Salzberg Advises: Research PCGS Populations And Prices

There's an old saying I made up just now: "You can either believe the truth or you can believe a lie marketed to you as truth."

For the last few days, I have read a lot of people slamming NNC and their slabs. I wanted to respond to that and say that there is not one TPG better than another one. In the end they are all the same. Some just market themselves as being better. In the end, profit is more important than integrity.

To me the number one scam NGC and PCGS both engage is putting labels on their slabs to give the impression that an American Silver Eagle is worth more with a First Strike or First Day of Issue designation. Even the US Mint had to finally release a statement basically stating that those kinds of designations were baloney. Think about it. How could just a simple designation double, triple or quadruple the price of a coin minted in the amount of millions? What a way to take advantage of people.

Just recently, PCGS created a new scheme. You can get a coin verified by David Hall. The population is limited, of course. A 2016 American Silver Eagle verified by David Hall is limited to 693 coins. I have yet to hear a good reason why people paid between $90 - $150 for one when it first came out.

Some of you know better. One of the many things I read on this site from quite a few of you is, "Pay for the coin and not the slab." What great advice. I wish more collectors listened to it.

For the people who don't care for that advice, I got something for you. I got a MS70 2013-D Lincoln Shield cent graded and verified by me. It is limited to a population of one. It comes slabbed and I even put a hologram sticker on the label. Since this will be the first coin I have ever sold in my life, it will state "First to Sell" on the label. My asking price is ten million dollars.

I hope there is one sucker out there for me.

Benny w, got hat one too today from NGC mailing list.

David H, like Benny said, Google title of post. Benny's new and may not know how to do that yet...if my tablet would let me cut/paste I'd do it, my laptop died over weekend, kinda limited here.

Here's a link to the statement by Salzberg:

https://www.NGCcoin.com/news/articl...TVE1TjMifQ==

Define correctly graded. To me a grade is only an opinion. If you were to hand a coin to twenty different grading experts, you would get more than one grade, obviously. So, to assign a coin a grade and, then, to put it in a slab with a label that makes the grade absolute is somewhat dishonest. That is why no TPG stands behind their grade. They can't. Read their contracts if you don't believe me.

BTW, if you go surf long enough, there are many cases where graders of all different TPG's have been off by a substantial margin. Usually, they give a coin a higher grade than what it should be. Why? Could it be because of the profit motive? Maybe they are trying to tell dealers and customers that they will receive a better grade for their coins and, thus, make more money. Come back to us again and again and we will take care of you.

Maybe in the future I will sell some of my coins, but, for now, I am strictly a buyer of coins. There are a lot of people on here who stand up for NGC and PCGS because they are dealers and it is in their financial interest to do so. It is in their interests to knock down their competitors by calling them a basement slabber or some other insult.

My argument is that they are, generally, all alike. Shady is still shady. Stating something is First Strike when you knew you could not prove it is not right. That is false advertising. But gullible people like you think they are more honest than, let's say, NNC are living in a dream world. Some are better at marketing their scams than other companies. That's all. A better and more elaborate website or office does not make you more legitimate.