1884-CC, GSA Holder, MS-68

There's not, not at the top ones anyone. Lesser known second/third tier companies have been nailed for that before and needless to say they lost/will lose far more than they had gained.

A lot of people like to just spout that type of nonsense (which is exactly what it is and does hurt the hobby spreading RUMORS like that with no proof) for whatever reason often times because they're against grading companies and a few other reasons I won't mention to be polite. Maybe they have some other motivation I don't really know but there's always conspiracy theorists out there and collecting has them as well. If it were actually true it would have been proven by now and there would have been lawsuits with the amount of money that would be made from it.

It's true there are some collections where its impossible not to know who submitted it because the coins are that good (Pogue ect) but other than that graders just sit in a room pounding out box after box of coins. They don't stop and check to see who submitted it nor do they care.

Here's another thread on the coin.

http://boards.collectors-society.co...8321&fpart=1

That's not an MS68 1884-CC Morgan. This is an MS68 1884-CC Morgan:

http://coins.ha.com/itm/morgan-doll...Lot=1x=0&y=0

Go ahead, look at the images full-size. It's quite the coin.

I know I'm stating the obvious, but the problem now is, it's a "GSA 1884-CC certified by NGC as MS68", and for somebody out there, that's going to be good enough. NGC's assigned grade ends up trumping anyone's individual evaluation.

When I first started this thread, I wsn't even critically examining the coin itself. My assumption was if NGC says "MS68", then they ought to know, especially since there's a lot of money at stake, and you'd think this one was really, really examined before the call was finalized. Silly me.

Here's another question - clearly all ebay cares about is what NGC thinks of it, but would any of the big audtion houses - Heritage, Stacks Bowers, Goldberg - have the you know what to reject it for consignment on the basis of "NGC or no we think it's overgraded" and if not, what does that say about the integrity of the hobby today?

And a few years back some banks couldn't pass up the money they could make selling overrated mortgage derivatives. After all, they weren't to blame that other parties who were supposed to know what they were doing had deemed those instruments to be "AAA".

It simply seems to me if the TPG can't always be trusted (whether through cronyism or just honest error), and sellers of the certified goods won't act as a check on the TPG, then instead of what the TPG's were supposed to promote, a more orderly and objective marketplace, you have a system in place that can in fact conspire to fleece the consumer.

Didn't mean to go quite so far afield from the original topic, but this is where the discussion has led. I may be overstating matters, but that one overgraded coin and how and at what price it is sold may be symtomatic of an unsavory underside to our hobby that sooner or later will have to be confronted, lest the perception ultimately prevail that in coin collecting, like on Wall Street, only insiders win.

A lot of times the high dollar coins on ebay are listed as advertising. The seller is making a statement with the asking price. The coin will most likely end up for auction at one of the big auction houses. I would expect the coin to sell from $50K to 80K because some big dollar collector is going to want this coin in his collection as top pop. As someone noted the coin may have a market grade because of the toning.

NGC loses a bit of credibility for this one. Nice toning or a great strike might deserve an extra point in lower MS territory but a 68 must be virtually mark-free and this coin does not appear to come close to that standard. The Heritage coin is truly what an MS-68 Morgan should look like, with or without toning.