The "Peter Principle" for Slabbing Coins

Speedy,

If you have a newer edition of PHOTOGRADE, you might find a hard bound copy of their 1970 edition interesting.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I have both a new and old copy---something else I do with coins is buy books...old copies, and signed copies.

I should have made one thing clear--when I said the Market and then collector I was useing the term collector quite loose. That included investers, etc. While I don't have any numbers I would say that the number of true collectors who really study coins like you and I is quite small. Therefore when I used the term market, in the way that a large ammount of the market has stated something and therefore it is taken, should be true to a large part.

Its kindof like an election---there are tons of voters (Collectors/Investors = TOTAL MARKET)--- They vote (buy/sell/trade)---and a person is elected. This doesn't mean that ALL of the market likes who won, or even agrees with them. But a large ammount went that way, so it is taken as the market stander.

I feel that the large part of the "coin" world is for the most part, "new", and doesn't have much learning when it comes to things such as grading. Therefore it would be easy to see how such things as market grading would change as we get more and more collectors.

Speedy

 

now now be reasonable who am i going to argue with ?

 

Oh come on now, I doubt all that. There are more than a few in this relatively recent upheaval and it's those unruly collectors (the minority, and they're growing every day) who are going to take their hobby back I reckon.

Those Free-Thinkers in the hobby who can differentiate between you now what and... well, you know what...

Cheers
Ben

 

can you be more vague i can still make out that you are talking about coins?

 

Spock:

unfortunately, this speaks to my original point. If a F coin is in a VF slab, and people are able to grade for themselves, then the coin remains a F coin and sells for F money, regardless of the slab it's in. I think eventually, this is what will have to happen as increasingly more coins end up in overgraded slabs.

 

why is it unfortunate if it speaks to your point?

 

you have a point but the key here is either i can grade and the coin is fine in a vf slab or i cannot grade and the coin is vf in a vf slab it cannot be both things to the same person. if there was a demand for vf slabs and i had one then assuming that everyone cannot grade accurately i would get vf money for it sooner or later yes what you are seeing happens grade value dilution i see that happening for some world coins slabbed by a non major tpg who do just that all day long.

 

I was operating under the assumption that the accurate grade could be ascertained by someone with knowledge of the coin regardless of what a slab says. It may or may NOT be accurately graded by the TPG. I was hoping that the person looking at it was right and the TPG was overgradng it.

My original point was that if the people continuously try to upgrade coins until they get a grade at which EVERYONE agrees is MAXED out for that particular coin and at which any FURTHER upgrade is unreasonable to try because of the risk of downgrade, then eventually ALL slabbed coins will be seen as overgraded, and people will once again have to learn to accurately grade for themselves instead of having to have a TPG tell them what the grade is.

IIRC, the original purpose of the TPGs was to make for sight-unseen coin trading, and as we all know from eBay, etc. just because a coin is graded by a top-tier TPG, the chances of it ever being sold sight-unseen for typical money is slim.

We have begun to see the cracks in the PCGS and NGC armor, the CAC sticker. The more people rely on it, the less the credibility of the top 2 will seem to carry in the marketplace.

just my 2¢

 

agree

there will be people who cant grade and they would be prone to cracking even those out as was the case in that famous posted in CT recently since we are just disussing theory that is a possibility. the beauty of the hobby is that everyone doesnt have equal knowledge and expertise that is also the pitfallfor the hobby

there is a market for sight unseen coins (not ebay) and large amounts of coins are bought and sold that way. they have their own pricing and GD or the troll might be be able to tell you more about this (actuals) but retail prices should not be confused with ebay prices which should not be confused with dealer prices which should not be confused with whole sale prices which in turn should not be confused with sight seen prices. man there are a lot of prices

its an interesting point but my question to you is why does CAC only sticker PCGS and NGC its the same as in all big businesses you dont want to change the status quo because its not in anyone's benefit. with dominion coming into the picture i am waiting to see what happens. there is something called as an incumbent advantage lots of dealers collectors investors traders etc have millions invested in TPG coins and they are not going to want those TPG's to fail.

 

I don't pretend to know. My theory is that they are the only two that would stand up to the scrutiny, and CAC doesn't want to start an avalanche of coin submissions that are rejected, and by primarily sticking to PCGS and NGC are keeping the success rate higher.

nobody wanted the stock market to fail in 1929, but it did anyway. My worst fear is that more of the same is on the horizon in the coin world when this scenario comes to fruition.

 

but they would make more money so why refuse. its a simple reason they dont want other tpg's to get in the game and dilute the top2. its the big boys club and new members are not allowed

yes but that happened once and in due course things were all right again. its a game of big money and big players where people like me who spend around 2k to 5 k a year on year count for nothing. things that have been artificially popped up go down sooner or later you dont beleive me just look at some world coins that are rarer and cheaper people will attribute it to demand and supply. those can be altered artificially.

 

I wonder how many defenders of market grading actually purchase those lower grade coins that are magically transformed to fill the void. If they understand, as they claim, how market grading works, would they really spend $100 on a $50 coin in a hot market only to see it's value drop below $50 when the market cools off. Or are the defenders of market grading on the receiving end of the transaction where it's a great concept so long as the money travels in their direction.

In this virtual world that we find ourselves communicating in, it's very difficult and sometimes even impossible to figure out who's who and if they have a vested interest in a given situation. Sometimes we need to ask ourselves if we should trust the one who says to jump right in because that's what everybody else is doing, or the one who says you had better give it more thought because there is more to this than you are being told.

 

Watch what? Have you now been hired by ANACS or something along those lines? Perhaps the GDJMSP Grading & Comment Service is about to be launched upon unsuspecting collectors...

 

This TPG craze is going to rot from within I expect. Sooner or later it will happen. Hide and watch...

Ben

 

Bonedigger,

I remember the last few times the market got hot and later cooled off. Each time things got hot everybody and their dog was jumping on the train in search of the almighty dollar. If you check the posts on just about every discussion board these days, many of the comments are related either directly or indirectly toward money. One topic that probably tops the list is which TPG to use and the answer almost always is in terms of which sells for the most money.

However, once the market cools off and the money pit dries up, the herd trims down rather quickly and what is left are those who are primarily interested in collecting. In that sense, the collector minority of today will become the majority because dealers understand that the collector base is what supports the hobby in slow times.