Who Has The Deeper Capability For Variety Attribution: PCGS Or NGC?

Trust is one of the main issues. If you have not seen the essay in my signature here is the link:
Common grading company shortcomings & resulting co$tly mi$take$ to collectors (using Kennedy No FG halves):
https://ln5.sync.com/dl/7ca91bdd0/w...939059710007

Way too many people, as shown in the essay, have lost thousands of dollars by the companies mislabeling halves as no FG that, by their own cited/linked to standards, are not No FG halves. There is a (being generous) a 30% error shown/linked to by examples in that essay.


When I was researching the No FG variety of Kennedy half dollars as slabbed by the companies (quite a few years ago now) it made me understand the expertise levels of these companies is greatly overrated by the marktet. The market being made of a lot of people who invested in a membership making them more psychologically apt to want to view the companies as being what their marketter's claim they are.

That is NOT an insult. It is just how I have come to view the ones that charge membership for their services (NGC and PCGS) and how the market looks down upon slabs not produced by those companies. It is psychological since none of the companies use any verifiable means to grade coins. Again, without something verifiable, how can one company possible be rated as being better at grading than another? And again, the re-slabbing "game" (as I call it) again reflects the truth in this statement.

My trust in their actual grading has been steadily declining as I have put in more and more hours of research. I view them now as any other modern company who is prioritizing shareholder profits vs. taking pride in a job well done. This is not uncommon in the businessworld nowadays, and unfortunately the coin hobby is far from immune to it.

Well said. Fortunately my buy sources always have a return policy so I have some comfort in knowing a false attribution purchase can be negated/returned.

But this does bring up another point IMO. It goes the other way too. I know a submitter must 'request' a non-RedBook attribution or the TPG will just ignore. I do understand the TPG position to some extent. But for attributions that are blatantly obvious (but not requested by submitter), shame on the TPGs for not picking up the phone and saying "hey, ya know...".

Case in point: About a month ago an AU 1856-S Seated quarter was on auction. It was a glaring S over s albeit unattributed (PCGS). Me and one other bidder noticed (out of at least a dozen bidders). True value was 10x over what the bidding was at until we got involved (I lost) so thankfully the owner did cash out properly.