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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;krispy, post: 821550, member: 19065&quot;]I don&#039;t think of direct purchases from the Mint in terms of buying graded coins. With the Mint it&#039;s hit or miss given their track record for quality every bit as much as what one&#039;s subjective eye deems a coin ordered from the Mint may grade as &#039;MS/PF69 or MS/PF70&#039; when submitted to a TPG in the hopes that it will come back with such a grade. With the Mint, misses likely outweigh the hits, hence people who order in volume to offset the misses. The better the individual grader, the higher their product return rate to the Mint will be given the quality control issues of the Mint&#039;s mass produced product(s) and the less loss the individual grader who submits coins will realize over time. </p><p><br /></p><p>Therefore, I can&#039;t really vote on the poll as the Mint doesn&#039;t give customers or dealers the choice when buying direct to get their coins in any particular grade, as compared to the 70 point Sheldon scale. Graded coins and the US Mint are two completely separate and subjective things. As for peoples buying preference of &#039;MS/PF69 or MS/PF70&#039; compared to anything below that on the grading scale, I&#039;d have to say that people buy any and all grades depending on the parameters they&#039;ve set out for their collection and what their budget will allow-- and in so much, there really are no inferior grades of coins. Collectors and Dealers alike, buy all graded coins (TPG slabbed or otherwise) all the time, from the highest to the lowest &#039;grades&#039; below the top two, &#039;MS/PF69 or MS/PF70&#039; when <i>not </i>buying direct from the Mint. Some prefer XFs, AUs, MSs, etc. for myriad reasons that we are all familiar with given the specifics of each coin, it&#039;s uniqueness or lack thereof.</p><p><br /></p><p>I hope that the Mint will <u>not</u> implement separate categories within their product lines. It could be a major customer relations faux pas to begin moving in on the graded/certified coin sales market with their own product should they be thinking to circumvent Dealers and collectors alike and to capitalize on their holdings of &#039;superior&#039; coins. This would instantly reduce the availability of such coins to fewer and fewer individual collectors where now it&#039;s closer to the luck of the draw for all customers. I don&#039;t think the US Mint&#039;s coin programs were designed for this purpose and going by the demand of their product they are already making consistent profits without looking into ways to raise further premiums on would be TPG graded products that serve their profit margin and whomever would be the authorized Mint TPG. </p><p><br /></p><p>This raises several other questions for me: if the Mint selected a TPG to grade their coins which would in turn be sold by the US Mint upon release of these coins, how would that TPG company be fairly selected to serve the public? Would there be more than one TPG product sold by the Mint so no TPG monopolized the Mint&#039;s submitted coins? Would the US Mint begin their own internal TPG Department? Perhaps hiring in the best in the field and undermining existing TPG companies? Would this be all about profit or a move to control the TPG industry and future issues with counterfeiting that are beginning to affect TPGs negatively? What would this do to the overall hobby of collecting? What sentiment and hell-raising would Dealers and Collectors bring down on the Mint for such decisions? Would boycotting the Mint be successful? Would the current relationship between the Mint and its customers be irreparably damaged?</p><p><br /></p><p>Good topic Yakpoo! </p><p><br /></p><p>I hope my queries/thinking-aloud didn&#039;t take this too far off the OP.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m passing at this time on voting the poll given my above comments/thoughts.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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