Shows US Those Overgraded Slabs From Major Companies

@SPP-Ottawa, I don't think we are really disagreeing here. Let me take another stab at trying to explain my thinking.

I'm talking about the difference between precision and accuracy. It's possible to be consistent, but consistently wrong. A one-meter measure that is actually 0.9 meters in length will still produce consistent results.

All of the services seem to be solid when it comes to authentication. All of them struggle at times with variety attribution. I think ICCS and CCCS fully grasp Canadian grading from the portrait, while PCGS and NGC appear to be attempting to grade Canadian coins from both obverse and reverse in accordance with American standards. Add that to the common TPG plague of simply getting the grade wrong, and it seems to result in skewing PCGS and NGC grades upward more than ICCS/CCCS grades, which just seem to be incorrect on as many occasions as PCGS and NGC.

I fully agree that ICCS in particular has slipped over the last five years. I see it every coin show I do. At the same time, PCGS is getting better with Canadian grading.

There are three things that concern me about the possibility of whole-coin grading by PCGS and NGC.
(1) Customers are relying on the grade opinions when they purchase coins. When they try to sell the coins, and dealers inevitably disagree with the TPG opinions, the customers think the dealers are crooks who are trying to steal their coins. That ill will really hurts those of us who deal in Canadian coins.
(2) The grade inflation results in price deflation for the coins, to compensate for the misgrading. We are seeing that in the broader Canadian market right now. If an "EF-40" in a slab is really a VF-30, the market will eventually adjust the transaction price to the actual grade and value, but the sale will still be tracked by the incorrect assigned grade. This suppresses the prices for the assigned grade, and ultimately hurts correctly graded coins and their owners.
(3) PCGS and MGS are the giants in the industry. If they are using whole-coin American standards, they have the sway eventually to make Canadian grading conform to their standards. What does this mean for the future?

The antidote obviously is to buy the coin, and not the opinion. In today's investor-driven market (as opposed to a more collector-driven market), too few people grade for themselves and too many rely on market-makers to establish value. Yes, that's the age-old lament of "it was better in the olden days," but what is really lacking today is education by collectors / consumers / investors.

Do you see this differently? I respect you and your thoughts, and I sure would welcome further discussion here.

Thanks again for taking the time to wrestle with this issue. It's definitely a real issue we all are facing.

We'll never know... I have cut the coin out of the flip (but saved both), so that a future buyer will not have to pay for the same mistake.

The leaves are half gone on the obverse!

Here is one on ebay now and alongside it the picture from the PCGS grading guide of what VF35 should look like..

my thoughts exactly. You would think they would have copies of their own grading pictures available to use.

Tsk tsk !