"Graded" Coins Offered For Strangely Low Bin Prices?

Sometimes the grading services will grade a bunch of coins in bulk and so the individual grading costs per coin are much lower. I've seen some of the special sets such as "Satin Finish" offered on the Coin Vault on TV. They will grade a bunch hoping for some 69's and 70's and sell off the rest.

Being a newbie as you have said, you also need to understand that the reality of the hobby is that slabbing is not a necessity. Slabbing is an optional service offered by TPGs who stay in business by offering their grading services and also offering educational tools.

Some collectors want the TPG company's expert opinions, while others prefer to grade for themselves and don't want to pay for someone else to tell them what their coins are. As can be seen even by searching this forum, grading started as primarily a thing in America whereas other countries had the opinion of, "why would I pay money for someone else to tell me what I can do for myself?" Times are slowly changing as slabbing is growing overseas also.

It needs to be remembered that even among the top TPGs, their experts will not necessarily grade the same way with the same standards. These companies openly claim their services are an art and not a science. So a slabbed coin, if cracked out and resubmitted, is never guaranteed the same grade again. This is true even if the coin is resubmitted to the same company.

In fact some people cross slabs over from one company to another when they know the trends of the other company may give them a higher grade.

The companies use the opinion of three of their own trained (to that companies specifics) graders on each coin to come up with their final grade that will be printed on the label. As the former president of PCGS has said, even the best grader gets it right only 80% of the time. Hence the use of three graders (and also understanding the word "right" means "right" according to that company's training/ideas/standards).

Since there is a market for the slabs labeled with the highest grades, people will gamble sending in nicer coins in hopes of getting a great label/grade and therefore a higher selling price. Hence the companies get paid to process a ton of coins with many not attaining the higher grades. Therefore you can find many coins on the market that cost more to slab than what the coin is worth.

If you find you like slabs for what they are, then by all means, enjoy collecting them. Slabs can make a really nice looking collection and some people also enjoy the hobby by the competition of, and building/sharing, registry sets online.

Also know that when selling a decent coin, people on ebay will generally pay more for a slabbed coin - especially PCGS plastic, and especially if you pay even more money to try to get a CAC sticker affixed to the slab. Other stickers are also popping up nowadays.

Be aware the marketer's (in everything nowadays) know their job well, the coin itself will not necessarily always get the same grade, and the smart thing said over and over on this forum is to buy the coin and not the slab.

Ha I have no idea what "CAC" means, but it sounds like a touchy subject.
Thanks for all the info yall. That 3-grader system is pretty smart. It reminds me of how written responses to test questions are scored for some high stakes tests. I used to teach high school science, so I had to take a day-long professional development just to learn how my kids' tests would be scored at the state level--average of scores between 2 trained graders. No points off for spelling by the way, and they showed examples of how challenging that could be for the graders (like an almost non-legibly scribbled "imbroe" = embryo).

No, the stickers are not any more touchy a subject than TPGs. CAC stickers are just stickers from yet another service that will, when you pay of course, evaluate already graded coins in slabs.

The company is the Certified Acceptance Corporation and they, if you pay for their services, will look at slabs that are sent to them and affix a sticker onto the slab (commonly called a green bean) to let you know that, in their expert opinion, the Encased Coin is high-end for the grade the label says it is.

As far as any "tuouchiness" being introduce to this thread,
review topics of slabbing and you will find basebal always stepping up to bat anytime someone says something might be wrong with TPGs, or if someone hints a mistake may have been made by a TPG.

So when I mentioned (only) ebay, he saw it as me being "disingenuous" and made an ad hominem attack (self invalidating by definition to the person using it).

The fact is that he is absolutely correct in what he says about CAC stickers not being only pertinent to ebay sales

Just to be thorough this time (I hope): There are collectors all over who like a slab having a CAC sticker better than one without. So slabs+CAC now are marketable at higher prices to those who enjoy the hobby this way.

Marketers/businesses are always on the lookout for ways to make money. In fact a couple of years ago another company tried to make a business where, if you paid them of course, they would evaluate slabs already having CAC stickers to give you their own opinion of the slab+CAC sticker. MACAC I think (?) it was called.

I was interested to see if the idea would take off. Back when the concept of slabbing coins started, an awful lot of the hobby, like a lot of other countries still do, saw the slabbing concept as just a marketer trying to make money off of the human psychological desire for an "expert's" opinion.

We used to joke that someday someone would come up with a way to make money grading/evaluating the already graded/slabbed coins. However, we "knew" no one would ever "be foolish enough to pay for" someone to grade the experts' work that had already been paid for (the term "foolish" is only reproduced here since it was the actual wording we used at the time to joke about it).

But some marketing genius found a way to sell a similar idea of how they could profit from evaluating slabs. So now we have CAC stickers (and others).

Where does it stop? Who knows? I have learned my lesson. I don't see, anymore, the following as all that impossible a scenario sometime in the future.

CAC is https://www.caccoin.com/

Their website is pretty outdated, but they are unquestionably experts in many US series. Their main founder John Albanese (JA) is one of the premier experts in US coins especially gold and arguably one of the top all time when it comes to grading ect.

JA was also one of the founders of PCGS, NGC, worked as a professional grader for years, has/does run a non profit to help people that were scammed get their money back ect. You will be hard pressed to find someone that has seen more of the premier US coins throughout their career than he has

Some people try and degrade them acting like they're just good at marketing or the same as other stickers but their expertise is very real and undeniable. It shows a lack of knowledge of the situation when people try and reduce them to being a gimmick.

If they don't sticker a coin it doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong with it as they generally tell you when they think they're a problem, but they are a great source of information and very collector friendly when it comes to submitting.

Sorry I stepped away from this thread a couple days, but Earle42 and basebal21, even though you clearly disagree you are both my heroes today. Now the question is why don't I ever see elaborate dissent like this on the error forum? I swear it's killing my newbie morale, all the times I post a coin to ask if/what kind of error it has, and almost invariably it goes like this: 1. Someone gives an answer that makes it appear they're being charged by the keystroke, and/or just want to kill my excitement as quickly as possible. 2. Subsequent replies either agree with the first or disagree, but in either case there's no elaboration, no "If you look at the _____ you can see where it _____. This happens when______" or whatever. I've had a FEW exceptions, people taking the time and keystrokes to explain better, but not usually. Oh and by the way, if I dare reveal my frustration, I get a quick spanking for having a bad attitude and not wanting to learn from people who know what they're talking about. Today a "Pillar of the Community" told me my coin has "invironmental damage," yes, spelled with an 'i'. Almost as if they read my post here about a high schooler spelling embryo 'imbroe.' Ha!!
Earle and basebal, I wonder if I could offer you guys a peace treaty because I believe my newbie perspective allows me to see BOTH your sides as totally relevant and true. I haven't been in the hobby nearly long enough to have witnessed the emergence of grading companies, but my educated guess would be that it coincided with the coin market transitioning (partly) from local coin shops to online sales/auctions.
The reason I guess this is the problem of photography. My main hobby is aquarium fish, which I also sell online and therefore have to photograph them. Just like coins, the photos can look wildly different based on a long list of factors (especially the more metallic looking fish), and YES people can and DO edit photos to make their fish look more impressive, and I suspect the same goes for coins. But even the most honest seller could accidentally take photos that don't accurately show what the eye would see in person. HECK, EVEN EYES DISAGREE!--Do yall remember 'The Dress'? (blue and black versus white and gold? --I can actually see it BOTH ways, in fact one time I watched it transform over the course of about 3 seconds, and I literally screamed "NO...NO...NOOOO!!") Ha, at least coins hold still and don't have to be photographed through water, but still, they are TRICKY. Pair this with the fact that online sales don't enable a buyer to look the seller in the eye, and if they buy a coin that turns out to be less-than, they would rely on the non-expert people at ebay and/or Paypal to decide if they had a case for a refund. And you better believe I've seen that go all kinds of sideways with fish, both as a seller and as a buyer.
So basebal, I totally GET why TPG's are a necessity at least for affirming highly desirable (big money) coins that will be sold online. The fact that up to 3 experts may take the time to study a coin to derive an average rating definitely impresses me. And why shouldn't they be paid for it? --If they offered the service for free they'd undoubtedly spend every waking hour opening packages and squinting through lenses, for nothing, while the senders of those packages would get big revenues based largely on the experts' assessments.
But Earle, I also feel what you're saying very much. I HAVE read lots of dissent (here and other websites) and I can't deny that my unfairness meter goes off very often regarding what these companies do. Like I wonder what happens when an obviously inexperienced hobbyist sends them a coin whose worthlessness is immediately evident--do they still slab it and charge that poor fool the same rate as they would a person who's going to make a thousand bucks off their coin? Then there's the fact that people often destroy the slab to send the coin to another grader or even the SAME grader just to see if they can get a higher grade......that is madness, and so seems this 'fourth' party stuff (your graphic is hilarious by the way--I literally laughed out loud).
So basebal, your defense of CAC is sound, in terms of their legitimacy as experts. But I don't think I fully understand what they do. If their opinion is so sufficiently superior to the other TPG's that they serve as oversight for them, why don't they just offer grading service, period? Is it that they are a cheaper alternative to busting and resending coins? But wouldn't their being able to see the initial TPG's assessment bias their own re-assessment? And what happens if they DON'T agree? Is the hobbyist then stuck busting/resending on top of paying CAC?! Also, how well can they really assess the coin through plastic?
And that leads to the other aspect I see as madness; the slabbing. Again, I do "get it." --The slab not only serves as protection of the coin but as tamper-proof authentication, otherwise an unscrupulous person could just keep sending in their highest-grade coin in for grading and use the slabs to overprice lesser coins or even counterfeit ones. But the thing that baffled me when I first learned of slabbing was--who wants a coin they can't feel in their fingers or study without a literal wall of glare in between. Ha, might as well get into aquarium fish! Yeah, I know if a buyer wants to they can bust the coin out, but only if they're certain they will be its' 'forever home.' It's especially weird to see slabbed coins in a shop or show. --Here's where buyers can still browse coins without the problem of photography, but in an ironic twist of modernity, they can't lay their eyes directly on the coin, nor assess its' quality without the bias of someone else's opinion.

I agree with you on the insulator being cool no matter the value. I like them for the history just as I do coins. If you even have questions, shoot them my way. If I don't know the answer, I believe I can probably point you in the right direction.

As to the Hemingray 42, if its a color called Hemingray Blue, then it was made in 1923-1925. You will know if it is Hemingray Blue b/c its a definite blue and not a shade of aqua. The aquas and clears were made after the blues until, I believe, the 40s (but would have to check on that date). The Hemi-42 was the most common style ever made, which is why most people, when they find an insulator, will find one of these. personally I think the profile of it is one of the nicest.

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As to the slabbing subject, its not an emotional one for me at all - in fact debate is something I rarely allow my emotions to get in the way of - its foolish b/c emotions kill fact and logic. I am just a former teacher who likes to make sure newbies are educated about the slabbing situation in its entirety to make a better decision. Seeing tons of slabs (for example on ebay) for sale, can give a wrong impression that these services are an absolutely essential part of the coin hobby.

And before going any further, I will make sure I (again) state that if a person likes slabs for what they are, then go for it and enjoy the hobby in that way. Hobbies are about enjoyment and fun. Building registry sets is also something people can enjoy and so people will pay large amounts to get a top collection. I say its their money and hobby so go for it.

Following is a good thread to read and research for yourself. It shows two very obviously different grades of the same coin slabbed as the same by PCGS.
http://goccf.com/t/322364

When obvious problems such as these assigned grades are questioned though, sometimes people who like slabs rush to defend the slabbing company no matter what. Facts and explicit references to opposing opinions are sometimes ignored or not pursued at all while requests for supporting facts are repeatedly ignored:
http://goccf.com/t/315941&whichpage=8#2709993

This will be the last post I make concerning this in this thread as I do not want to re-hash what has already been proven*

When reading, be aware of fact vs. opinion vs.:

1. Ad hominem reponses - by definition, using an ad hominem statement is a self proclamation the person using it has lost the debate. An ad hominem attacj consists of making an verbal attack against a person (generally invoking emotional response and the topic at hand is forgotten). This is sometimes even a subconscious response when someone knows they have been presented with facts which prove them wrong. Can come in the form of making a "factual" statement of knowing abnother's (negative) motivations, belittling, etc.

2. Superlatives with no facts - "Everyone thinks...," "Hardly anyone ever...," "They never ...,"

...and other illegitimate-to-fact verbal devices.

People are more or less trained to debate using non-legitimate methods nowadays when the facts are not in their favor.

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You are correct about online marketing making slabbing big. And for newbies, it is way too easy to think slabbing is an essential for all coins (marketing departments love this).

The hobby existed for centuries without slabbing just fine. And even the former president of the NIA has been quoted as saying anyone can learn to do it (I can reference if needed).

Collectors not understanding the facts about the TPGs and how they work can be surprised to find out how much has to be taken on faith with these systems. Literally one grade point can mean the difference in thousands of dollars when sold. And yet that same coin, if broken out and resubmitted, is not guaranteed that grade again, so it "loses" thousands of dollars of value!

So the value is not about the coin itself, but about the service and their opinion - which are never guaranteed to be the same!

What I am sad to see for the sake of newbies is that you will find people who will tell you that ALL good coins NEED to be slabbed as if slabbing is universally accepted and just a natural part of the hobby. The marketers love this opinion as it keeps them in business.

*In former posts opposing opinions of the above facts used ad hominem statements and therefore ended QED.