@SPP
The way you collect slabs is wise. I can understand someone having a lot of fun with the regisrty sets.
You are intelligent enough to inspect the goods for what they are. Unfortunately many newbies automatically think these TPGs are correct no matter what since, after all, "everyone" buys and sells slabs from these "respected" and "expert: companies. My main problem is that these companies just seem like modern day snake oil salesmen
to me.
A verifiable grading system has been within our reach for decades and yet the subjectivity remains (profits are easier this way). Personally I beleive with the infra red (no problem with lighting) identification scanner in modern iphones, that a phone app that was at least as good, if not much better than the current systems could be made (30,000 data points in an instant are analysed!).
The PCGS "Guarantee" is part of what reminds me of "Dr. Cureall's Remedy" of the 1800s. Read it:
https://www.PCGS.com/guaranteeThey guarantee the coin to be graded according to their procedures...uh...yeah. Dr. Cureall would likely have guaranteed he was the one who filled the bottles also.
Oh...of course there is a guarantee that if you think they overgraded they will dumb the grade down down for you:
Excuse me Mr. PCGS, I think this MS68 $1,000 coin-because-of-label is really ony an $800.00 MS67. Rather than sell it for a higher price on
ebay, your guarantee says you will pay me the higher market value. Now of course your guarantee says YOU determine and define the sum you wil pay me is what a DEALER would pay to get it.
Let's see...generally dealers pay 30% percent less. So you will give me $700.00 for this $800.00 coin? Will you sell it at the higher grade level after you have it and make 200.00 profit? Or will you re slab at the lower grade and sell it at $800.000...therefore only making $100.00 off of me this situation?
Or...I could take option number 2: You say you will re slab at the lower grade and and pay me the difference (again determined by you at deal cost). So I will get 200.00! Great! Oops, but let's see now...there is the following proviso in the guarantee...
"What the PCGS Guarantee Does Not Cover
The following is further explanation of what the PCGS Guarantee does not cover.....A blatantly obvious clerical input mistake with respect to the actual grade of the coin. For example, if you had an 1893-O
Morgan dollar and the PCGS holder showed the coin as MS65 (a Gem quality coin), but the coin was so beat up and marked up that it would grade MS60 at best, this coin would not be covered by the PCGS Guarantee as this would be an obvious input error. The rule of thumb here would be a difference of more than two points on the grading scale."
"blatantly obvious" - the definition of this terminology is as subjective as the grade and also subject to PCGS's opinions.
Oh...so in other words I just forget the whole thing or I end up with you paying me 700.00 for a coin that I legitimately could sell for 800.00. Well...you will give me back the fees I spent to have you slab it in the first place. So I break even and so do you...some guarantee!
Admittedly PCGS does have a good guarantee on counterfeits attributed as being real. But as can be seen on this site, few counterfeits are not detectable by anyone willing to find out for themselves and by those who know coins.
Businesses need to make aa profit to stay in business. I still maintain if a car mechanic produced similar "quality" work with the same provisos in their guarantees that the mechanic would soon be out of business.
Dr. Cureall would guarantee, also, that his remedy would make you feel better. This was true. Considering opium and alcohol were major ingredients in a lot of these "cures." The guarantee was still not on the level for what the cure was supposed to do...cure.
Posted 01/28/2020 7:20 pm
