What Is The Grade Most Often Given By PCGS?

It may then be that the Sheldon scale may need to be revised in the high end to reflect these realities about quality over time.

A PR70 in 1875 may not be the same as a PR70 in 1975 or 2017.

@basebal



Please link me to where I can find the factual disproving of this idea. I admit that I did the personal research myself for hands-on information rather than just the internet.

As Abraham Lincoln said, "You cannot trust everything you hear on the internet."

I just want facts. I am more than willing to know my errors. Education is the key to understanding. I am not emotionally attached to my current opinions (just so you know where I am coming from), so I welcome the data.


@paralyze



This is a very valid point and I am glad you brought it up. The one dealer I have known since the 70s where he was my 9th grade science teacher. He already was a firned as well as teacher, but when he opened his coin shop, we became even better friends. He helped me to grow my collection and aided me countless times with many good deals and advice.

I know his personality enough to say the concepts he shared with me were not those of a disgruntled worker or a complainer. If anything he was willing to bend over backwards to see the good side of an issue. I do not think I ever even heard him use a single curse word.

I had approached him asking about how coins are graded etc. After talking with him about it, there was no vindictive negativism about the TPG. He was just describing the actual day to day processes they had. He said he did not see the professional picture that is advertised being held up as a standard. His reason for stopping, despite making some extra money which he did like, was he did not want his own business and reputation to suffer if/when the facts were known.


As to the other dealer, I admit I have only known him now for around 6 years. The first time I met him I bought a 1932-S quarter from him. After inspecting the coin closer at home, I wondered if maybe the MM had not been applied (I was getting back into the hobby after years and learning new things all the time). When I contacted him, he said I would be refunded full price if I wanted it. He added that he had gotten the coin from the Heritage auction and had cracked it out of an NGC slab, so he had every reason to believe it was authentic, but to bring it back in so we could make sure. He also gave me the link to the auction and slab numbers. I verified the coin was the one that had been in the slab by close inspection of details from the high res online pics and my microscope.

This man earned my respect and trust very easily by pointing me not only to the source where he got the coin, but also by knowing I would also be able to see the price he paid originally and compare it to what he charged me. How many other businessmen work this way? And note he did imply by mentioning it had been slabbed that its authenticity was OK. SO he seems to trust their ability to spot an altered coin.

I thought he would also be a good one to questioned concerning the TPGs, his replies were parallel to those of my friend concerning the grading process and other issues. This dealer has a great reputation both locally and on his huge ebay store - oozentoo is his ebay name.

The first dealer says he has retired from dealing, but we all know how that can go to someone who has been living coins for 60 years!

The above is why I did put enough stock into what these guys were telling me. Both of them recommended I check out just how accurate the grading of MS70s is for myself by actually examining slab. A disgruntled person would not encourage hands on inspection knowing they would be have to eat crow. My hands on inspection took very little time before I became unimpressed with the ASE MS70 slabs.

And that hands on inspection is what any data showing me the error in all this needs to be able to prove wrong.

Both dealers were life-long hobbyists and dealers.
Both were pretty well known and have good reputations for honesty
Both, individually, independently, at different times, from different locales, told me the same things about their experiences as graders.
Both told me to check it out for myself - which I then did for awhile.

These point were enough to make a pretty good argument for the opinion I currently hold.

Is everything or even most coins in a 70 holder perfect across time?

My findings were no. This has been modern coins - mainly ASEs.

I once also put this to a test by sending for one of PCGSs free MS70 slabbed quarter giveaway. It was a promotional for their inviting people to start a registered set on their website.

I will try to see if I can find it - although it may take awhile. Admittedly I also saw this promotional as just a way of drumming up more business for them (which is totally legit). However, the quarter was a disappointment to me as it was not hard to see it was not worthy of MS70.

I got some ASEs that were in MS70 slabs from some ebay auctions as part of a group of coins. I remember one had an obvious rim ding at about 10:00 which was large enough to make me wonder how the piece went through three 'expert' graders with loupes to make an MS70. This was repeated with at least two others from seven I had in that group.

The one dealer who's shop I was in who told me of the monster box 20& concept showed me some of the MS70 from a batch. Again, there were obvious problems under a loupe - surely enough three graders at a TPG (the number used for each coin), should have been able to catch these if an non-expert just getting into the modern concept of coin grading saw them.

I would even have been questioning how just one slab going through three separate 'expert' graders - and the grades needing to coincide with one another - could be slabbed as an MS70 when the coin is not perfect.

However, human error dictates an imperfect coin should be able to slip through three people. The TPGS advertise using three graders per coin as a way of quality control that their work is done well.

My experiences with examining perfect slabs made me very skeptical the care the TPG takes is as advertised. The findings also seemed to corroborate what the two dealers told me. They said its not too hard for errors like this to occur b/c the graders are paid by how many coins they can get graded per day. When you sit there for hours looking at coins, trying to keep pace with the other graders puts pressure on a person and easily results in sloppiness.

One of them also told me that, which is natural, these graders are not superhuman. The same slow periods of mental thought from repetitious work gets to you. Your mind is on keeping up and making money by getting a good number of coins done.

This all made it easier for me to understand why the problems I was finding with slabbed coins were not as rare as they "should be" if the grading systems are actually able to produce what they claim, and if these systems are worthy of the faith people put into their systems.

I have no doubt the above is exactly why:
1. An MS70 cracked out and resubmitted is not guaranteed another MS70 slab.
For people to put out as much money as they do for a perfect grade - there needs to be repeatable accountability.

2. The TPGs will not be held accountable on details as to why a certain coin receivs a specific grade from their system.

3. MS69 and MS70 grades are non-discernible by people.

and others...

The tech has been there a long time for total accountability. People are a lot more trusting of computer systems nowadays (especially if the marketers want to get behind it). Grading could be human-error free and totally objective (based on openly available algorithms for people to see). A separate eye appeal grade would need be assigned by a (or three!) humans.

Buyers would know their coin was actually re-submittable and would get the same grade. The eye appeal "grade" would give the buyers an idea of how other people may see the coin. But the computer grade (just like companies rely upon for quality control) would be the main thing people could depend upon for assigning value.

The ASE standard is 5x maximum (if a loupe is used at all) as struck. If something is deemed as struck it can still be a 70. Some services are much better than others when it comes to 70s and not every single last one is perfect though the big money ones pretty much are. That said when evaluating TPG grades you have to use their standards and their magnification, if you change the standard or the magnification it is easy to create grades you disagree with as you are both working from a different set of rules.

I think that is a reasonable average of how long it takes them to grade a coin but the time it actually takes can vary depending on what is being graded. So for moderns, where the grade is almost binary, it is probably much less. Early U.S. coins where there numerous factors to consider probably take more time.

Exactly.

The average times are guesstimates based off of a work day and the volume they report for coins graded. Averages also mean some are faster and some are slower.

I think the best way for anyone to look at it is to apply it to their own job. Some tasks we get we know what to do immediately, others take a few seconds and some are hard to figure out. Coins are no different as it's their job to grade them and times will vary.