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 Replies: 14 / Views: 1,799 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
715 Posts |
First off, let me admit my relative lack of knowledge and experience regarding TPGs. I've been trying to get a better general feel for how collectors perceive TPGs since I've been a tad confused by the incongruities from service to service. One common complaint seems to stem from disagreement, or at the very least ambiguity, surrounding how a particular grade was assigned to any particular coin. Not so much that there is a lack of a standardized scale, because of course the Sheldon scale is ubiquitous. Instead, for example, the nuances between an MS66 and MS67 can easily become contentious, leading to the seemingly common practice of resubmission of slabbed coins in the hope of receiving a higher certified grade.
In response, I've repeatedly heard the call for collectors to "buy the coin, not the plastic", or in essence, make your own assessment. I can't find fault with this notion, but I wonder whether this frustrating situation might be helped by grading companies adopting an in-depth documentation process so consumers can correlate the assigned grade to its rationale. I think this would be especially helpful for the higher grades. As a hypothetical example, the minor imperfections that separate a 67 from a 68 could be plotted along a coordinate system and listed as to what kind of imperfection each is, perhaps with photographs for visual reference as well. This kind of elaboration in conjunction with contextual information regarding the variety in question (e.g. the coins from the mint that year tend to be weakly struck) would go a long way (in my mind anyway) towards clearing the fog around grade assignment.
If this already exists in earnest, sorry that I've blathered on about a non-issue; but so far as I've been able to ascertain, this problem is not a thing of the past. No doubt, more detailed documentation would require more work by the graders themselves, which would naturally translate to higher costs for those submitting the coins. However, I wonder if this kind of clarity is something people would desire enough to pay for -- pushing the TPGs to provide a ostensibly higher quality service to the community.
Expert opinions are meant to be authoritative for a reason, and not to diminish the dedication and hard work that these people have put in to achieve their expertise, but a way to personally verify their assertions would allow us to connect with their deeper understanding instead of having to rest on good faith in their assessments. Is this something that may be on the horizon? Thanks to all who can provide some input on this topic.
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Moderator
 United States
56855 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
715 Posts |
Thanks for that reference, I hadn't seen the guidelines for eye appeal. However, do they actually give a breakdown of both the technical and eye appeal characteristics that sum up to a coin's ultimate grade when they certify it? Maybe I'm way off base here. I've gotten the impression that it's not especially uncommon for collectors to doubt the accuracy of TPG graded coins. |
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Moderator
United States
56855 Posts |
Quote: I've gotten the impression that it's not especially uncommon for collectors to doubt the accuracy of TPG graded coins Collectors have their favorite TPG. I think PCGS is the closest to the grade they say a coin is. Second would be NGC and then ANACS. All of the TPG's use humans to grade the coins,so I am sure there is a grading curve from day to day. John1  |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1747 Posts |
And as you already pointed out in your OP, this is an opinion, from 1 person, they spend no more than few minutes looking at. you could show the same coin to 100 experts, and you would get probably half saying ms67, and about 50 saying ms68.
I understand there is a perceived value difference in the to different grades, but realistically in "eye" appeal there is none.
When you speak of "eye" appeal then you are talking about lower grades, where the grading is more subjective.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
715 Posts |
Ironically, by what the PCGS website seems to say about eye appeal, it is actually only a mitigating factor in the grade for uncirculated coins. While obviously a grade is an opinion, for some it carries enough weight to influence their perceived value of a coin by a huge margin. And since different experts may give different grades to the same coin, it's understandable that those looking to purchase or sell coins want to be on the better end of the bargain. So with no detailed explanation of the assigned grade for the specific coin in question, I feel like it's going to tend to be more subjective. Maybe this isn't so big a deal to most people. But if it meant a difference of $1000 in price, I for one would sure want to be darn sure I wasn't overpaying. Sorry if I'm overstating my case here. I honestly just want to gauge whether those who make use of TPG services feel they ought to be better and to understand the dynamics involved with grading and pricing. |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
5246 Posts |
@Ace_ftw, I read somewhere that they spend 30 seconds looking at it. I believe that you may be correct, that in a group of 100 experts, 1/2 may say 67 and the other 1/2 say 68, or maybe the spread is even greater. @Oijogja , I am sure that a rationale could be provided for the grade, but if it takes 3 times longer there may not be any money in it. There is the danger from a business perspective that customers may come to expect more for the same cost. Imagine if there were a "good" grading service and a "better" one with a rationale? The "good" one might eventually be perceived as "no good". I have always thought that that the TPG provide a false sense of accuracy to grading, when in reality there is an amount of uncertainty. Perhaps all coins should only be given a grade range, for example, 66-68, not 67. It might not matter so much if people were not prepared to pay fabulously higher prices for some higher grades, but that is the way the system operates at the moment. As long as people are prepared to pay 10 times more for a coin if ONE person's opinion is that it is a 68 not a 67, then not much will change. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
715 Posts |
Oriole, I think you've pretty much nailed what I've been wondering about. If a better service comes along, I would personally expect it to cost more, and this would throw into question the adequacy of the competing services. Are they good enough anymore? Would they be acceptable at their lower price? If not, would these companies have to match pace, ultimately upping the quality level of grading, albeit by raising prices across the board.
I would bet you're right that things aren't likely to change so long as the consumer base is willing to shell out for what they're getting. But inherent in this discussion is the question as to whether we ought to be pushing the industry to provide this more in-depth service. I totally hear you that these businesses have little incentive from a profit perspective to implement this kind of change. I think the attitude of their customer base would have to spurn them into it. But why wouldn't we want more thoroughly accounted grading?
I'm rather curious, too, what a professional grader would have to say about this notion.
Thanks, everyone, for chiming in.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
5246 Posts |
@Oijogja, perhaps if you were keen enough, you might consider asking a TPG for exactly what you mentioned, just to see the response. I think that all your comments are extremely apt. Do you know that there are services which give their opinion on other TPG, whether an item is in the upper or lower part of the grade? TPG is such a huge thing, and there have been countless threads in this forum on the subject. Some hate them, some love them, some do both! You may consider searching for other threads here, and there may be more you can glean from them. My last word is, welcome to the wonderful world of TPG! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
715 Posts |
I must say, I am tempted to reach out to some of these companies to get their opinions. There's no way they are unaware of their role, whether or not they want to take responsibility for it.
I appreciate your compliment, and no, I didn't know there are services that give opinions on TPGs' grades. I have just recently jumped back into the hobby again after about a twenty year hiatus, so I'm still very much trying to get my bearings. The impact of TPGs in that time span appears to have been considerable. One of the pieces of that puzzle I'm trying to get a grip on is the line between major and minor varieties. It's been hard to tell if PCGS or NCG would certify certain errors since the different variants can be so hard for me to tell apart. But it's kind of a Catch-22 sometimes: if you were to send in a variety that ended up being "worthless", you're screwed because you couldn't identify it yourself. Them's the breaks, though.
Additionally, inclusion or exclusion of varieties by these companies signals collectors to value or disregard them accordingly. Not sure if that's an intractable problem, but I do think it's good to be aware of. Anyhow, time to stop spinning in circles for tonight. =)
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10038 Posts |
TPGs are likely not going to become accountable for specifics on why they grade a coin the way they do.
Grading coins is not an exact science and it depends a lot on human factors. It is an art. There is no rule such as "three square mm total of surface splotching means MSXX."
Subjectivity is also what helps keep them in business.
These business exist b/c they understand the psychological need people have that makes them want the stamp of an expert.
If these TPGs were what their claimed reputations make them out to be, then there would be no one cracking out coins to get a better grade fro the same, or from different companies. When someone pays even more money for a CAC sticker, they are paying a "better expert" to see if the "expert" that already graded the coin was, indeed, as "expert" as they claimed.
Its all about making money.
B/c enough people now put a perceived value on the questionable expertise of these TPGs (who cannot even agree among themselves about grading standards), the TPGS play the hobby to make money fro it. Collectors could do what these TPGs do just as well with a little reading and effort.
Please understand I am not throwing a negative onto anyone who likes to collect the slabs. I know some just like how good slabs look displaying coins. A hobby is about FUN.
I am saying the TPGs are large, established schemes to make money from the hobby. If they became accountable for their grading, they could not stay in business. Ambiguity is what enables them to not only stay in business, but also allows them to keep the system going whereby people will gamble on getting an MS70 grade to try to make a personal profit. As I have seen said on CCF its doubtful if anyone could consistently tell the difference between an MS69 and an MS70. But as long as that gamble is there to hi the jackpot with an MS70, the game continues.
How much squash could a Sasquatch squash if a Sasquatch would squash squash? Download and read: Grading the graders Costly TPG ineptitude and No FG Kennedy halveshttps://ln5.sync.com/dl/7ca91bdd0/w...i3b-rbj9fir2 |
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
Quote: I've gotten the impression that it's not especially uncommon for collectors to doubt the accuracy of TPG graded coins. There's a lot of reasons for this. Ownership adds a point usually as people generally love their coins hence the grading is not unbias. Not everyone is a world class grader, often times people try and grade conclusively from photographs which really can't be done conclusively, and part of grading is subjective. |
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Moderator
United States
54282 Posts |
Let's say they could perfect a computer program / robot that could perfectly without a doubt 100% of the time accurately grade coins. This way any specific coin would always be assigned the same grade no matter how many times it is examined.
Would third party graders embrace the technology?
1) No - it would lose graders a lot of revenue from those submitters that are looking for a higher grade (why re-submit if it will always grade the same? (or perhaps lower if the coin has been handled or stored improperly, etc. since the last time it was robot graded)).
2) No - it might find that the grade assigned to the millions of already human-graded coins are too high, resulting in a huge amount of dissatisfaction by the owners of the overgraded coins. [Note: to avoid that happening, the programmers of the coin grading robot would decide the grade as high as possible (maybe pushing it up to the next grade without real justification), thus defeating the real purpose of an automated grading system.]
3) No - it would mean there might be no need for more than one single grading company.
4) Yes - that would mean millions of coins could be re-graded for a fee generating millions of dollars in new revenue.
5) Yes - by the one grading company that wants to be that one single surviving grading company.
6) Yes - by the grading company that creates their own program / robot that "might" grade the coin as a higher grade to lure customers to their company.
Oh, that would mean we were back to how it is now.
I only laid out this scenario because if the grading company revealed exactly how they came up with the assigned grade, then you would have arguments about whether or not they saw something that wasn't there, assigned too much weight to a particular flaw, etc. That made me think about this "what if...."
Edited by nss-52
03/07/2017 08:44 am
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
Quote:
Would third party graders embrace the technology? Already exists, it can only grade technically and the market doesn't like technical grading. You can't program the subjective aspects of grading. Also people would still disagree with it |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
Quote:
And as you already pointed out in your OP, this is an opinion, from 1 person, they spend no more than few minutes looking at. you could show the same coin to 100 experts, and you would get probably half saying ms67, and about 50 saying ms68.
You also have the problem that if you give the same coin to the grader/experts a second time or more, the opinions of the individual experts will keep changing. Quote:
Let's say they could perfect a computer program / robot that could perfectly without a doubt 100% of the time accurately grade coins. This way any specific coin would always be assigned the same grade no matter how many times it is examined.
Would third party graders embrace the technology?
PCGS created such a program back in 1991. They debuted it in August and scrapped it before the end of the year. Probably for the exact reasons you mention, plus the reason basebal21 gave. The technology for computer technical grading has been there for 26 years, but their not using it and probably won't at any time in the near future. |
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Replies: 14 / Views: 1,799 |
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Posted 03/06/2017 2:21 pm
