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PCGS Vs NGC, Which Is Worth More?

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 Posted 12/21/2018  08:23 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add tdziemia to your friends list
The way I read the original post, the poster says they have seen one NGC graded coin listed for $30 and one PCGS coin at the same grade listed at $22, and then asks a question which I think we are taking as "does this mean NGC graded coins sell at higher prices than PCGS graded coins?"

In my opinion the best way to answer that is by comparing actual selling prices over the same period of time, of larger populations of the same coin with the same grade from the two services.

So ...larger population of coins at the same grade from the two services is the answer to your question.

basebal21 has linked to a database which has some information that might (or might not) be helpful, depending on what question we're trying to answer.





Edited by tdziemia
12/21/2018 08:24 am
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 Posted 12/21/2018  08:37 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add tdziemia to your friends list
@basebal21,


Quote:
The IHC is one of the better selections you picked to see it.

It is true that this was the one I found with what looks like a sizeable bias (10% higher) in favor of PCGS, but there was so much variability that a real statistician would say there is no difference between those.


Quote:
For the Morgans 62 is no longer a desirable grade for them so that can really be all over the place. Most people would hold out for a 63 and really a 64 or better if they can possibly afford it. Morgans as a series though don't have much spread between the services unless you are talking about massive toners, like the real massive ones or top grades.

I only chose MS62 because there were a lot of NGC MS62 in the database, somewhat more than MS63 (there are A LOT of PCGS MS63 in the database). As we see, regardless of 62 or 63, over the last 6 months the selling prices were nearly the same for that coin regardless of the TPG
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 Posted 12/21/2018  8:42 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add basebal21 to your friends list

Quote:
I only chose MS62 because there were a lot of NGC MS62 in the database, somewhat more than MS63 (there are A LOT of PCGS MS63 in the database). As we see, regardless of 62 or 63, over the last 6 months the selling prices were nearly the same for that coin regardless of the TPG


I certainly understand that. I was basically just trying to save you time, Morgans are a series where unless it's the top grades or a toner for regular ones the prices are pretty standardized and there isn't much difference. The common grade ones go for basically the same price as todays market treats them more as a commodity.

Same goes for many grades/dates with the St Gaudens. If you look at that 1924 double eagle again though with the MS 67 grade you see the PCGS ones consistently have significant premiums over NGC and the PCGS CAC ones blow everything out of the water.

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 Posted 12/21/2018  8:53 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add sel_69l to your friends list
I certainly hope that PCGS and NGC are reading this debate, here in the CCF !
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 Posted 12/21/2018  10:03 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add tdziemia to your friends list
@basebal21.

I see what you mean and I agree on the 1924 $20 gold. There is no difference between the TPGs at 65 and 66, but the CAC gets about an 80% premium at MS66.

For MS67 the picture changes, and PCGS is indeed higher. There is so little data (fewer than 10 sales per year in the database) that I hadn't looked at that grade.
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 Posted 12/21/2018  10:11 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add llewellin to your friends list
This struck my interest and clearly one needs to do some statistics to determine if there is actually any different in sales prices between PCGS and NGC. Thanks to the database basebal21 linked I was able to have a crack at it. I agree that any trend should be considered only in the context of a single coin/grade range, since the TPGs have different reputations for different series.

I picked the 1909-S VDB as a model coin to look at, since it is somewhat of a commodity key and I want one. Narrowed the grade to VF-25 where all of them will be brown and eye appeal/luster will not really have much bearing on price. From 213 results, mean+- standard deviation sale prices for NGC was $825+-184 and PCGS was 788+-142. p value for these was 0.24 so there is no significant difference between PCGS and NGC sale prices for the VF 1909-S VDB.

If you expand the grade selection to all VF grades 20-35 (over a thousand coins), where eye appeal is typically similar and grading standards are pretty standard, NGC slabbed SVDBs go for an average of $796 and PCGS ones go for $797. So from the data, absolutely no difference in price for the key to the LWC series between PCGS and NGC.

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 Posted 12/21/2018  10:31 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add llewellin to your friends list
For the 1924 $20 MS67, PCGS is definitively 40% more expensive from the sold listings (p<0.0000001), ~$11k vs ~$8k
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 Posted 12/21/2018  11:10 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add basebal21 to your friends list

Quote:
I picked the 1909-S VDB as a model coin to look at, since it is somewhat of a commodity key and I want one. Narrowed the grade to VF-25 where all of them will be brown and eye appeal/luster will not really have much bearing on price. From 213 results, mean+- standard deviation sale prices for NGC was $825+-184 and PCGS was 788+-142. p value for these was 0.24 so there is no significant difference between PCGS and NGC sale prices for the VF 1909-S VDB.


The 1909-S VDB as a VF 25 returns 212 results. More than one of those is raw, and several are ICG and ANACS as well.

More importantly though, there's a fundamental flaw in that purely statistically based approach. This is a market analysis, the sales in 2003 aren't relevant anymore, nor are the 2006 or 2008 or 2010 or 2012 ect.

Prices have to be compared against similar market conditions from the same time. That will still ignore venue differences and eye appeal differences which is always a factor, but it gives us a starting point for a neutral analysis.

Huge sample sizes just really aren't going to be possible for the actual less than common coins as they don't trade hands enough. But if you don't control for the market itself with time restraints you will get results all over the place with little to no relevancy today.

Really the last year or two is all that is relevant for today's market but if someone wants to do historical looks they certainly can. But if you compare anything 2006-2008ish to todays you can fudge things to look however someone wants. Just like if someone compared the 80s to now ect.

Time frames have to be equal as the market changes to much over time
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 Posted 12/21/2018  11:12 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add basebal21 to your friends list

Quote:
For the 1924 $20 MS67, PCGS is definitively 40% more expensive from the sold listings (p<0.0000001), ~$11k vs ~$8k


It's an even larger discrepancy if your narrow it to the last three years, or last two or last one which is the market we are in today.


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 Posted 12/22/2018  09:44 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add tdziemia to your friends list

Quote:
This struck my interest and clearly one needs to do some statistics to determine if there is actually any different in sales prices between PCGS and NGC.


Well, I'm glad to see someone else jump into the discussion with an inclination toward a statistical approach (and reach similar conclusions).

@basebal21, I agree that we have to be a bit careful about timeframes as the market shifts some over time for various reasons. I think llewellin's analysis was always comparing apples-to-apples on timeframe. Market shifts over long periods of time would show up as higher variability in the statistics. You can see this in the standard deviations in llewellin's analysis.

I kept my analyses to 2018 data, but then I had some populations of only 10 or so coins for reasons discussed upthread.




Edited by tdziemia
12/22/2018 10:08 am
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 Posted 12/22/2018  09:49 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add tdziemia to your friends list
@llewellin, I also looked at the 1909-S VDB cent, and restricted my date range to the last 6 months of 2018.

At MS63, I found (median and s.d.)

NGC - $1360 +/- 61 (n=6)

PCGS - $1380 +/- 142 (n=17)

Same conclusion as yours, though on a much smaller data set.
Edited by tdziemia
12/22/2018 10:26 am
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 Posted 12/22/2018  12:53 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add tdziemia to your friends list
So ... here's what I am seeing based on analysis of a dozen type&date/grade combinations looked at either by me or llewellin as follows:

1877 IHC XF40-45 (May-Dec 2018)
1909S VDB Lincoln VF20-35(>10 yrs)
1909S VDB Lincoln VF25 (>10 yrs)
1909S VDB Lincoln MS63 (Jul-Dec 2018)
1889 Morgan $1 1889 MS63 (Oct-Dec 2018)
1891CC Morgan $1 MS62 (Jul-Dec 2018)
1891CC Morgan $1 MS63 (Jul-Dec 2018)
1904S Morgan $1 MS62 (Jan-Dec 2018)
1904S MOrgan $1 MS63 (Jan-Dec 2018)
1904S Morgan $1 MS65 (Jan-Dec 2018)
1924 $20 Gold MS65 (Aug-Dec 2018)
1924 $20 Gold MS66 (Aug-Dec 2018)
1924 $20 Gold MS67

Conclusions
1. Only for the 1924 $20 Gold MS67 does the analysis show a statistically significant difference between the TPGs, and in this case it is in favor of a straight PCGS grade (non-CAC) over NGC.
2. The PCGS CAC also gives a statistically significant price advantage over a straight PCGS grade or an NGC grade.
3. For every type&date/grade combination analyzed, there is a higher population of PCGS graded coins in the auction database. And in this sampling it was most pronounced for the higher value coins.

This is not "definitive research," a term used upthread, but a small sample.

Edited by tdziemia
12/22/2018 12:56 pm
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 Posted 12/27/2018  8:13 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add Sharkman to your friends list
I use PCGS exclusively. No, I don't buy the holder over the coin. Nothing I buy is rare enough that I can't find a great PCGS example if I am patient. Why?
1. I have heard anecdotally that PCGS coins sell for more than NGC. I have never heard it the other way around. Obviously, this is a perception and not a statistic-based fact. But perceptions matter, sometimes a lot.
2. I understand PCGS to be about four times as large as NGC. I think PCGS's inertial mass makes it less likely than NGC to become a disfavored TPG like ANACS or ICG whose coins sell at much lower prices.
3. I hate the jarring arctic white NGC holders.
4. The NGC scales are tacky and have long been associated with another industry.
The first two observations might actually be worth thinking about.
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 Posted 12/28/2018  09:42 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add tdziemia to your friends list

Quote:

1. I have heard anecdotally that PCGS coins sell for more than NGC. I have never heard it the other way around. Obviously, this is a perception and not a statistic-based fact. But perceptions matter, sometimes a lot.


What has been found so far in this thread based on statistical analyses is that PCGS sold higher than NGC for only 1 out of 13 coins analyzed.
I agree that there is a perception that PCGS gets higher prices more often than the statistical analysis. ANd I also agree that this matters.


Quote:
2. I understand PCGS to be about four times as large as NGC. I think PCGS's inertial mass makes it less likely than NGC to become a disfavored TPG like ANACS or ICG whose coins sell at much lower prices.


According to the population reports published on their websites, PCGS and NGC have each graded about 26 million U.S. coins (NGC has graded about 2% more than PCGS). So they have nearly the same market share of graded U.S. coins. Based on the 13 sets of auction data analyzed for 2018, PCGS graded coins are changing hands more at large auctions and on ebay. But this was a small sample.
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 Posted 12/29/2018  2:55 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add Sharkman to your friends list
Tdciemia
Of course you are right. In trying to figure out how I could be so wrong, I tried to trace down where I thought I read it. Of course I couldn't find it. I did find a 2005 Chicago Tribune article reporting the FTC (yikes) had entered into a consent decree with PCGS. The article said PCGS was larger than all other TPG's combined. This may be a case where one company initially grew faster only to be caught up to and surpassed.
I doing my reading and the other members comments, I have concluded there is no general quality difference between the companies and that the market is recognizing it.
Remember: there is nothing like a CAC.
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