Leave Pencil Marks Or Erase?

James,
My opinion is the same as yours I admit grading is never objective and is unfortunately "very Subjective".

All a collector is doing is "paying" for someone's opinion as to what they think the condition of a note is. And I have already said that you may find a note graded by CGA that is wrong, when I said that I was talking about the current CGA and the current PCGS and PMG.

Not talking about something that the old out of business CGA did, AldousHxlE can not sent his note to a grader that is "out of business".

The CGA of the past is no more, it's been gone since 2009. The "scandal" your talking about has nothing to do with the new company.

Your either kidding with us or there's something wrong in your thinking that any new business ( CGA ) would be responsible for things that an old business did in past years.

Your CGA Testimonials that you provided are not up to date or are not dated at all so I would not go by anything they had to say either way.

Your examples of a "new" CGA mistake in grading the $ 10,000. Gold note is a good one, I do not get paid for grading notes, but whoever graded that one should not receive a pay check. The others you are showing have nothing to do with the current CGA so there un-fair examples.

As to me knowing the owner, again that's a mistake on your part, I do not personally know the owner, and there is NO communications between us, but I do know who John Spinelli is, he is the owner of CGA, and a well respected currency collector and someone that really knows how to grade currency and a very up standing person, he is not a currency God, he is human and like I've said in my last post once in a great while something can get by him.

And now you ask:
After all this, do you still consider it a misinfo.

Yes I do consider it misinformation, even more so because it's evident from all your links that you knew that the current CGA was a new business that was started in 2009 by a new well respected owner so it seems that it was not a mistake on your part and degrading John Spinelli and his company was and is totally uncalled for.

Here's one that may top the Gold note, as you can see it was graded by PCGS, this is only one of many notes that they seemed to "get" wrong, or do you really think it's
"VF".
Regards
Bill Collector

That's exactly why I always say that you have to learn how to grade for yourself, all TPG's make mistakes, some much more than others.
Bill Collectors

Jeez, I love collecting contemporary counterfeit fractional. I used to only search dealers raw stock, I guess now I gotta look through their slabbed stock too!

The Bill Collector said:




I'm not kidding at all and nothing wrong with my thinking as you said! I'm sorry if you do not have the ability to read between the lines!

I do not know what are your educational qualifications (science degree) as well as, your job experience major. But if you studied business management and Finance, you would have understood what I'm trying to say.

Definitely, It is absurd to hold New Owner responsible for the past "scandal".

The thing is you are looking at something specific depicted on the picture and never tried to look at it holistically ...


Meaning,your arguments are based on:

1- Personal bias (you claim that you don't know the owner &/or you don't communicate with him, yet, you are saying you know who John Spinelli is!! In what basis you are almost sure that the New Owner is beyond suspicion?!! Since you don't know him as you claim, why you are defending him that much?!!)

2- Collector's prospective who spends couple of hundreds on ungraded banknotes & doesn't mind to acquire low graded notes as long as it does keep its eye appeal, which is TOTALLY RIGHT and NOTHING wrong with it.

3- Collector who relies totally on his "personal" judgments when it comes to grading notes (based on long experience &/or going through several Grading Terms references. Again, it is pretty much NORMAL and NOTHING wrong with it)


Aside from personal views, let's try & approach this on a more academic basis, one that is more managerially and financially oriented:


We are NOT talking about consumed/dispensable products (consumers market) here.


Example:

- If you have heard of Coca Cola ingredient formula when it was changed and received numerous customers dissatisfaction. New CEO had to re-use the original formula and the brand was named Coca Cola "Classic".


We are talking about resalable products (2nd re-market).


Basically, any TPG company's activities rely on reputation & technicality.

Reputation: Customer Loyalty and Customer Confidence (which is something in the process).

Technicality: Grading notes and based on their "unbiased" evaluations (supposedly), such notes market values are either diminished or increased or abnormally increased.

After CGA was taken over and became under a new ownership, the first thing to do (or was already done) is how to gain control over market share in the market.


Now ...

** What happened?

CGA lost its credibility and integrity among advanced collectors and investors after the "scandal". We are talking about a measure of credibility and integrity that WON'T be compensated over night.

They lost reputation and their technicality started to be questioned.


** What should to be done?

Basically, the New Management will try to re-organize everything in order to "breakeven" and do their LEVEL BEST to regain their reputation.

This can be done through "remedial operations". Through Genuine efforts to regain c/m goodwill.


This can be done by things like:

1- Utilizing Media exposure

2- Victimized Investors involvement (attend seminars, direct contact, brief meeting with company's management)

3- Compensation program (through insurance companies setting a timeline to partially/fully compensate unsuspecting victims)

4- Re-certification program (very scarce to rare notes are to be re-evaluated for free or less fees)

5- Tie up with well known reputed TPG companies (to regain its credibility & integrity & get the company back on its feet)


How can we say the New Management adamant about regaining customer confidence?


There was NO genuine attempt from the new owner to regain customer confidence.


What was done simply:

# Company's name remains the same and adding a "Star" symbol beside the grading scale on the obverse of the tag (I don't know whether he was legally forced to keep the company's name as it is or something else)

# Spreading their services through alternative channels (i.e ebay) by offering as they call it "Gift Certificates"

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gift-Certif...251173472026

The promotional offers that the company is currently introducing is an indication of the financial distress that the company is going through being one of the "few" companies (if not the only one) promoting such offers.


To conclude, the company has incurred the biggest loss of all & that is the non-financial assets which is its reputation with which the New Owner is yet to be challenged.


Until this happens, I don't think majority would invest in such a company.





Why not?! As it was explained above, Customer Loyalty and Confidence.

What happened to them? Did they lose their trust in CGA forever?

Customer Satisfaction is a key role in any kind of business.


I think that I have to repeat myself for you to understand, I'm neither defending PMG nor PCGS. I'm NOT even defending any other TPG companies!

You would come across TPG mistakes, for sure ...

Regarding the PCGS example you provided, at the first glance, it looks VF 20 to me (apart from defects) as they stated.

When I provided you the example of VG 20 ($10,000), with neglecting the defects and damages, it does NOT even look VG!! That what I was trying to highlight.


P.S. I know that such an argument will NEVER end. Besides, the quality of discussion is not up to the standard (i.e. when you said there is something wrong with my thinking).

Thus, in order to avoid any kind of future clash, I would prefer to end it here and will NO longer participate in the SAME topic.

Let's reach a compromise and say: "everyone is entitled to his opinion"

Besides, you have had said several times that you will be taking a vacation from the forum (I don't know when?!), but, please, try to enjoy it


Cheers

The Bill Collector said:




I would NEVER underestimate anyone's intelligence or degrade his/her efforts.

You may check my other posts & you would notice that I always argue/debate with ppl who practice/demonstrate such behaviors.

I even remember that I had a debate with you and 2 other members earlier (in other posts) regarding the same issue (underestimating ppl).

If you could not accept or comprehend my counter-retorts that is fine and understandable. But, to start practicing low-class counter-replies by saying stuff like "something wrong with my thinking or Kids like me ...etc" is unacceptable and it does reflect your state of mind.

Common, we used to say such a stuff when where "kids"!!

If you could not counter-retort or do not agree/accept or was unable to comprehend and understand any debate/discussion/argument, that is YOUR problem. However, you may refer to someone else who does

NO need to start low-class conversations

Wishing you a happy "vacation"


Cheers

Someone hand me a knife to cut all this tension out of the way

So yeah, I figure I'm going to give CGA a chance with this note and see how it comes back. I'll post the results once its back in my hands.

AldousHxlE,

What is the grade you are expecting?

and is it possible to see a scan of the reverse?

Thanks

Thanks for posting it...Your expectations are realistic...I am closer to 40 (may go lower)... ...Let's see how this plays out as I did not want you to be thinking this would get anywhere near an AU 60.

Since you have both notes in hand study them etc...they are close but world's apart.