The Great Ebay CAC Event - October 11th Through The 21st

What it really boils down to is that if we were all savvy investors who could not only grade a coin, but determine if it is solid for the grade then we wouldn't need CAC or Photo Seal for that matter. However, since we all haven't reached that level of expertise these verification services came into existence to give us a level of confidence that we are getting what we pay for.

Fortunately, for a collector like me, who is not purchasing high end coins and, at least for now, has no intention of selling my coins, I have no need for their services.

I agree the changes occurring are more with NGC/PCGS moving down, but this still indicates the gap is shrinking.

Also, the market isn't down at all. In fact, its been getting healtheir over the period that ICG/ANACS has been closing the gap. Even if it were down, one would expect the higher end pieces to continue to perform. NGC/PCGS still has a lock on that end of the market...just see heritage or bowers auctions. Their grading is simply losing respect because of all the garbage they've been putting out, at least that's my opinion. It is also my opinion that ICG and ANACS have been focusing on customer service and improvements while NGC and PCGS have only been looking at the bottom line. It is my position, as having followed CDN indicators and seeing many slabs of various companies, that the gap is shrinking, due to nothing other than the quality (or lack there of) of the product.

There has been repeated mention to the quality of the plastic for various companies. I really haven't seen any of this at all IMO. The plastic has been strong and consistent across the board for all 4 TPGs mentioned. I crack all the slabs that I buy for my own collection, and let me tell you, it's not that easy. It would also take a pretty extreme effort on my part to ever crack one nicely enough to replace the coin.

Don't lose sight of the fact that CAC are the people who have lost the most due to the inconsistency of TPG grading. They're the large-scale dealers who actually depend on sight-unseen sales of high-dollar coins.

It's like this: Dealer A calls Dealer B. They both handle high-end stuff, and they've known each other for 20 years.

"Hey B, I have a client looking for an Early Gold Eagle in MS64. You got something like that?"

"Yeah, A, I got a PCGS 1801, but I'm gonna need $125k for it. What you got in trade?"

"B, I got a batch of MS67 Morgans and some smaller gold denoms in Mint State. Let's make a deal, but we gotta move kind of fast. This guy's got a big checkbook, but no patience."

In a perfect world, A and B do the math sight-unseen. They both know what this stuff is worth, in grade, and can come to acceptable terms without having to get out the loupes.

If they can trust the numbers on the slabs. It is the track record of the TPG's that they can't, even though that's why the TPG's were formed in the first place. So, A and B - and a few others - formed CAC so they can *do* these six-figure transactions under the circumstances required. They're busy people, and they don't want to have to take stuff from each other on approval. What do they do if their client, fingernails figuratively tapping on the glass of their display, has to wait an extra few days because his coins didn't pass muster, in-hand?

That's not good for a dealer's rep. So they formed CAC, themselves, so they can decide what is and is not worthy of their attention.

You and I aren't the motivation for CAC, but we darned well are standing to benefit from them.

I'm with you, hesgut. Frankly, I kinda like what the TPG's are doing these days (last couple years). Standards are tightened, edge-view slabs are commonplace, and I'm willing to trust their results. But not all slabs are new, and that's where CAC is doing their best work. Added to which, the TPG's aren't getting credit they're due currently, because that trust has been lost and won't come back quickly.

As regards authentication: I don't know how they can charge a whole lot less, honestly. The people they have doing the job are worth big money, and attribution is more labor-intensive than grading.

Sight-unseen trading has happened for decades, between the big guys. Pre-TPG, they did it on trust in each others' ability, but they did it. The network, and everything else about numismatics has scaled up in the last 25 years. More people spending money, more large-scale dealers, and above all a lot more slabs and customers who are expecting a slab. The TPG's created their own market, and now Pandora's Box is open.

The documentation could include detailed photographs like signature authentication does. That would solve the problem. I also proposed the option of adding the slab for an additional cost.

My point was more along the lines that TPGs are fairly useless as they stand now, so why not just have them do something where I can still trust and utilize their services, as their grading is nothing, but a subjective (and sometimes dubious) opinion. Besides, how many times have people already does this...just send something in to guarantee authenticity or verify a variety. I'm going to sell a 16-D Mercury pretty soon that I sent in to tell me it was a 16-D Mercury...I could care less about the grade it received.

Actually the market wholeheartedly agrees. This thread was originally about CAC. CAC was formed because the market would agree that there is a real problem with trusting what one's slab says.

Having sold similar coins slabbed and raw I can tell you that in most cases, the slab bump is somewhat of a myth for all TPGs. I'll tell you where it isn't. In situations where people want to be sure the coin is authentic (like common fake key dates or any Morgan dollar) people will pay extra because they know its real. It is also important on any coin that has very large price jumps in between grades. On other pieces, there really isn't much of a bump.

Also, as far as the "large price jump" circumstance. Where do you think TPGs have hurt buyers the most with their (purposeful or mistaken) incorrect grading? I've seen an XF 1856 FEC graded PCGS MS-62 because they felt that was the coin's market grade. This was an auction piece that ended up selling below estimates and below a "raw MS-62" price, which is rare btw for such a coin, because buyers weren't stupid enough to actually listen to what the slab said.

In the future, I will only use TPG for purposes of authentication.