C'mon PCGS: They Can't Both Be F15 Oregon Commems

That's fine if you disagree. I specifically put IMO in front of my statement, which means "in my opinion."

They absolutely have a base salary now, you can find it in the PCGS finance report if your really want to dig through it. Like you said the top guys doing classics and worlds ect wouldn't do it without a base salary




He's a random dealer who may or may not have ever worked at a TPG as it has never been proven. It's never been named which one it supposedly was, for all we know it was a second rate one at best if ever.

Even if for the sake of argument he did, it was decades ago times have changed greatly.

Honestly this is an incredibly interesting discussion to me, and if it's devoid of rampant speculation and pointless personal attacks it has a place, because it really is an important question. How much trust can you really place in a TPG? Enough to buy a coin that has a drastic price increase in a single digit change in grade?




If you could find someone who's actually willing to go on record about their past experience as an actual TPG grader(recently, not like 10 years ago) and go into detail about the process that would be incredibly interesting to me, I would have figured that talking about this stuff would violate an NDA, but it's possible I'm wrong. I'll write down those contacts and check it out, thank you.




And you may very well be right, and I have no problem with people expressing doubt with the accuracy or legitimacy of a business's practices. But I personally wouldn't be comfortable with bad mouthing a company without significant amounts of evidence on the contrary, and it's frustrating to me if someone brings forth a claim that they have huge amounts of confidence in without such evidence(not saying you don't have that, this is just a general statement).

I'm still quite young, so I may only have this opinion because I haven't personally experienced all the ways businesses can take advantage of you(*cough* equifax *cough*). I probably am a little bit too far on the trusting side.

Interesting how you demand proof for everything but the word of someone selling you things you self admitted haven't talked to in years. Your own posts have at times said when you reentered the hobby a while back were told. If you haven't talked to them for years and they had been a long time dealer when you talked to them they clearly couldn't have been anything but a dealer for the last decade or so.

As I have said in every thread where is the proof they ever worked for a TPG much less which one? Dealers say things all the time that means absolutely nothing.

Want to buy silver for $30 bucks because it's sure to be $50 again soon and can only go up? If not why? A dealer said it so it must be true right? Dealers say things like that all the time at local shows and in their shops.

You hate the TPGS, that's fine that's your choice. But all this hearsay stuff you were maybe told years ago from someone who may have once worked at a TPG but there is no proof they ever did is just

If one of your students turned in a paper and said I have no proof of this but I was once told years ago by someone I haven't talked to in years we both know you would fail them and say that isn't a source, but you are using it as one as it fits your bias.

Nothing you say will bring the TPGs down. Steering people away is actually doing them a disservice especially if you just want to believe local dealers selling raw. Plenty of people have submitted after going that way to be shocked at the ride they were taken for.




For good reason. The point of the slab is to prevent tampering and a secondary benefit is protection. Nothing says a coin wouldn't be harmed or messed with when it is raw again before getting back to them.

Sorry - my mistake in wording. I have bought coins from him since we talked of this. I have had contact.



Yup...and since you have repeatedly said you won't take my word for it (and I do not expect you to!), I offered the contact information. Which you repeatedly avoid.

IF it was a long time ago (which we do not know), until we have current info from a similar source, we still will not know if the problem was ever rectified.

I initially took his opinion and his challengeto research what he was saying as well. Facts such as we see on CCF all the time about problems with actual slabes and TPGs were just one source while slabs in hand were another.



But yet you said your source of information was what the TPGs post on their own websites about their own businesses!


Even in your recent news post (thanks by the way - good read!):
http://goccf.com/t/323072#2754561
NGC's article gives the impression NGC was the one behind this guy getting caught, when the facts from the actual account show an undercover ATF officer and a former victim were responsible for the arrest, not NGC.
http://goccf.com/t/323072#2754561.

Double standards do not make for credibility.



See the slab at the start of this thread? Not hard to find other such things as already referenced prior in this thread.

Please don't repond with a useless, baseless remark such as, "Well many more people are duped by raw coins than slabbed." However, if you have actual, verifiable documentation of the statistics, I really would love to see what they say.



I stated my reasons for posting facts before. I guess you don't understand bringing up your alleged agenda (again and again) hinders your own validity?



So contact him already!
And even if it was a long time ago (which we do not know), until we have current info from a similar source, we still will not know.



ad hominem

QED

For those (some younger here), not familiar with the term: "Ad hominem" is when a debater diverts focus from the subject by making negative remarks/accusations about the character of the people on the other side of the discussion.

We humans (I did include myself) normally respond like this when we know we are cornered. Its a fight not to fall into the trap!

In circles of debate, use of ad hominem is seen for what it is and results in loss of the debate (nice way of saying it proves their position is false) for the one using it.


QED = Latin for "quod erat demonstrandum" (which was to be demonstrated), Your math teacher may or may not have had you end your proofs in geometry with this.

I'm kind of hoping that one grader looked at the coins for less than 10 seconds. If so, that can be fixed if they want to do so. If three graders looked at each coin, then it says a whole lot about the value of the service they offer. Either way, the results are crap and not worth the price of the postage it cost to send the coins in.

I was just speaking of the slab itself and the reason for the shift from the initial photo-certificates and sealed flips. For sure that was one of the major reasons for the start of the TPGs though.




Because it makes no difference without providing proof or known graders vouching they were there. I've heard plenty of dealers claim to have been things they never were. That doesn't even get into the whole fact of how good they actually were or if they were fired or left disgruntled ect.

As I said you would never take it as gospel and would never allow the "evidence" you present to fly in a paper of one of your students.




What about it? One is an S mint the other is a P mint. Both can certainly be an F unless you are just going by pure technical grading which hasn't been done in a long long time though some people still choose to use it for their own tastes. That's fine if they want to grade only technically, but they need to understand how their grading differs.

As I said already one of those could easily be a net grade anyway and until someone gets them in hand we won't know from those pictures alone.




We have plenty of information from real sources. I've posted several times where they can be found. There's an active grader posting on the CU forum who has worked at three of the four and knows many of the ones that do/did at the others.

You could also call them, look through financial reports (for PCGS not the others), try actually using the services yourself ect.




The different companies grade a little differently that's no secret. The sample size in that article was very small anyway far to small to draw any meaningful conclusions when it was a handful of coins (10-15 if I remember right) submitted a single a time. Most coins come back the same from PCGS/NGC and really today's ICG too or the difference is marginal at best such as a 40 vs 45 but its still a XF type thing.

The major difference right now is really that PCGS emphasizes eye appeal and luster more than NGC currently does in the sense that PCGS will hold grades back if those are missing and NGC doesn't seem to penalize them as much. The top pops and high value stuff has some differences too but that's a whole different playing field. Overall most coins that the average collector can afford would grade the same at PCGS/NGC