PCGS is worse than NGC (and ANACS) for FBLs because they only look at lower lines. I eliminate most PCGS 65s for this alone. Even if all of the lines are solid, I might be turned off by ugly toning or some other factor for that particular coin. That being said, I recently paid over PCGS and Numismedia market value for a 52S 64FBL because it was gorgeous and clean even with the noticeable flaw that made it a 64. I personally preferred that coin over many of the 65FBL 52Ss I've seen. In the end, buying Frankies (as a collector) is no different than buying many things...What am I willing to pay for something I want at that moment in time? There is no wrong answer if it makes me happy.

To me, it seems PCGS is correcting their prices down from the highs of a few years ago but I'll defer to you all on that. I'd hate to be the person responsible for assigning one number for so many coins that may have the same technical grade but vary so much aesthetically (eye of the beholder and all) and range in prices.

 

Yeah, there have been a lot of Franklins I have turned away from even though they fit my grade and were PCGS slabbed, which happens to be what I want. Because of either extremely ugly toning or other things, like paying at least enough above a non-FBL one in price for not much more upside in possible value later on. Like when the grade without FBL is say 50.00, the same with FBL is 75.00, and both have the next grade up for each at say 85 and 90, respectively. And lots of ones already graded in and around that. No way I will be choosing a FBL in that case unless the coin looks so much better to the eye than the majority of similar ones I see. Generally I go for whatever is the most pleasing to me, because I want to actually like the looks of the majority of coins I have.

 

My point stands. It's never been worth talking about, it still isn't worth talking about, and your belief that it ever was worth talking about is a very minority one.

 

I’ve stayed on the outside of this thread cause I dislike these ugly coins, so plain, so vanilla, but did find one nugget that I found entertaining. That’s @baseball21 has a new nickname: FANBOY. Lol. Can I be your side kick I’ll be Butt Toot. The famous Fan Boy and his side kick Butt Toot. I’m drawing up a graphic novel right now. Headlines will read: “ The evil coin foes of the world beware the coin Hero’s are afoot”

 

As long as my name goes first on the cover

 

The whole FBL nonsense is why I'll likely never collect Franklins.
It is a tool of speculators and con-men, in my estimation.