Quote:
Buy sending it in "raw" to PCGS, you would save on "additional fees" incorporated with crossovers.
OTOH there's the additional risk of it being adjudicated "cleaned" or something of the sort.
....which leads me to a rant I've been wanting to post for a while. We're all aware of the incidents when a crossover coin comes back Details, or the same coin being submitted multiple times and sometimes coming back cleaned or in varying grades. This is held up as an argument against the "consistency" of the system, an indictment against the
TPG's.
It's my contention that
this proves the system is working properly. People aren't machines, and no two coins are the same. A one-grade swing is an utter non-event - heck, two grades isn't uncommon and we see that all the time here with experienced members grading high-resolution, accurate images. We constantly harp about "grading is subjective," and whine when that subjectivity on the part of the
TPG goes against us.
One of the quiet background truisms of coin collecting is that, the older the coin you hold, the greater the likelihood that something approaching the definition of "cleaning" has happened to it during its' life approaches certainty. We quietly acknowledge this likelihood; the
TPG's have to live with it front-and-center in their consideration of that coin. So, part of the "subjectivity" of collecting to a
TPG grader is not, "was this coin cleaned," but "is this cleaning "market-acceptable?"
Oih82w8, you're the one who actually set me off on this tangent, with that
stunning 1849 Dollar you just posted in Third Party Grading. Yes, it's a Details coin - I don't think anyone would argue that the toning pattern isn't appropriate for "original surfaces" - but what a
gloriously beautiful coin resulted anyway. I'd go very near full retail for it, even with the obvious discrepancy in color.
A
TPG grader
cannot call that one "original surfaces." Were you to dip that color away - and I'd call it a prime candidate, even adjudicated "AU," you might come up with something that same grader could call "market acceptable." Heck, it might not even be "AU" any more, since part and parcen of "artificial toning" is the assumption that somebody has handled it post-Mint to make that color happen. So, your $600-ish coin (as-is) becomes one whose value exceeds $3000.
Just because you did something anathema to it.
Grading is subjective. Surface originality is
somewhat subjective. Whether or not those surfaces should be accepted in the market is
entirely subjective. A
TPG grader makes these calls a hundred times a day, and cannot be expected to make the same call on the same coin twice in a row.
Especially when he has no clue that he's seen that coin before. The system works.
Posted 10/30/2013 11:15 am
I'll have what he's having. 
