Grading Company Claims/Expertise Questioned - The "No FG" Study

Sorry - had email allegedly telling when posts were being made - didn't happen for some reason.



Obviously if there is a trace of the letters, its not a No FG. I may be wrong, but I think, like I did years ago when finding out about the No FG "varieties" that labeling a polished die as an actual variety is not the best way to handle it.

CCF glossary:


emphasis added.
The polishing of details off of a die is an action by a mint worker being a bit zealous in his job. If the mint worker had not polished the die, then the coins coming from it would not have a difference to them (well...clash marks). Clash marks, which are an actual mechanical error ("error" in the sense of the machine strikes without a planchet in between) are no classified as varieties. There are specific clashes known for specific coin dates in the Kennedy series as well. I found a lot of 1971-D, 1983-P, and 1972-D with the same die clashes (per year) on each. Yet these are not "varieties."
Any detail might be polished off of a coin by the workers. The missing FG just is a convenient and "catchy" happening. In 2005 the Bison nickel's "Detached Leg Error" was all over the marketplace as a money making coin, yet now is worth very little since its just a die polishing issue.




And the 1982 No FG is also easily told from the OBV because the 1 in the date has no base on it like the others do. This die pair made all the No FG 1982s. Which, BTW, seems to be something that Kennedy specialists all know to be fact, but no grading company seems to ever mention the missing base on the OBV!
A parallel to this is the two REVs of the 1938-1940 nickels. The grading companies never mention what a CCF member listed here some years ago: The companies say to ID the two reverses you have to look at the differences in the steps of Monticello. Only sometimes the steps are too worn away to tell. The companies seem unaware that the easiest was to tell these REV types is to look at the last S in UNITED STATES on a REV. Type I is sans serif at the top of the S while Type II has a prominent serif. And these websites are considered THE experts for numismatics.



1. Yet the next time the coin is submitted, it might receive another grade...oh well - off topic...I digress
2. And THE perceived expert services whom we are to trust with grading do not bother to hire a verifier that can be trusted as well? Thousands of dollars can hinge on this! I do not recall seeing a variety verification guarantee...think of it...thousands...
3. I will accept what you say and acknowledge I was unaware that variety attribution is not part of the grader's job. The video the companies put out showing the grading process (or describing it) make no mention that I remember of this fact (I may be mistaken!). The videos concentrate on people "knowing" the incredible expertise of the graders with coins and acknowledging three graders per coin.

I am guessing most people like myself always thought the words on the label say specifically the company puts its entire expertise behind the ink on the label, and not that certain parts of the label are more expertly reviewed than others. It seems an automatic assumption that the three graders' opinions of what the slab says, not just parts of it, are THE facts.
Again I will state this makes the situation a bit more "shady" (not necessarily intentional!) to me since thousands of dollars can hinge on the ink on the label, and someone who has looked into these systems as deeply as I have just assume the label is a result of the entire 3-specialist-grader-minimum process.


And I admit I do find it weird that any Red Book toting novice collector with an interest in making a Kennedy collection knows of the three main NO FG varieties. They have been in the Red Book for a long time.

So the graders who are company-described as being assigned to the type coins they will grade by their specialty areas (strengths) have nothing to do with a major ($thousands sometimes!) parts of what people perceive is their expert opinions on the label. Sorry, but again my opinion is this is a pretty sloppy job not worthy of the three graders' expertise.



?

Watch below. Former PCGS President Ron Guth tells Mr. Morgan of COINweek that when he (Ron) took the challenge, HE did not get them "right," and that "the best graders only get it 'right' 80% (85%? check me on that please) of the time. I took the former president's word as well as those of other dealers I respect, youtube channels of experienced dealers [look up Daniel Malone and others like him], and the word of the two former graders I know who say its a gamble b/c its a subjective system. By definition subjectivity means there is a gamble with no actual guarantees of grade (only procedure according to the PCGS website).

You are the only knowledgeable collector I know who has ever said its not a gamble for them.



And what goes up must come down...tell that to Viking I and 2

Progress would be making a system where every coin is always given the same scientifically based/verifiable verifiable grade. I am sure glad car manufacturers do not use subjectivity to this degree in their engine parts where thousandths of an inch can mean problems.

I worked in a plastics plant in the early 90s over a summer. We had a QC machine back then that digitally scanned plastic-injection-made electronics parts we made down to the nanometer simply by placing the part on the stage. A monitor allowed realtime viewing. The stage auto-moved as it made measurements and gave a feedback for the details it was measuring/checking/scanning. It had to do things like look inside .3 mm square holes, measure the corners, detect flashing or other anomalies/defects. Setting up the program was as easy as putting it onto the stage, using a joystick to move the stage, and using the software to put markers onto the piece on the screen. TheFrom then on that pice was used as a basis to assess all others of that type part. Programs for scanning each part were stored in memory...the early 1990s!

PCGS had a computer/laser scanning system they claimed was 90% accurate in the 1990s. This was a step up from the 80% (85%?) of the subjective system they reverted to. Let's face it, the re-slabbing game has a better chance of bringing in profits the more subjective the system is.

iPhone facial recognition tech nowadays scans 30,000 infrared points of data in a nanosecond (no lighting issues with infra red)to asses a human face (through mustache, glasses, no matter the expression, open mouth talking, closed etc.). Our current computer tech makes a 1990 computer like the system I was on look like someone counting on their fingers. PCGS had a 90% system in 1990. Our current tech could make a verifiable and scientifically based system much more accurate than 1990 tech. We do it all the time for precision parts in industry.

Eye appeal with a machine? Probably not. But the buyer decides that for themselves NOW anyway! Moot point.

Besides all of that, an AI system IS being developed, is accurate, and is accessible online as of last September or so for Morgan dollars. Look up Daniel Malone on youtube. He is part of another youtube channel/website developing the AI system. They scanned hundreds of slabs at specific grade levels so the computer has a large databank and can "average" what, for example, MS62 "means to a human." You can enter pictures of your own Morgan on the website and it will grade it for you. Its in testing stage and gets more accurate as it is used. The same coin can/does get the same grade through the use of tons of human-generated opinions of each specific grade level.



Well...sort of...
Their guarantee that people tend to rely upon guarantees the coin is graded according to the system they say it will be graded - it s all in my paper I wrote - in their words lifted form the website.
Reading the fine print makes the "guarantee" a lot less pleasing, helpful and more expensive to the owner than people generally are led to believe. Some people on this forum have posted the ridiculous position they have been left in.



Agreed.
But as any business nowadays knows, almost NO ONE "reads the instructions." And the more vague (such as the guarantee) the claims the marketing department come up with, the more a company (any cpmpany) can use details to get off the hook of responsibility. Again, I do NOT think these people are evil...just they are not what their marketers want people to believe. I desire to see what is available IMPROVED to a set standard and an expertise level worthy of what they claim.

Admittedly, I totally believe technology has moved us past the time that we can have a pocket, reliable grading app. The tech IS there. And whether its based on percentage algorithms, or AI "knowing" and applying already graded coin slab standards from thousands and thousands in its database, the same grade can be had every single time.

But...the re-slabbing game and countless newbies sending in face value coins (or damaged coins they think are the holy grail of errors) and paying fees would be stopped. That is profit loss and not good for any business model. The companies KNOW how far our tech has come. They also know that unlike the 90s, people now trust computers (their reason for getting rid of the systems was no one back then trusted computers) so the accuracy level could be vastly improved...with less resubmissions etc..



What I mean is that a buyer won't shell out the bucks if they do not like the looks. hence who cares what a grader or computer says?

As to the job issue...its an age old problem. But there comes a point when paying people to do a job that takes advantage of others' by not providing the possible quality available has to be looked at from a moral perspective as well.

The general don't-read-the-instructions newbies out there have been sold a non-verifiable reputation on these companies just b/c slabs sell like crazy in ebay etc. Part of this is b/c people have an innate need/desire to have an "expert" to rely on. Part of it is the busy life we lead means people get tired of having to verify everything for themselves. No excuses here, but marketers take advantage of this.

Things like n the paper I wrote should NOT be happeneing given the line of expertise we are led to believe exists. Things like this link should not be happening to the degree they do. Its not hard to find things like this:
http://goccf.com/t/346174#2967242


And the statements by former biggfredd also show the not so squeaky clean intentions at the start of the companies:
http://goccf.com/t/130186
When I got back into the hobby seriously in 2011 I did an honest research to see how the actual reputation of these companies had evolved. What I found was more of the same old same old when they started up. But now they are larger, more well known (thanks ebay and internet), but they do have redeeming points of providing excellent education tools and fake recognition which was not there, obviously, at the start.