Do You Value CAC Coins Higher?

Maybe it's insurance on more valuable pieces (rarer dates, gold?) to ensure you're getting what you paid for. Anacs probably needs additional verification the most but I dont think they can receive a CAC sticker. Hopefully It should at least help ensure a coin hasn't been cleaned.

To me the slab on a coin ensures it is not a fake,and this isn't even always true. I buy the coin based on the coin not the slab it's in.

Only PCGS and NGC coins can be CAC'd.

So would you say a green CAC confirms a coin is not under graded (ex if it's graded 64 with a CAC there's no way it's really a 64+ or 65)? Slider you mentioned good strike and eye appeal. Would coins with weak strikes or heavy toning not get a CAC? Also why won't they certify anacs? Too many do not meet the standard? Thanks everyone for the input.

What Slider23 said. CAC brings a level of assurance that the grade on the insert properly represents the coin. I say "a level" because it's not always the case for my tastes, at least. I've seen a healthy number of CAC-stickered coins that have left me scratching my head, but even that number is far less than the many non-stickered coins in PCGS and NGC holders.

ET

I have purchased Certified Acceptance Corporation,(CAC) coins and paid the same amount as non CAC coin, but also know that CAC can go for a higher premium. CAC has a much easier time grading coins IMO as most of the work has already been done. It is much easier to critic something when you have a base rather than starting from scratch. My point like most members, buy the coin, not the holder, or in this case the bean.

You asked for opinions. I will be brutally honest in the context of history of coin collecting from my personal experience in which I saw the birth of the grading systems.

But before I do - if anyone takes offense - that is NOT what was meant. I do NOT degrade or look down on anyone's idea of what makes a FUN hobby. If you get upset while reading, please make it to the end.

Many people here are likely younger than I am and have been brought up in an "after the slabbing revolution event" mindset in the hobby. It makes it easier for me to understand how younger collectors can like slabs and CACs.

Grab a glass of Pepsi, sit back, relax...

When slabbing made its debut, the general idea of dealers/collectors I knew was that con artistes extraordinaires were elevating themselves to the lauded position of THE Coin Grading Experts. They were not just arrogant. They were the next generation of snake oil salesman looking for suckers.

We wondered why anyone with common sense would pay someone to tell them the grade of their own coin when all that was needed was a Red Book which included detailed descriptions of how to accurately grade coins? Quite honestly, we were of the time-proven-wrong opinion there were not enough suckers to fall for the sham and grading companies would be short lived.

We even joked someone could one-up the slabbers' profits by offering to grade THE Coin Grading Expert's work!

But we knew no Slick Willie, no matter how good, would ever be able to push something so insanely ludicrous on the public. No one could possibly fall/pay for something so obviously sucker-focused.

The times were also such that the US had a higher standard of living than most (if not all) countries - we had more disposable cash per person. History shows a harder life normally results in common-sense becoming a lot more common. Slabbing did not take off in other countries... surprise, surprise.

Still reading? I am sorry if by now some tempers have flared - I remind you honesty is what is behind this posting. This is how most of the dealers and collectors around my area saw all of this. And please continue.... The ending is maybe nicer than you may imagine.

Time passed and new generations grew up with an innocent-peer-pressure-fostered mindset that slabbing was just another natural part of the coin hobby. The sham slabbing seemed to be based upon further sank away into the mists of history (insert evil laugh by the older artistes).

Say something often enough, and people will believe it. Slabs became viewed as the artistes' marketing departments designed them to be ... a sight-unseen way to guarantee a coin being sold was graded properly. And time proved them correct... right?



CCF threads daily testify to the wise saying of, "buy the coin, not the slab." THE Coin Grading Experts' systems fail in substance... but not in profit (insert another evil laugh by the older artistes). After all ... what is this thread asking us all aboout?

So naturally, THE Coin Grading Experts not living up to their guarantees means now people made the incredible (re-)discovery that they CAN indeed, grade coins accurately by themselves and don't need to shell out money to THE Coin Grading Experts to get accurate grading... right?

Uh huh.

No, instead...
Enter another brilliant con-artiste extraordinaire with yet another brilliant money making scheme! We will pronounce ourselves THE MORE GOODER Coin Grading Experts and get people to pay us to grade the work of THE Coin Grading Experts!

Time, being the wonderful blurring machine of thought that it is, made sure people were ready to shell out more cash on a coin to have THE MORE GOODER Coin Grading Experts verify THE Coin Grading Experts had done their job.

So where does it all end?

Dare I predict a new system will be introduced to guarantee the CAC's eventually?

I definitely was proven wrong in the 70s when I thought slabbing would be a short lived money making scheme akin to its cousin of selling snake oil. And the insanely impossible idea of people being conned into thinking they need a secondary level or professionals to grade the first professionals also came to pass.

So here are my future predictions:
The tech for impartial coin grading by machine scanning and analyzing already existed with the machine I used to use in the 90s at a quality control department in a plastics plant located in Girard, PA. We laid a sample piece onto the scanner bed, the machine scanned down to the .001 of an inch, by "looking" at every molded detail (including incuse and raised, abnormally shaped regions)and reporting for each any deviation which would render the molded piece improper and raised a red flag we need to get a mold repair man in there soon.

In fact, to "program" it for different parts being made, we placed a part on the bed, it scanned and found any design details by itself and measured them. We typed in the ideal measurement for each measurement it made. After the couple minute scanning session, we told it to save the set of data. From them on it could scan any identical piece and report to us the quality of the piece. And just how far has computer tech come from 20 years ago?

PCGS spent a lot of money in the late 90s trying to develop a coin grading system and then nothing came of it.

My unsupported by any factual data is that the coin grading companies will, in the future, start advertising a new computer graded system to make money even more money from the masses. Since they will be able to claim high definition scanning instead of the "OLD" 10 power loupe and human-error prone grading system (as proven by CAC!).

After all, how will anyone be able to sleep without knowing if their coin is truly MS65? Won't it be worth another 30.00 per coin to have complete assurance?

And after that the schemes will be able to cash in once more by claiming they have made better grading algorithms for the computer grading systems and again... they will make money.

Make it, and they will come. But don't put a limit on just how far they will come from! Like me, you will likely be proven wrong. Albert Einstein said something about the universe and human intelligence.

To end this book I have posted, I will say that I have actually paid to have some coins slabbed!

I wanted a way that if something happens to me, my family will know certain pieces are more "special" than the others.

And I certainly do understand people wanting to make the maximum profit possible (nothing wrong with that). So nowadays it makes sense when someone will not only slab a coin, but have it stickered as well... when money is the issue. Using common sense to legitimately take advantage of the established slabbing/sticker systems - no matter the origins of the systems - is just good business.

And one more thing to cushion the brutal honesty given here from a person who well knows he is flawed in many ways and better than absolutely no one else...

Slabbing has been around long enough that I can definitely see where someone could have FUN collecting slabbed coins. I can see where they could have fun just by collecting different sets of labels on slabs.

Good for them! Slabs do look nice when displayed side by side! And b/c a hobby is about FUN - I would never call anyone seeking these as being foolish. Any hobby is for fun, and if someone decides they will let peer pressure and others dictate what the word "fun" means, then their hobby has lost what it should be... FUN.