Howdy peeps, It seems the Information Super Highway has become a Toll Road. :whistle: Recently, CoinArchives-dot-com became a paysite (if you want access to all of the database) and today, CoinFacts joined suit. Now you have to have a membership to access it so that just put PCGS at the bottom of my TPG list, just above SGS. :stooge: Ribbit :eating: Ps: If CoinFacts was a complete database, I could see paying for access but most of the coins don't have pics and much of the information provided is either outdated or conflicting or flat out wrong. :goof:
I liked CoinFacts too and have been considering a PCGS membership when I come by some great coins to send in for grading, as they usually have those membership offers. Obviously, information has never been free and just because it's online doesn't mean it was ever meant to be free despite it's widespread dissemination online. Individuals, institutions and companies have always had to pay for 'good', accurate, useful information. You buy the information you trust and need like any other product. The provider gets to protect their data and also has the responsibility of producing an accurate product, as well they can offer a premium for more detailed data. In medieval libraries physical chains were placed on books to secure them to shelves so they couldn't be carried away. Information and knowledge have always been controlled. I would sooner pay for data than trust many sources online, of course I wouldn't just blindly trust information you have to pay for, but I do hold them to a higher degree of responsibility to deliver accurate data. ...My 2¢
Ever since coin facts took down the pictures or most of them I stopped using the site. I just use heritage at this point to search for varieties. Besides last time I looked coin facts still did function completely. I might join PCGS at some point, but not for coin facts.
I can certainly understand the dismay at losing a free online resource, but to place PCGS on par with SGS is just a bit over the top, don't you think?
Well, let's dew the math: 12 times $9.95 equals $119.40 per year to have access to an incomplete and quite often incorrect numismatic resource. Over a 10 year period that equates to $1,194.00 for a edited numismatic resource. :goofer: So, you don't think that qualifies to be placed just above SGS? :goof: Ribbit
No SGS knows they are screwing people. PCGS may just need to know that nobody is going to pay for an inaccurate service. Once they understand that, they might make it free again. Actually - who cares??? If it is still like when I looked at it last; then it is not even worth being free. Go use heritage - until they start charging to look at past auctions.
I loved CoinFacts. They offered great info. That's where I found all my information of all my coins at. Such a shame what the world is coming too. Guess Now I'll just have to use Coin Recourse instead
The pay coinfacts is much different than the free version and it does have updated top notch photos. I have already seen some wrong information updated with corrections. PCGS is putting a lot of time effort and money to make sure this site is the number one source. I do think the price is a bit steep though and don't plan on retaining membership.
Absolutely not true in many, many fields of endeavor. Most of the really useful information I find online is completely free and, in fact, those sites that want you to pay have inferior information and/or simply repackage information for sale that's already available freely elsewhere. Whenever you're looking for info online I think your best bet is to immediately run - don't walk - away from anywhere that wants you to pay for it. The only people who pay are those too lazy to find it themselves. And I'm talking about information that's legally available here, where there are no copyright infringements involved.
the only thing's in this life that are free are , the first drink of milk you received and your freedom from debt when you kick it.
Razor, I didn't speak in absolutes and I don't believe in them. I did not make reference to any specific field of endeavor but claiming something so ambiguously like 'most of the really useful information (you) find online completely free' hasn't any more weight than my 2¢ (hint: cost) comment. This is hardly even worth (hint: cost) debating based on your generality you tried to overturn my statement with. I'd also wager (hint: costs) that what you find is not completely free either, nothing is "completely free". Used a computer to search that "really useful info" from home did you? You paid an ISP and bought hardware of some kind to get at it. Used a library machine/services? You paid though taxes, personal time and trips to the library which may not be in walking distance requiring the costs of a car, bus, bicycle or taxi to reach, whether it's at a local branch or at a school's computer lab. Using a college's computer lab? That convenience comes out of tuition costs. At work? Are you searching personal things online? "Get back to work! You're not paid to use company tools for personal research!" You get the drift..., there's an angle of cost involved no matter how you look at it. What you find "completely free" online may well be the most base form of cumulative superficial knowledge readily available and it may also be what gets you, personally, by in life, that's cool, but it's not how businesses and scholars work or use information and it is that which I was getting at about paying for information as a product such as CoinFacts or other numismatic databases provide. There ARE plenty of fields and institutions which only make privy 'good', accurate and useful data for their business partners or members for a fee. It is treated as a product and it must be free of flaws and it must be accurate and if one could easily find it elsewhere on their own, no one would pay for it. Certainly many people can afford to buy information if they cannot spend the time or effort doing it themselves, it makes doing business easier and more broadly applicable. It's not so simple to say people are lazy, unless of course they purchase and use flawed data/product carelessly and assumptively. Paying for information is the cost of having someone else assemble the data you need, to keep those records relevant and to maintain websites, monitor web traffic, overhead costs, etc. This is no economy to give away things for free especially when a competitive edge may help you stay afloat by protecting your information and/or not wasting costs maintaining that data. If the information is inaccurate as some suggest CoinFacts may be, then no one will buy it. CoinFacts or whomever is providing it must have researched the demand and/or the high traffic on their web site because enough people find their information useful. Offending the first few people that mooch off their site for free on a regular basis must be worth it for them to try this out as a pay site. Becoming a pay site might signal other changes to come or help them develop a better more accurate tool for subscribers. If it's got bad data now, it will not be able to continue with these inaccuracies if they intend to maintain subscription. So many people are so immediately reactionary about change and are far too cheap and not forward thinking enough to realise things of value before them let alone pay for it without complaining like it was some sort of born right. Yes it's initially disappointing but it's not free and it really never was free, because if it was full of mistakes when free, and it could have cost you when dealing, buying and selling your coins. Yes, there are a lot of promises out there, online especially, that paying for something gives you more but in fact only turns out to be something that a dedicated researcher could have found for themselves for "free". Fools and their money remain easily parted. The answers are usually there for those who know where and how to look. Plenty of facts can be had for free online or with a bit of research in a library. The type of information in a paid subscription from protected reference databases as I was suggesting is not to be feared or ran away from, but understood to be less accessible to others thus helping a subscribers business, reassuring the facts are straight or in protecting the data providers' business from those seeking to gain by accessing "free" information. You can read the Red Book or other numismatic reference guides / publications at a book store or in a library without paying for them. A lot of people around here don't run from the Red Book or other coin publications, they run to them, buy them, and quote information from them all the time, often without the slightest regard for copyright or citing sources. Paying for a subscription coin database is no different than buying a Red Book.
Update: I've spoken with Ron Guth and he tells me the new CoinFacts is much better than the old one and they are working hard to make it the number one online resource and he's working on it "around the clock" to get it that way so I will give them a little time and go peek later to see if it's worth it or not. Ribbit
I paid the $95 for a year. It's a cool site. They did a great job on this. The PCGS price guide, the pop report and auction prices are all on one page.
The tour video that Ron Guth walks you through on the new page certainly makes it look worth the subscription! Once the new service has been running awhile and with the kinks and bugs, if any, figured out, I bet this will be what people will gravitate towards, away from printed sources, and especially on mobile web devices (think, at coin shows how useful it can be), and in developing other offshoot device apps for dealers, researchers and collectors, I assume they must have considered apps. :smile
