What Has Been Your Worst Grade Experience With A Third Party Grading Company?

That also makes sense. This would have been incredibly hard back then. I don't see much of a problem for tech nowadays though.



I think you are correct on this. I think this is why Mintstate.com decided to go with slabbed pieces so people who stick to wanting a human hand in it would be satisfied.

Our entire world that surrounds us is made of engineered and QC-passed parts measuring down into the thousandths (and beyond) of tolerances being scanned and verified by machine. I would like to see coins as scientifically handled. I think with the right PR, our world around us, it seems, is always after the next greatest scientific breakthrough and tech toy, so I would think a non-human opinion basis would be welcomed...except there are already a lot of people out there with a lot invested in the label on their slab who would likely lose a lot of money if the coin itself were scientifically and verifiably graded.

I also am of the opinion (nothing to back it up except thinking like a business) that grading companies would not like the systems anyway. They would likely lose a lot of money with people gambling and playing the re-slabbing game for profit. I admit I wonder if this loss of the "gamble aspect" was not also some of the reason the tech was shut down after a short time. Shareholders (if they had them?) would not have appreciate a drop in business. The system would have made a large, but finite and growing smaller, need for grading company services. There are only so many, for example, 1916-D Mercury dimes to be graded.

I see the system (like you described) not only bringing the coin hobby up to a much needed verifiable standard, but consistency. And since an AI system would be based upon a vast sea of human opinion, it might appease those wishing this as well.

BTW - Mintstate.com also has an AI coin detector. Meaning a system could be made to auto-scan, auto-ID, and then auto grade any coin as well.





This is exactly why I would love to see verifiable standards. The above is what I personally see as a "gray area" since thousands of dollars can ride on one simple difference in number printed on a label.

It reminds me of when the Beanie Baby market crashed b/c people faced the reality they were paying hard earned cash for plastic beads in a piece of cloth. The Beanie hobby had a totally artificial market-driven "value" assigned to the Beanie Babies. While our coins are different in that some already are known as rare, competition for registry sets etc. keeps driving up prices on the same coin+label+plastic. Its not just about the coin.

The day when a slabbed coin could be broken out, resubmitted, and get the same exact grade every time is when the COIN itself is factually graded on its OWN merits. No more valuable plastic...just coins.

For training a computer AI system it doesn't matter if many coins get graded differently by different graders and get different grades by the same grader on different days. That is because the database will be built up when a few hundred or a few thousand coins graded by humans are added to the database. The AI will have learnt what each grade (including + grades) will look like on average and the average will be very exact (the system can even be trained to learn what eye appeal and attractive toning is). Then the system can point out those coins that are over or under graded by the humans.
That takes care of the grading of 95% of coins submitted, the remaining 5% are the coins with very few submitted (rarities, many world coins) or problematic coins (hammered coins, coins with unusual features).
Then the problem in future will be that all coins graded pre AI will be suspect for grades, I'm sure the TPGs would love to encourage the owners to resubmit the coins (for a fee ) for an accurate grade. They might even nudge the issue by making pre AI graded coins ineligible for set registries.

This is a truly great discussion,as a relatively new collector, never having bought a slabbed coin, I'm learning a lot, and really enjoying myself.