Bicentennial Quarter For Grading

Here is exactly how things like this happen:
http://goccf.com/t/346174#2967242

There are a lot of people who put absolute faith in these companies without doing the homework. Slabs look great and are fun to collect, but be aware of the above and the following.

The facts speak for themselves and, as stated in the link, are not hard to find.

Grading companies give their opinions. It is not a verifiable scientific grade they assign. They, themselves, state grading is an art and not a science.

When they tried to make it scientific in the 90s by using a laser scanning system with computer, most people did not yet have home computers and so were not part of the mindset we now have of totally trusting computers. So the system flopped.

While its way past time they COULD implement such a system with verifiable accuracy, they likely won't do it anytime soon. It would be a bad business move. Their present system keeps people paying them for their service in hopes of getting a great grade (hence higher profits when selling).

A coin broken out and resubmitted is never guaranteed the same grade again. And if you read the lauded guarantee (for example on the PCGS website: https://www.PCGS.com/guarantee) of their product, you will find the guarantee is only that the coins they slab are not fakes and that the coin was graded "shall be graded in accordance with the PCGS grading standards and under the procedures of PCGS." It has nothing to do with the grade they assign itself.

They also guarantee if you think its been over graded, they will re-do it for you.
"Yes...my MS70 should only be an MS68 and not worth thousands more b/c its not in that god of a shape - would you grade it down for me please?"
Uh-huh.

BTW - they will buy the under graded coin at "market value" as defined by PCGS which is stated as being current dealer replacement value - also determined by them.

So its a crap shoot when you send something in for submission. Get a day with graders who have personal opinions that assign higher numbers and you get the "MS 68" you posted a picture of. Get a day where graders opinions give lower numbers, and you end up not being as happy.

This is why CCF has a saying of, "Buy the coin and not the slab."

Extra at no cost - an excellent essay by a now deceased, and missed, member:
http://goccf.com/t/130186

Earle42 nailed it.

Personally I would grade ms-65 +

I thought so too, Nick. It seemed more distracting in its niceness then it did in its damage imo. If we look for dings, we're gonna find them on every coin, even the 67s and 68s. But I thought this one was rather distractingly nice

That being said, and just like you said Earle, why would they change a system that they have benefitted from for years now?

One advantage that we have is that there isn't a complete monopoly on the business yet. There is still competition, so as long as people use platforms like this to expose which company appears more likely to take advantage of consumer confidence, a rating system could be established that affects the reputation and income of these companies in a huge way. It just depends on how well and how organized we go about doing so.
If we just continue to question their behavior with no action, then of course they'll just keep doing what they're doing.
Fredrick Douglass said it best: "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will".

At least MS-66, good shot at 67.

And I know what you mean about the weak strike possibly being a factor in the grade. I've heard that from YouTuber BlueRidgeSilverHound as well. I've also had many people telling me that the grade of a coin is only affected by damage received after the coin has been successfully minted. This makes sense because if the former were true, particular error varieties and Vams should also receive a lower grade in comparison to the metaphorical "Vam-1".

But I can understand your assumptions because nowhere have I seen the companies suggest one way or the other. It's all just "subjective" which means absolutely nothing. They could have it one way or the other, but the fact that they don't gives me much concern, as it should for everybody here. There is a lot of money riding on these discrepancies, and it shouldn't be hard letting people know the truth.

Fenton - There are many ways to retaliate if the coin community gets fed up enough with it. Like Earle said, they could easily adapt a technology that adds precision to grading, but the only thing they've implemented thus far is a better way to track the coins.. basically something nobody asked for.