Any News On 25th Anniversary ASE Set?

Buffalo... if you are talking about PCGS (I think that is where the $8 fee is from) then the current pricing listed on the website is $14 per coin for moderns ($20 for secure plus). To that you have to add postage and insurance. You can ship however you please but PCGS will charge $21.95 for return shipping on the five coin set (actually it will be the same for five sets). I do not know if they charge to return the mint box, capsules, and COA, I could not find any info on the site. That adds up to $100 plus the cost of shipping one set to them and any cost of returning the mint packaging. They charge $18 per coin for first strike labeling but do not yet list this set as eligible and say that cost includes returning the mint packaging to you so they will probably charge at least a nominal fee to return the box & COA.

Thanks Biz, Been out in WV, My step mother suffered a brain aneurysm on Tuesday. My two sisters are devastated! Shes still fighting but things are touch and go. My one sister is handicapped and relied on my step mother every day. She's 31 but has the mind of a 5 year old. So its a very delicate matter trying to explain whats going on. My other sister has helped take care of her, her whole life. So she's in good hands. My step mothers sister is causing a lot of problems! I can;t believe how evil people can be! I've got to shoot home for a few days then come back out. But I'm torn whether I should even leave, If I don't go home I loose the job I've worked so hard to get this last year. If I do will my sister be able to keep it together. She's got two kids of her own, I know she can handle everything with the daily goings on but With what my step mothers sister and her friend are trying to do. Its taking every bit of restraint. Mean while the hospitals Two hrs away and even though my step mother is unresponsive, they want to be their. So when I'm gone its going to be hard. Just so confusing. I'm praying all goes well. Countdown for leaving is in a couple hrs. So please say a prayer for Ivy Massey and family. I know with enough noise going up to the big man it'll be hard to miss lol. Thats where I've been. Missed everyone. I'll be back here and their.
As for the submitting of sealed boxes to TPG's EVEN THE TOP THREE! You have no idea what they are doing, Their should be outrage. Thats way to much trust. Its not good common sense. Look how well they've played their hand. Send us your sealed boxes. We will grade what you have, With a twinkle in their eye and crooked smile. I mean its our money funding these places.
Wow what a job they have done. I completely understand selling a sealed box to someone. Just would never send a sealed box to TPG, even more so the top three. I'm not a label chaser, I'm only in it for the coin, and ease of handling, god forbid if something happens to me. That being said,
Don't you want to know what your sending in. , Wasn't one of the Top Three in the news for something like this a few years ago. Maybe its my trust issues? But I'll be damned if I'm going to let someone have that much advantage. Theirs no such thing as trust when moneys involved it changes the whole game. They are going to keep their VIP cliental by any means. If you don't think your top coins are going to them, instead of you..... God Bless Ya.
I've got four coins as it is right now, I've got to send in for a revaluation. Because they wanted to keep population numbers down. All four should be top of the class. I've reviewed them time and time again. The only reason I feel they didn't get what they deserve is I don't submit on a constant basis. I send maybe 10 coins a year. So if they are to get the grade they deserve, I've got to pay a little more $$$$ to even the playing field. Theirs something to be said on the fact they don't even give you a reason for why your coin received the grade it did. At least I'm sure NGC doesn't. Though I think f you choose their TOP membership they will, but thats $$$$$$ Its a flawed system! I don't want to rant about TPG's. I enjoy sending coins in. The've done really good things for the industry, but as each day goes on the holder is becoming more important then the coin itself. Their marketing team found a way to suck everyone in. And they really sucked people in bye submitting sealed boxes. I don't think a mix up on busy days is as severe as keeping VIP's happy. The've pulled off the impossible. I wish someone would come up with a way to open a set, mark each coin so its undetected, then seal it back up and submit. I bet if a hundred set were done like this from similar submitters like myself, Only 15 to 20% Tops would be just as they were when submitted. The other 80 to 85% are mixed and matched. No doubt in my mind! To much money at play!
I've enjoyed escaping for the half hr, hr it took me to write my mental conspiracy's lol Thanks all.

It looks like the top four TPGs are all going to charge right around $100 to grade, slab, and return one set of five coins. You have to also pay to ship and insure the coins to get them to the TPG and may have to pay a fee to have the mint packaging returned. PCGS & NGC both require you to be a paid member to submit coins (NGC will also allow ANA members to submit without paying to join NGC as well). ANACS and ICG don't appear to require any extra paid membership. Which TPG you choose depends a lot on why you are having your coins graded and slabbed. If you are planning to rapidly resell the set then you should consider the total cost of grading and the historical prices paid for similar coins slabbed by the various TPGs to maximize profit. All four top TPGs have a long history of slabbing ASEs and personal preference, total cost, and relative hassle should all be considered.

So you think I should just forget about grading unless I wanted a quick flip?

The PCGS population reports show just how ridiculous it is for people to pay huge premiums for modern MS/PR70 coins. For many of the recent popular offerings, the 70s outnumber the lower grades, making them the more common coins. Add to that the fact that the difference between 69 and 70 is so slight and the folly becomes even more evident. What this shows is that popularity has a huge effect on pricing, often totally outstripping rarity by far. Some prices for the modern coins approach and even exceed what is being paid for proof examples of Morgan dollars, a coin that was typically minted to the tune of a few hundred coins with many not surviving the 100+ years since they left the mint. I have to agree that the TPGs have fueled this frenzy for buying MS/PR70 modern coins in large part because the vast majority of the treasures of the past are already in slabs and no longer generate revenue. Without this desire for coins that an "expert" has deemed perfect the market for slabbed and graded coins would collapse and the TPGs would go out of business. There is really no need to have modern issues authenticated, counterfeits simply don't exist and since to make any money counterfeits would have to be perfect they likely never will. No modern coin, even those minted in only the few hundreds or thousands, will ever be truly rare. They are being collected not circulated and in a hundred years 90 plus percent of them will probably still exist. I do hope to be able to buy several 25th sets and perhaps make a little money eventually selling them but I will leave them in the original mint sealed boxes so buyers can enjoy the set like I intend to with the one or two that I keep.

I am going to stand up and disagree with these points. This is for one simple reason. The TPGs arent doing anything other than grading coins. THEY dont control prices. THEY dont sell the coins once graded. THEY dont tell me what to pay for a coin. They just grade them. If the product they put out was not wanted, it wouldnt be purchased now would it?

Perhaps some of you wouldnt pay the extra money for a set of 69 ATB Quarters. *I* would and am. I feel the coin is worth more considering its high grade. And the difference between that and 70 may be slight, but that difference makes the 70 PERFECT. So yeah, there is going to be a high premium for them. And while you may disagree with that, the market bears the prices charged.

Now, as for the TPGs not grading the same for thos eof us that arent big dealers, I am well in agreement with THAT. I will likely never send another coin to PCGS or NGC. ANACS and ICG all the way for me. And I surely would nottrust to send a sealed set. To me thats BS. What difference if the set is sealed or not? As long as the correct 5 coins are in there, grade them and be done. THAT is a BS game on their part.

Just so we understand, the TPGs won't refuse to grade coins from the 25th anniversary sets just because they are sent after having been opened by the owner. What they won't do is provide the three non-unique coins with 25th anniversary set labels. The only way that they can be sure that the W proof, W uncirc, and bullion coins came from an anniversary set is if the set is delivered to them as sealed from the mint.

My main points about graded and slabbed coins are: don't pay too much for a coin that would loose a significant portion of its value just because it was removed from its slab (the 25th anniversary labels may be cool but do they really make the coins worth more money?); don't put too much faith in the numerical grade, look at the coins as individuals and pay for the individual coin as you see fit. Always do your best attempt to grade a coin yourself. If two coins are truly identical but are graded differently and are priced vastly apart, I would buy the cheaper one. There is not a hard line between coins of different numerical grades, even if the average selling price on one grade is twice the average on the next lower grade it doesn't mean that all coins of one grade are worth the average. Use and trust your own judgement. I honestly don't believe that some of the premiums being paid for modern MS/PR70 coins will hold up long term if the population numbers don't support the difference. In the cases where only one in ten or fewer coins are perfect there is support for significant price differentiation but when the MS/PR70 is the most common coin, I don't see it. If you think of the quality distribution as a bell curve, when the peak occurs in the middle of MS/PR69 then 70s are a small percentage and are several sigma above average. When the curve peaks within the MS/PR70 grade then perfect coins are just average and not worth as much IMO. I think in some cases, the graders have forgotten that the notion of perfection varies with the coin being evaluated and it should be reserved for those coins that are truly at the high end of the quality curve. When you draw the line between 69 and 70 right down the middle of the peak of the curve, you have compromised the entire grading system.

I guess I am just an old fashioned collector. I am simply not willing to pay huge premiums for the provenance of a coin, especially when it is something as trivial as how it was delivered from the mint. Once these coins are removed from the slabs, they are indistinguishable. I also understand that price and value are not always the same thing. Someone is smiling all the way to the bank and it is not the people who are buying coins at those prices. The TPGs have created artificial rarities with this all of special labeling. A coin doesn't become an obscure rarity just because it was the only one to receive a unique label. More power to you if you can get a desirable label put on your coins and sell to people with more money than brains but I think that I will stick with collecting coins whose value is solely in the coin. I collect coins, not coin labels.