What If We Ignored Grading Altogether?

Never happen .... the auction companies get a nice slice of the prices paid. They wouldn't cut their own throat to save the customer from paying too much.

I would love to see high resolution photos, but still appreciate the grade. Photos can't/don't capture everything, while grading companies are not perfect, you can learn their styles and flaws.

I like the opinion they provide, especially when it comes to cleaning and hairlines (ICCS net grading excluded).

I agree in principle about Heritage but they, as are all auction houses, are weirdly uncritical about mis-grades. I have an 1873H Newfoundland 5c that I bought at a heritage auction. It's graded VF35 at PCGS. In truth, though, it's about an F15 or a VF20 on a good day*. I get the caveat emptor thing but it's always seemed to me that it would not kill the auctioneers to comment on something like that! Hugh Powell always tells you if a coin is accurately graded or not.

*it's a rare coin and the price was low so I didn't get ripped off regardless!

When I started collecting, my mentor told me "grading is very subjective" and "buy the coin ,not the holder". I try to remember that when bidding on or purchasing slabbed coins. IMHO the TPGs grades have become" Very Subjective", from the Sheldon scale, which I was told was the holy grail of grading. It seems to me that a lot of bidders seem to have more money than sense. I guess it is on each of us to make the final bid or offer? It's all about the money, which ever side of the coin your on. (IMHO)

To answer Silver101's original question: ordinary estate auctioneers have long been doing just that -- albeit the photo quality is up for debate.

Many estate auctioneers (either by deliberate strategy and/or laziness) will even just use the photos and provide no description whatsoever, along with a live preview period to let the bidders examine and make their own determinations; which is frankly more attractive to both bidders and sellers in the basic free-market sense of "the item is worth what someone is willing to pay for it". Accordingly, such auctions also usually open all bids at $1 and everything must go -- which adds a healthy dose of energy into the experience.

But numismatic/collector-market auctioneers generally like to have certified + graded coins as a means of (a) authentication and (b) establishing estimates & opening bids; the latter of which effectively controls/limits the market activity in both price and transaction volume.

I trust my grading skills to know to always buy the coin and never the holder. I've bought countless coins based exclusively off of images. Sure, some were graded, but I make my purchasing decisions based on what my eyes see first and foremost. At the end of the day, I have to be happy with my purchase. My own grading opinion will ultimately drive that purchasing decision.

If you had a key date coin or currency and it"s not graded at auction you will get as they say slaughtered, now you have to trust the auctioneer"s photographer lights ect. Any high value item not graded brings more questions, but remember there is crappy MS 63 and a good MS 63

It comes down to buyer beware and an informed buyer is a wise buyer.There is my 2¢ cents
John1

The biggest problem I have is that every single grading company has at least slightly different criteria for grading virtually any Canadian coin. You definitely know that ICCS is going to look at things differently than PCGS or NGC. Even the two main US companies have different standards though. So ultimately when buying based at least partly on the holder information, one of the most important things is understanding how the grading company grades. And of course to understand that even within their own rules they can be somewhat inconsistent.

I find that pictures don't help as much as you might expect and at times can be very deceptive. I recently purchased a coin that the owner took pictures of in a way that signficantly emphasized cameo in the PL coin that was in fact barely there. Fortunately I expected exactly that and paid a price low enough that it didn't matter to me too much. Unfortunately I've definitely bought coins that I was certain about some characteristics that I was very wrong about and paid way too much. If you are buying without having the coin in hand you are always taking a chance of getting ripped off. I don't care what anyone says, there is no way you can accurately grade a coin from pictures unless you have many high res images from all angles of both sides, and even then it's buyer beware. It's way too easy to hide hairlines or subtle cleaning in pictures or accentuate cameo or any of a dozen other things if you know what you are doing when taking the pictures. If you are buying from someone you trust then you are much better off, or if it's an auction and you can talk someone else into going to see the lots if you can't yourself then you are much better off. Sometimes you have no choice though and you have to roll the dice. I'd same more than 50% of the time I've done that I've lost. Lol. all learning experiences but I still do it from time to time. I'm a slow learner!

I do like the old auctions where everything was raw and with the higher value coins the auctioneer listed every possible flaw in the coin. Made it possible to actually buy sight unseen. Those days are long gone imho.