PCGS And CAC : Strange Bedfellows

As near as I can see, the CAC sticker (green) adds value.
But a green CAC stickers I think means a coin is something like in the top 10% of the grade.
But that may be similar to the same coin with the same grade in a PCGS holder tending to have more value than in an MGC holder.
Perception vs. reality.

I'm a little confused, basebal21, QUOTE : "CAC is an adversary or competition to PCGS though some in the hobby do try and present it as one." A double positive ; if some in the hobby "do try to present it as one" AND "CAC is an adversary" Which is it ? ... I think it cheapens the PCGS brand to admit that someone else's opinion even matters ; the same way they won't crossover coins from certain services carte blanche without looking. An the sticker most definitely does not automatically create a "premium" coin. Let CAC list their own sets ; Ford doesn't advertise for Chevrolet - something is amiss.

Then they (PCGS and CAC) have created a "second tier product" ; an unstickered slab. In our business, second tier products were called "scrap" and treated accordingly. No factory seconds, no this-one-is-better-than-that-one nonsense. They have devalued coins which have no reason to be so other than the lack of a sticker from CAC (if in fact the sticker adds value). I bought many of my coins in the 1960's/70's and resented sending them to a single grading company, much less a usurper with a sticker. You misunderstood the "carte blanche" statement ; PCGS won't even look at anything but NGC or ANACS for crossover consideration, period , carte blanche. This has become a worse racket than ever and I've withdrawn all of my sets from the Registry - so that will never be accurate, either ... thankfully you answered my lone initial question that the two companies ARE INDEED in cahoots.

Any grade assigned by any grading company has to have a range of quality, since they are only accurate to at most a single point. Thus MS 63 is really between MS 62.5 and MS 63.4. What CAC is doing is grading to an additional decimal place-identifying the MS 63.4s.

Collectors always realized that all MS 63s are not the same. CAC is just making a business of this.

So I don't see this as a big deal, if you prefer slabbed coins to making your own assessment.

Basebal21 do you work for the TPGs? Reason I ask is that you defend them a lot.

This ignores the Plus and Star levels that PCGS and NGC can assign. And I understand that CAC simply means agreement with the grade on the label, or that it deserved better (with a gold sticker instead of green).

With as much disagreement as we get here when guessing the grade, particularly at the MS level, (and that the concept of resubmissions exists) even "accurate" can be disputed. Seems to me the grade can be subjective at times, and CAC is a recognized sign of consensus or approval.

If you check out my ICG thread I get into it a little more but the cliff notes version would be that I think there's a place for all of them and that what kind of coins we are talking about changes the answer. There's obviously coins not worth the PCGS NGC price that ANACS/ICG specials would be good for, common date/grade Morgans don't really have much of a spread price wise from any company, World coins depends on the country whether or not PCGS or NGC would be better, ancient coins you only have a choice between NGC and ANACS as just some examples. I've used all 4 TPGs and CAC as well many times for years.

Those examples could go on for a long time. That said the market for US coins has a pretty clear hierarchy at this point in the more valuable coins of PCGS CAC then NGC CAC then PCGS then NGC then the others. The more expensive a coin the more likely it may have been tried to get crossed into a PCGS holder at some point, this is especially true for four figures and up. There's been several examples of even 6 and 7 figure coins getting crossed over to PCGS basically immediately after their auction.

I fully expect the gap between PCGS and the other TPGs to keep growing as the years go by for a couple of reasons. The first is that their holder is just optically superior, the plastic is just clearer and seeing the coin is obviously number one. It's also scratch resistant as the standard holder and water proof to an extent which is superior to their competition. For the longest time I haven't understood why NGC won't make their scratch resistant holder their standard one instead of trying to up-charge for it

More importantly though since the new regime took reigns at PCGS with Brett PCGS has been head and shoulders above the others with innovation and looking towards the future. The others still seem to be stuck in the old mindset while PCGS has really been embracing technology with the apps and their website, the slab chips, and being innovative which is something we have needed for a while. The contests and fun things they've run as well have been a positive. Things like this are what's going to capture the younger collectors and newer ones in the future who are more used to having technology for everything. Their grading has also been stingy for those who like that to the point major dealers have even publicly complained on blogs about it.

They all have a role though and I wouldn't expect PCGS or NGC to go anywhere or out of business at all. Both have done a good job of expanding into the international market (which will keep growing) and even with a hierarchy both can be wildly successful. CAC has it's role in the higher end coins and will continue to do so.




As a side note with CAC when the emotion is removed from the situation ones of the things important with them if a coin doesn't sticker is to figure out why. A coin that would sticker a grade down is generally much nicer than one that wouldn't sticker at any grade. Any grading scale whether 1-5 or 1-5 billion or a-z will always have a high and a low end of every grade, it's impossible to avoid that and that also means every scale will always have things that could go either way