It's Time To Stop Purchasing Raw Coins From Local Coin Shops

Fly-by-night tailgate sellers are much less inclined to prove provenance of what they sell.
The sell ask price may be lower, but so should be the buy offer price.
Be even more circumspect and careful, with this type of seller.

ebay selling somewhere in between, safety wise.

LCS and public auction is safest, because they have a business reputation to protect.

After all of the above, I still trust myself enough to exclusively buy raw coins.
Best, if you have access to many decades of experience.

Grading is NOT the hardest obstacle of being a coin collector.


Patience and the ability to NOT make a purchase, hand in hand, are the two tied for 1st place.

I always like to closely examine and grade in hand, before making a decision to buy.

Just to add to this again, just got back from a local show today. If you exclude moderns and generic Morgans I would be surprised if more than 15-20% of the US classic raw coin inventory that was at the show would straight grade if sent in.

"Words of wisdom, Lloyd my man; words. of. wisdom."

Good conversation, walking away is tough sometimes, I remember being at the Baltimore show years ago, wanting the '82, '83 and '84 GSA Morgans, complete packaging, graded MS 64 or better. One dealer I had prior experience with had all 3 but tried to rush me into a purchase. I walked away. Bought the '83 elsewhere.

If I may respond to the original poster and his original line of thought.
MikeF, if you are having this much of a problem with buying coins and having them come back from the TPGs at a lower grade than you expected, I suggest the fault lies with you and not the local coin shop that sold you the coin. No offense meant, but you are obviously buying the coin based on what the dealer listed as the grade and not based on your knowledge of grading. I have been collecting since I was a kid and I am in my 60's now. First thing I did as a kid was memorize the ANA grading guidelines. In 1972 Photograde (the book) came out and added a picture to the written description....memorized that as well. When ANACS and PCGS and NGC exploded onto the market in the late 70's, I made the effort to attend major coin shows where the TPGs often displayed "grade sets" and I studied the ones that pertained to the type of coins I collected at the time. By 1980 my interests had turned to collecting Spanish Colonial coins and much to my surprise, there were really no definitive grading guides for that type of coin. So I studied the few slabbed coins I could find and took note of what different coin grades looked like in the eyes of the TPGs (and came to the conclusion the TPGs were just guessing). To make my point, learning to grade is the responsibility of the collector. 95% of the coins I buy are raw, I look at the coin, I determine what I believe the grade to be and I determine what I believe the fair value of the coin to be (based on my knowledge, not on any guidebook because there are no reliable ones for the coins I collect). If the seller and I can come to an agreement, I buy. If we cannot I walk away. I pay no attention to any designation on the holder whether it be a TPG slab or a 2x2. If you are unable to comfortably determine the grade for a coin you need to go back to the books and brush up. I have over the years submitted a few of my coins to PCGS and NGC just to increase my understanding of their grading and I am still convinced they are just guessing.

Wrong. I purchased the capped bust halves because of their exceptional natural toning that I knew would bring a premium at auction. Have you ever tried to grade the series? If you have, then you already know how difficult they are to accurately grade due to all the strike issues. We are NOT talking about morgans here which any dufus can grade. I knew that with the toning, I would come out fine even if the TPG came a grade or two below. All but one coin did just that.

The 72 Seated dollar was exceptional due to it's originality. Rarely do you find CAC candidates in the wild like this example. I knew it was an xf-45 coin. He had it pegged at au-53. I ran out to my truck and pulled my Seated dollar collection which I had with me. After showing him graded examples from my collection of au-53's, I got him to concede it was au-50 and got him down to $650. I purchased it but insisted he send it in for grading to see who was right.
After slow playing me for 2 MONTHS he finally sent it in for grading. What did it come back as? Exactly what I said it would. XF-45. Did he make any concessions on price? Absolutely NOT! Instead he dodged my phone calls and pawned me off on his son and wife to handle his problem. That's fine... lesson learned. Happy to have the coin but just goes to show the shady practices of coin shop owners these days.

On my second visit, he pulled the same crap with a 1875-s Twenty Cent Piece on another customer right in front of me. It's clear overgrading is part of his business strategy.

During my first visit, I reviewed all his coins from the 70/70 album he recently acquired including the 72 sld I ended up purchasing. One of the coins was that 1875-s Twenty Cent Piece which I spot graded as f-15 on my first visit and he agreed. During my second visit to acquire the 72 Seated dollar, his son fielded a phone call from a potential buyer inquiring about the coin and the coins grade. The shop owner told his son to tell the guy vf-25 right front of me. Fargin unbelievable!

The point of this post was to point out how widespread the problem is and from the current replies, I would say the consensus is that I'm NOT imagining things.