What's A Fair Asking Price For A Never-Sealed PCGS Slab W/Authentic Grade Label & Security Features?

@kbbpll I submitted the coins personally for Economy Service in the beginning of March, PCGS "Received" them on the 8th, and I got them back last Thursday (That's 78 Business Days, or about 4 Actual months to those of us who don't get weekends). If I've been vague, it's to protect my own identity, not to deceive any of you. I don't want to sell these on this site, if I do decide to sell them, I'll do it right on my ebay store and I will be VERY clear as to what they are, what they represent, and how I feel about that (spoiler alert: it ain't good). So I'm willing to work with you guys for the sake of honesty and forthrightness and embarrassing PCGS, but since the consensus is they're not really worth anything, my question is basically answered.

PCGS should fix the problem.

I don't understand why you want to sell them, for a premium at that.

Highly doubt anyone purchasing this would be doing it other than bad intentions.

After reading the entire message, I already began to doubt that this is really a PCGS problem. Perhaps you also had a hand in this or personally opened the slab yourself. But I also don't really understand why PCGS banned you on the forum. If all this is true, then this is their jamb and yes mistakes happen to everyone, but the company must bear responsibility for this and certify it again. This is a matter of principle + you have paid the money.

I also read the thread at CU. The poster came off as a dealer who lost money because of the PCGS issue of not sealing the plastic. The poster wanted to be compensated for lost revenue.

On plastic not sealed, PCGS will typically pay for shipping and seal the plastic at no cost. The poster needs to read the agreement that was signed when the coins were submitted, and the poster should understand why PCGS will not pay for lost revenue.

The best solution .send them back .
If you are not prepared to do that , then alarm bells
Comes to mind .
I am no fan of PCGS for other reasons , but they would
surely make this good at no cost to you . The reputation
they have to protect is worth far more then a few defective
holders. All 4 coming back this seems very odd indeed .

Not sure about this tale ?

@jbuck, thank you very much for the warm welcome to your community. I haven't been banned yet, so already a step up from the CU forums in my book.

I also truly appreciate all of the thoughtful replies I've received. I'd like to take a little time to respond to each of your concerns so that you are a little better informed of my situation. And here we go:

@NumismaticsFTW I have little (but not zero, at this point) doubt that PCGS will fix them. Unfortunately, that doesn't solve my problem. As I stated in an earlier post, I was counting on selling these coins to make my bills this month. To digress for a moment - I don't know if everyone on these forums is independently wealthy or what, but I struggle to understand why it's such a foreign concept to people that there are others in the world who can't afford to be out thousands of dollars for an indefinite period of time. That being said, I can't feed my family with other people's good or bad intentions, so I'm compelled to trust my buyers to act within their own moral code, despite our shared apprehension.

@Collects82 you're right on regarding the delayed response. It's actually worse than that even because they had a big show at the Long Beach Expo over the weekend, so from the sounds of it, basically everyone was off-site. That being acknowledged, the fact remains that it's now been more than 6 days since I initially contacted them, I've contacted them NUMEROUS times both via phone as well as email since then, and I still have yet to hear back from a Supervisor. It's as hard for me to believe that this has happened as it is for any of you, but it's even harder to believe that a company that's part of a $4 Billion Enterprise apparently doesn't have enough staff to properly address such an egregious error for going on a full week.

@Slerk (which rhymes with jerk, btw) I've had to answer several questions regarding my credibility, both here as well as at CU's forum. Rather than taking these personally and feeling I needed to defend my integrity (which, in addition to telling the truth, is probably what got me banned from CU), I'm just going to urge anyone with doubts to look over my past and future posts. If there's something you need as "evidence", I will try to provide it. Why would someone who complains about needing money so badly be wasting their time on this, you might ask? Because until I get this situation figured out, I have nothing to sell (without losing even more money than I already have), and I have no other way of making my bills for the month. So, for better or worse, the one thing that I do have is a lot of unwanted free time on my hands. And I agree, it IS a matter of principle. If PCGS has gotten so big for their britches that they think they can afford to simply ignore someone with such a blatantly negligent error, then I will do most anything in my power to remind them that a reputation of integrity and trust aren't things that their Sugar Daddy CU can buy for them.

@hfjacinto In retrospect, I admittedly probably did push too hard on the CU forum. I was mad and frustrated and dreading having to spend a 3-day "weekend" that was supposed to be spent working feeling like this. So yeah, I started out with an honest question and ended up mostly just trying to get PCGS' attention so that they might actually take this issue seriously. Clearly I failed in that as well. For the record, at no point have I asked anyone at PCGS (yet) for any kind of compensation because, again, I have yet to hear back from a Supervisor. The reason I haven't returned the coins is because as soon as I do, I'm at their mercy. They can refund some of my grading costs, or not. They could take a day to return the coins to me, or a month. Those coins are the only leverage I have to get even close to what I would consider a fair resolution, so if you want to call that "extortion", that's your opinion. I believe that a company shouldn't have to be "extorted" into doing the right thing, but that's just my opinion.

@Slider23 I am well aware of the ToA, and as I stated on CU, I'm not looking to sue these guys. What I AM doing is trying to find a solution to a very real problem for my family and I, and am willing to do pretty much whatever is necessary to find that solution. Just a quick note about me: Principle is actually a pretty big deal to me. I feel pretty strongly that if you say that you're going to do something, ESPECIALLY if someone pays you to do it, you need to follow through and do it. If you paid someone $1600 to fix your plumbing, and they didn't, you know, fix your plumbing, would you just let them keep your money because it was in their "terms of agreement"? If so, kudos to you, you're clearly a better person than I.

@Pacificoin I am 100% willing to send the coins back to be corrected, however not until I have assurances from PCGS as to when I will receive them back as well if they plan to compensate me (not because they have to, ToA-wavers, but because I believe it's the right thing to do). I also agree 100% in thinking that their reputation is worth more than some grading fees, but unfortunately they don't seem to share that opinion, so here we are. And it's more than 4 coins, by the way.

@kbbpll thank you for your thoughtful reply. The censoring thing was out of an abundance of caution, I honestly don't know if anyone could use that against me, particularly PCGS. Given their "response" to my inquiries, I honestly have no idea what they're capable of, including somehow "blacklisting" the coins so that they no longer show up on their database, making my situation even worse. As I stated, if I do determine that my only recourse is to sell these slabs, I'll do it right from my ebay store and I will be VERY clear in exactly what they are and why I'm selling them.

Thank you all again for your responses. While we obviously don't all share the same opinions, I am very grateful for a forum where I can seek answers to problems like this without fear of retribution or being banned. If anyone has any other questions on the matter, please don't hesitate to ask. As I said, for better or for worse, until this gets resolved, I have plenty of free time on my hands. Thank you all again for the advice.

Don't be surprised when they erase all of those certs from their database. Wheather they forgot to seal them (more likely in my opinion) or you somehow carefully unsealed them on your own, the end result to them is the same. Anyone could pop any coin in there as it is right now and seal them up as if that's how they came from PCGS. That opens them up to liability down the road.

You either take it for what it is and send the coins back on their dime and wait another unknown number of months to get them back properly sealed. Maybe you even get them to throw in a few free grading vouchers for your time. If you're looking for more than that from them though, I think you will be disappointed.

As far as what they would sell for on ebay as they are right now, that's anyone's guess.

There is no way to tag people on here. And honestly I understand why you are annoyed, but PCGS is covered, they have specific restrictions on their contract so they have 0 interest in giving you or anyone else any compensation. I had an issue with an Anacs slab, I called them, asked what they can do for me which was given 2 free grading and I was totally happy. I would have been happy just by getting the coin reslabbed. Based on your response on CU and on here, I doubt you'll get anything more than a reslab from PCGS and all this noise might just have them ban you and refund your grading fee and that's it. Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets taken off and replaced.