Should Professional Graders Be Licensed ?

I love this topic-can you imagine the Gov't trying to oversee a hobby/investment with any degree of expertise-it would be no different than the Gov't overseeing Persian rugs or antiques. I'd like to give the younger numismatists that post here a little background lesson. For us longtime collectors, there was a time when there were no TPG's. Here's what we did-we learned about the series/s that we were interested in. For most of us, that would've been Lincoln cents. We became knowledgeable by looking at hundreds, if not thousands of coins. If you became good enough, you could tell in an instant whether a particular dealer had his coins overgraded/ overpriced. You learned quickly to avoid those situations. If you didn't like a coin for whatever reason, you didn't buy it. I am proud to say that in 50 years of collecting, I have 4 coins that are slabbed; I purchased them that way. I bought a 1909 SVDB from a respected dealer in 2006 for $1,000 that was raw.(XF-45) I didn't need this dealer to tell me the diagnostics to tell if the coin was real or fake-I knew what they were! I also spent 45 minutes at her table at the Long Beach show deciding on which one of four I was going to buy. Am I worried I made the wrong move? NO! So the point of all this is to learn how to grade, buy from a reputable dealer, if you're buying on the internet (I don't) make sure that you are dealing with a dealer with an excellent return policy, and you'll be fine. Just because someone gave a coin a 10 second look and assigned a grade doesn't make it so! Regarding investment time, I say that coins should be considered long term investments. Can you make money buying a coin for 100 dollars and selling it the next week for a 1,000? Yes, but those instances are rare. I've never done that, and I'm in my 51st year of collecting. Sorry for the dissertation, but this is no different than investing in stocks, bonds, or Real Estate.

Wow--a lot of interesting opinions on the subject!
Without reading everything, I think that slabbing began to fill a legitimate need--to verify authenticity of high-value coins. From there it progressed into a sales vehicle to make coins an easily-traded commodity back in the credit-expansion days. Consider all that volume pushed through auction houses, deemed more liquid by that slab. Outside of the original function, I'm not sure TPG grading fulfills a real collector need. Just try collecting coins of any quantity, all slabbed.



Precisely--opinions that vary by experience. So, if somebody could produce just one definitively accurate guide on grading--would TPGs really be needed. Of course, that's as implausible as a 100% accurate slab (imho).

This is an interesting discussion. I personally do not believe the grading houses should be licensed. I think there are several reasons including: 1.) There is no "ultimate authority" to oversee and regulate such licensing.
2.) Cost of certification will be driven up. 3.) It does not matter if a coin is certified or not, it does not change the fact that their will always be disagreement as to the grade of a coin.

I buy slabbed coins only and yes, there can be differences in grades assigned by the different TPG's. One of the main reasons for this is that the different grading houses have different standards by which they grade based on their internal grading philosophies. I don't necessarily think that means one is better than any other, I think it means that you need to decide which standard you like better for what you collect. I own coins certified by NGC, PCGS, ANACS and ICG. For example, between NGC and PCGS they use a different standard for grading Full Bell Lines and Full Torch on Franklin halves and dimes respectively.

Originally, when PCGS and NGC started grading coins, they definitely graded based on very strict technical grades. There was so much flack in the market place that they did end up loosening their stardands to more "market friendly" grading. There were many people who made a lot of money by buying older slabs and cracking them out to send in for upgrades as a 1 point swing in grade could literally mean thousands of dollars in increased value. Books were even written about playing the crack out game!

If you like collecting raw coins, keep doing so. If you like collecting certified coins, keep doing so. But, leave licensing out of it!

The thing is, grading is an art, not a science. No matter how much experience and lessons a group of graders get, they won't grade the same, and that will be true unless some strict universal standard is adopted. Yes, TPG grading can often be inaccurate. But so can dealer grading and collector grading.




And why do you think that would make all graders equal and be perfectly accurate? No matter how many guidelines and requirements there are grading will still be subjective and each coin will have a variance in grading opinions.

Let's see now...are all licensed plumbers equal ? How about real estate agents ? Mechanics ? Doctors ? Lawyers?

Just bought this coin anybody able to grade it?

The bottom band looks worse then the photo with a loop

The FTC quote you posted might be related to that but the one Stephen posted sounds like the court case was from back in the late 1980's, well before Glenn Beck and Goldline.

over sight has be done by some one us government may not be the answer but who is?