My First Graded Coin; I Have Questions

I don't either, but I've probably wasted money in worse ways. I also agree that the "+" designation is overly subjective and silly.

First, the PCGS Price Guide or any other guide (such as the Red Book or the NGC site) is just a guide. They are generally known for exaggerating the prices. The scale within them can be useful if you knock the actual numbers down a bit over the grades. So, they have a use, but are in no way gospel.




The "rubric" is heavily based upon the Sheldon scale:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/She...?wprov=sfla1

It has been changed, for sure, but that's the basis.




I disagree. The strictness or leniency of a specific TPG will always be the talk of the town. It's a human process, and should remain as such. There will always be differing opinions, and I welcome that.




That's where experience/knowledge comes in handy. I have considered sending coins in to be graded, but I have yet to do so. I'm not in a rush. You must rely on your knowledge of the market itself for that coin and the costs of the grading services available. There's no guide for that. Take your time.

Wait, I just reread what you said. Are you advising me on experience and knowledge, and saying you have never sent a coin for grading? Or did you just mean certain coins?

I have never sent any coin in for grading/encapsulation. The reason is that any of the potential coins were worth less than the grading fees. Do I need to lose money on a submission to prove something? This was actually the most important part of what I wrote:




Knowledge alone is good. Knowledge plus experience is great. Experience without knowledge is useless.

I'm no "expert" and I've considered grading some coins for a long time, but I like to know everything and understand it before I do anything from my understanding of it:

The "+" after the grade for PCGS just means the coin is in the top 30% of what they have seen for that particular grade with exceptional eye appeal compared to other coins under that PCGS population number. It doesn't mean it just missed MS67, the "+" is about how the coin looks compared to others of the same grade in their opinion.

"So....is that MY dime? Am I, MOI, the sole possessor of this particular date/mintmark/grade? "
Yes, it meant yours is the only MS66+FB. You can see it here on certificate verification https://www.PCGS.com/cert/37736145

Values go up and down due to what collectors are willing to spend at the time one goes for sale, and how many others there are also. Catalog prices and " RedBook" aren't ever right. Just the way it goes. it depends on a bunch of variables on any given day you try to sell something. A dealer will give you like 10% of the value if you try to sell him anything, he's got to sit on it, and it has to at some point pay for his overhead. It's pawn shop or pet store business theory. They will buy from you but it will be cheap so they are sure to turn a profit at some later point, and if they can't sell it, they don't lose much.

That 1927 D 10C MS66 coin, there is nothing higher on there currently without a MS66 "FB" designation. And it seems to be being used for charity auctions by Heritage. I don't think they actually deliver the coin, and keep recirculating it, to generate charity revenue and a tax deduct for the high bidder for the donation. At least that's what it looks like to me.
I think the "FB" designation was started in the early 2000s I think also. It wasn't always like that.

your coin has about 40 examples with higher grades than yours, which is significant enough to hold the price back on yours. a select few collectors trying to build the bst registry set on PCGS don't need the 66 for that year, they need the MS67 for that year. Also how it goes...

Now as far as prices and ebay and what it actually sold for, take the ebay item number and copy it and past it into a website called "Watchcount.com" if it was a buy it/make offer and struck through, watchcount will have the actual sold price listed. once you past in the number and click "show Me" there will be a yellow box that says "click to use our lookup tool to see the listing" and it will tell you everything that might not normally be visible on the ebay site itself.

There are only a few plus grades because its for only coins in any grade with exceptional eye appeal. the grade is the condition, the "+" means it's prettier than the majority of the others for that grade.

That's really the purpose of the barcode and individualized numbers on the slab, for ease of cataloging the transactions and what they sold for when they changed hands. itentify it down to the single unit and be able to track it's movements if people submit the data to them.

Not everyone on ebay will list it with the slab number, but if they do, ebay is giving that info to PCGS, same goes for the auction houses.

Same goes for NGC slabs. the number and barcode is a tracking system to build a database if it's used. It doesn't need to be used every time coins change hands, but it is used by places where they are usually sold so the data and prices can be tracked.

Generally speaking if your coin isn't top population, it's not going to be worth anything crazy unless its something severely low mintage. there's a huge difference between MS66FB with 40 or more MS67's above it, vs a MS66 with only 2-4 MS66FB above it.

Full split bands aren't going to get you very far if it's MS64 when theres 200 graded higher 65,66,67 above it, even without FSB, know what I mean?

This is my understand of it all, and I could be wrong, as I first stated, I am no expert on any of this, in fact, I'm still on the fence about submitting my first coin for grading myself.

I don't think that's a good strategy, as most people if they are like me are too lazy to bother to go to the other sites, especially if there is sufficient data from the sites that allow the prices to be captured. Also, I think allowing prices to be captured helps legitimize the other auction sites. Must have gone to a different business school that I did.

Hmmm. OK, probably more going on that we know. Seems to me if PCGS really wanted, they could just data scrape/parse the data since it is on a public site. That is soooo easy to do without much needed, but no point to 2nd guess. Having said that, an independent site could probably pull in all the auction data that is out there and have a more complete list if they so wanted to pursue such a thing. OP, sorry to get your thread off track.