realeswatcher I agree with you, it is essentially impossible to be an expert in all series. I certainly admit that I am not.
I do not expect that level of perfection from any
TPG but at the same time the
TPG's represent the results of their process as "certain" by offering a guarantee. They do not disclose all of the loopholes in this "guarantee" except in the fine print of the agreement which they know most folks don't read in detail.
One serious problem with what they are doing is that they could avoid a great number of the errors (in particular those that I have spotted) by following three simple things.
1. Check the standard references on forgeries or originals to see if the coin looks right.
2. Weigh each coin accurately and compare it to standard weight.
3. Test the density of the coin and compare that to alloy.
I would add weight and SG to the label because that is valuable information that is not available after the coin is holdered. The tabulation of thousands or millions of such weights would be a valuable future authentication tool that all collectors would benefit from.
Some coins (10% tops) might need more than that for absolute certainty but even XRF needs to become a standard. Avoiding science only continues to produce and protect errors. The TPGs make tons of money when grading
US coins and common modern world series because authenticity is less of a concern, so why not introduce scientific testing for older pre-modern foreign coins? Too costly? Hardly.
Perhaps it would be better for them to grade only when there is some uncertainty of authenticity and to return the bulk of the fees charged for older foreign material that they can not grade or guarantee.
Reliance on their absolute guarantee of authenticity
WILL in the end cost many collectors a lot of money when they or their estate sells their coins. This is because most of the graded coins are safely tucked away as an investment. Many may not be resold for years. They become a time bomb that will continue to damage innocent people for decades.
In cases where I know the buyer of these forgeries (JUNK TYPES not valuable contemporary counterfeits) I have discovered an odd fact. Most of the buyers feel some level of shame at being duped and would prefer to hide these mistakes and eat the costs.
In one specific case where a buyer had spent well over $1,500 on a modern (likely Chinese) forgery, he did not get a refund because the
TPG planned to contact the dealer who originally submitted the coin for grading so that they could recover the value from that party. The buyer did not want the
TPG to do this because the buyer also had a reputation to protect. So the buyer ate the cost (or at least $1,500 of it). I bought the coin as an example of a flagrant error.
Does that make sense to anyone? If a dealer gets a rare coin, one he has never encountered before what does he do? If he sends it to a
TPG that takes a fee and guarantees the coin is genuine why should HE REMAIN ON THE HOOK?
The answer seems to be yes, unless you want to lose access to grading. Why? Because the
TPG says so that's why. Not fair. Just a way of protecting the image of the
TPG.
Say the coin sells several times in prestigious auctions over a few years due in large part to it being slabbed and then it is finally discovered that it is a fake; should the original dealer be expected to pick up the cost?
This seems to me to constitute a "legal" form of extortion. The buyer has a choice of getting damaged monetarily by eating the
TPG's error or, if they are a dealer, they will get damaged monetarily by not being allowed to submit any more coins?
Has anyone seen this stated clearly in the "boilerplate"?
Shame on all TPGs that follow this system.
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Posted 01/15/2018 11:17 am
