This may have been raised before, and if so, the previous thread would be useful in place of an comment.
The merits or demerits of TPG are not important to me for the purposes of this thread. I am only interested in some facts.
When someone starts working as a grader for a TPG company, are they trained from scratch, and if so, how much training is given before their work is sent back to paying customers? If they need experience, how much is needed?
Imagine one of the TPG posting a job opening-what would they require? Or do they hire via the "old boys" network? I am not looking for a job, don't get me wrong!
The final question is, how many individual people do the grading for the largest TPG company?
Now just to add a little more food for thought, here is a way to estimate the number of people employed by a TPG company:
If a grader can do 2 coins per minute (assume this for the sake of the argument), they can do 120 per hour, and roughly 750 per day assuming normal lunch and coffee breaks. That's 3750 per week and 200,000 per year (approximately). If a company does a million per year, they would need 5 employees.
Imagine doing 200,000 per year! Is that even possible? Would you not go stir crazy after a while? Maybe the numismatic equivalent of highway hypnosis? If you did something 200,000 times per year, how many times would you make a mistake?
Now we all know that TPG do make mistakes. I have no idea of the number. Is it possible that the graders are getting tired looking at so many coins per day, or are there procedures in place to break the monotony?
If I understand correctly coins are graded by an average of 3 people plus a "finalizer". And a grader cannot see what the opinion of the others was. Only the "finalizer" does. That probably requires a larger number of graders. And then there are the specialists that do the variety attributing (VAM, Browning Number, Overton Number, etc.)
Quote: And a grader cannot see what the opinion of the others was.
At PCGS the grading is blind from one to the other. Some have said in the past that NGC graders can see them but NGC may be the only one who knows the real answer to that
Quote: The final question is, how many individual people do the grading for the largest TPG company?
PCGS you can find the number of graders in their financial reports they have to disclose as a publicly traded company. Last one was between 30-50 I believe but cannot remember the exact number. NGC doesn't have to disclose that but it is probably very similar
Quote: Imagine doing 200,000 per year! Is that even possible? Would you not go stir crazy after a while?
It's their job it's what they do. Everyone else wakes up goes to work and does their job all day long, same thing with them and they get paid well.
Quote: It's their job it's what they do. Everyone else wakes up goes to work and does their job all day long, same thing with them and they get paid well.
basebal, that is a good point. What I would prefer to do is irrelevant. Presumably, the people there like their job and can handle it.
Grading coins isn't a normal 9-5 job in my opinion. Do umpires referee games 40 hours/week? Perhaps the 35-50 graders that one poster alluded to in the annual report means that they are working sub 20 hours/week as 2 coins/min times 3 graders equals 40 coins per man hour and 40 graders would do 1600 coins/hour or 32,000 coins in a 20 hour week (over 50 weeks that is 1.6 million coins and that is more than they grade). Also a third grader is only used when the first 2 graders give different results, so they might only average 15 hours/week.
Quote: Grading coins isn't a normal 9-5 job in my opinion. Do umpires referee games 40 hours/week? Perhaps the 35-50 graders that one poster alluded to in the annual report means that they are working sub 20 hours/week as 2 coins/min times 3 graders equals 40 coins per man hour and 40 graders would do 1600 coins/hour or 32,000 coins in a 20 hour week (over 50 weeks that is 1.6 million coins and that is more than they grade). Also a third grader is only used when the first 2 graders give different results, so they might only average 15 hours/week.
A lot depends on what they are graders for. The highest workload is definitely the graders doing the silver eagles and modern bulk submissions. The graders doing those silver eagles/kooks/maples ect aren't the same ones that do the high value classics. They have their specialties within the system, it's not like you're a grader so one day you do 5 figure coins and the next day you're doing a monster box of silver eagles type thing.
I've never been a big fan of the whole trying to break down time on a coin vs coins per day method a lot of people try and figure out. It's so heavily influenced by bulk submissions and easy modern orders it can give the appearance they just blow through everything. It's okay to get an idea I guess as long as people remember its not like a shot clock, if they need more time on a coin they'll take it but a large number of coins just don't take that long when you grade professionally.
Quote: Are there any videos of a grader at work?
It's an old video and there are some others on youtube but it was the first one I found. I believe it was Coin World who has a video somewhere of NGC doing show grading.
They spend a couple of minutes at most on a coin, often less. A grader is someone that comes from the dealer community usually. They are given a test of graded coins from the service and they have to get at least 80% correct. These jobs pay about $100K/yr as they do not allow you to deal while you are employed as a grader.
So, Andrew99, are you saying that there is really no training, that the companies only select people who are already experienced and presumably expert graders? Very interesting.
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Posted 10/07/2017 6:51 pm
Maybe that's true. Maybe it isn't.
