Unhappy With NGC Photos And Grading

I think the OP was relying on the NGC photos to determine grade and surface conditions when buying, but was disappointed when the item was observed in person. Correct me if I'm wrong.

From my perspective, NGC photos are good for confirming that the coin in the holder is the exact coin that was sent in for grading. Without the photo, you can only confirm that the coin type/date/mm is the same. The photos also help detect tampering of the coin/slab after it leaves NGC.

It is also my understanding that the photos are incorporated with the price of submission. And, in order to be operationally efficient, the photo quality is sacrificed for speed.

Though this relates more to your other thread, I think that all the top TPGs would likely straight grade this. It's a market acceptable coin, IMO. There are far worse cleaned busties in NGC, PCGS, and ANACS straight graded holders.

ErrorCoins222, you are correct. And thanks for the explanation. That explains the low quality photos.

I am surprised that there is agreement with the NGC grade, especially because almost everyone in the grading thread labeled this one as "details".

NGC images are done automatically at no extra cost to the submitter. They are primarily done to help prevent counterfeiting and thus they are done very quickly and do not attempt to accentuate the coins merits (or lack of). PCGS will take very professional images (TrueView) if you submit a coin to be graded under their "Secure" option. This option is only $5.00 more per coin using their economy service level, and only $2.00 more per coin using their regular service level. So it's well worth the money for very nice images when having coins graded by PCGS.

The NGC images have always been "Ordinary" But at least every single coin graded by NGC is imaged so that a buyer can at least verify the general condition the coin was in when graded.
This cannot be said for a PCGS graded coin because the majority of PCGS coins are not imaged at all.
Also prior to the inception of providing a "trueview" image with the "secure" submission option at PCGS the secure images were absolutely terrible and were Far worse than the NGC images which have always been Free.

I think the CCF members tend to "details" a coin more quickly than the market or any TPG would. Most Bust material has been lightly cleaned long ago. A TPG won't details it unless its a modern cleaning, or it was done very harshly.