ANACS--Undergrading Coins

Here is an example of ANACS under grading a GSA Morgan in my opinion. I have seen many worse looking MS 63 and MS 64 with PCGS AND NGC. What do you guys think? Should I remove the ANCAS label and submit to NGC?

Someone should start a thread: "Post Your Undergraded ANACS Slabs"

Here's one for you that I'm still upset about!

http://goccf.com/t/294005

You guys trying to discredit them with you alts are exhausting

Did PCGS stop you from taking advantage of people or something?

And you're talking about the culture where everyone needs a license to do everything. PCGS is king there and graded coins are desired in the market.

Markets make themselves despite personal biases on a forum

Which is why I have actually had students arguing over which type of bottled spring water tastes best (unflavored). Societies with disposable income are generally the birthplace of such things.

Jazzbo, ask yourself why you want it graded. If you like the looks of graded slabs/coins, then great. Slabbed coins make for a good looking set. If you want to spend the money, and the number printed on the label is important to the way you collect, then have NGC look at it and see what happens. Pictures and lighting angles make it hard to tell.

Just realize slabbing is an optional service - people getting into the hobby nowadays tend to fall into the idea (probably from seeing the tons on the internet being sold) that all good coins need to be slabbed. Marketers love this.

You cannot expect a science from the TPGS since they will honestly tell you grading is an art. No coin is ever guaranteed the same grade - even at the same company - if it is broken out and resubmitted. The different companies all will claim to be the best at their job (reasonable considering they are businesses), and yet they all grade differently.

Weigh out the importance of the number on the label compared to the cost and go from there. Its a gamble.

@Earle42 for the win.




@Jazzbo something tells me that you've already made up your mind about that. I agree with @moxking's observation months ago in reference to "Mine Mind" behaviour. You really do believe that your coin deserves a better grade. Maybe it even does, but if so it is irrelevant since that is not the actual reason we are all here now having this discussion. The exact same discussion has happened before on the internet, it will happen again, the only conclusion your mind will accept is predictably biased: "This Must Be the Wrong Grade."

I do not mean anything I say in any personal way at all. I only mean to demonstrate a point by all of this.. if human psychology and predictable textbook responses are allowed as factors before I answer, then I feel safer picking ANACS side, without seeing the coin. If we could gamble on the competition's results, I might be inclined to change my answer based on who you pick next.

If you have not had the experience of cracking a coin and sending it in for a fresh opinion, then do it. Solved.
More importantly, post the results here. If nothing else, you will learn something.

@kanga said, in response to OP @BassPro regarding initial claim that ANACS is undergrading coins:




Do you want a logical answer using a scientific approach that doesn't care if the truth hurts your feelings? Comparing competing grades on the same coins over and over is the only way to guage how the grading services are performing. Performance is only relevant compared to other services and past performance. This will constantly fluctuate.

I believe that dealers and collectors have grown unhealthy attachments to that number in the bold print. If grading is subjective, and therefore an unscientific method of evaluation drawing unprovable conclusions, then our validation of a coin's value versus another's based on the difference of a single grade is as superficial as a popularity contest and as irrelevant as a lottery ticket. Value cannot and should not be determined simply on holder designation alone. If the day ever comes when grade alone drives the market, then what was ever even the point of this hobby?

That being said, fair and neutral grading services are essential to the hobby and to the market. The system should work for us, not the other way around. As long as we continually challenge grading services and also force them to compete with one another, then market consistency, improved standards within the community, and better conservation methods can be achieved. It only works that way if we respect and agree with the graders' *opinions* as professional and reasonable designations. While we should constantly be evaluating TPGs for handling, service, and accuracy, we need to reevaluate our priorities as hobbyists. The market needs to either create a foolproof system for 60-70 grades, or else buyers need to demand another approach for determining value for 60-70 grades.

I might sound young and idealistic, but the future of this hobby is in trouble if nobody is noticing at all what message we're sending next-gen collectors when we use the grading services as we would a casino, and we always insist "the house is always right" only when we get paid, and we are willing to charge a small fortune for a coin that got submitted 17 times to jump that needed single MS grade.

It's more than a coin, it is a collector's item. I thought we're all here because we know how to have fun going broke. (Is 14 cents cheap? 14 cents face as a down payment on a house is MY idea of fun.)

No...you appear to be someone who uses logic instead of emotions to make decisions.

You address the main problem I see in the hobby for newer people entering the hobby nowadays: since the internet and market availability, slabs have become much more visible and popular. That popularity has led to newbies being taken by marketing ideas that slabbing is essential to coin collecting.


I believe saying that these services are essential is to deny two main points:
1. The hobby thrived for an awful long time before the first marketer came up with the slabbing business strategy.
I think it not far to believe had these companies never been invented, people would still be collecting coins.

2. People are not capable of educating themselves to the degree necessary to become confident in their hobby.

And now here is where the "fakes" argument comes in to bolster support for TPGs. Yes, TPGs do a great job identifying fakes...just like our own members on CCF have done when they see fakes posted (in pictures yet - not even in hand). Where there is a will (key point) there is a way.

While the slabbing businesses have carved a niche for themselves, The reality is that slabbing has unintentionally killed a lot of what used to be fun in the hobby. Key coins get slabbed. So the majority of "showcased" coins are keys. Hence the psychological focus is diverted. It used to be every date and mint mark of set had individual value based on mintage and availability. Nowadays coin history has been somewhat cheapened b/c an entire set is perceived as a few desirable keys and the rest of the set is perceived as common junk.

You see this with non collectors. How often does someone find (let's say) a 1962 half in circulation, think they have found something very special (since this has not happened to them before), post to this forum for the first time asking for help, and get told they have "junk silver worth only melt value." Before slabbing, the 1962 half the newbie posted about would have been evaluated as a common date, but definitely a collector's item for its historic value. The newbie seems to have the more excited mindset of the pre-TPG era of the hobby before a hobbyist tells him his excitement was for nothing.

While slabbing of coins is likely here to stay, this is also a good thing as long as people understand the reality of the situation, do not elevate these services to levels of deity, have the ability to perceive marketing departments love to part cash from the people who earned it, and are willing to show newbies that coin collecting can be just as fun when focusing only on the coins without needing someone else to tell them what they have/like/"should" do (outside of becoming educated!).

Again I will end with saying if a person likes slabs - go for it! Enjoy the fun they can bring. But if CCF is truly here to help educate newbies, they need to have a place here where they can read the non-polished ideas of marketing departments.