PCGS Grading Favoritism

I couldn't help you I don't have any experience sending my submissions thru dealers.

I've heard this talked about many times, mentioned in here, through friends, dealers, at shows. So far I've never seen any solid proof of it, but have seen some sellers who seemingly (key word) get away with a bit more.

From my experience, and I'm a nobody as far as subs go, have had subs go all directions. Ive gotten grades I considered conservative, over grades, fair grades, and grades I felt were just way off. Ive played the game of sending the same coin in multiple times, and gotten 3 different grades. The end result being anywhere from a 3-6 point swing.

Both my go-to LCS's send in a good amount for grading and have had the same experience, all over the map.

As far as BIG dealers, we may only be seeing a small amount of what has gone through the TPG. Of the 100 coins listed from said dealer, who knows how many times they coin was resubbed to acquire that grade. We also can't see all the coins they may not have even made it into a slab, or coins that did make it into a slab that didn't make the cut for retail listings, and were sold wholesale or dealer to dealer.

What I'm getting at, is we may only see the "best of the best" or potentially overgraded coins that the dealer stands to make the most gain from.

Ultimately there's really no way of knowing. Even if you were to send it in, crack it out, then have a dealer send it in, there's a chance of it grading differently regardless if you or the dealer sent it in the second time.

I've always subbed myself, and plan to continue that. My 2 cents.

Thank you NS

I appreciate the feedback TY, this makes me feel better about sending these in myself!

I had already paid the annual membership with the vouchers too haha.

You have very good points and insight.

I personally don't trust other people handling my coins, in fear of them being careless,

Although in this instance with a TPG handling them it is out of necessity to be graded.

I remember seeing a whole slew of coins with Stack's NGC labels and they all seemed overgraded.

If you are bringing millions of dollars worth of grading fees and you have options, then it makes sense that there's going to be some quid pro quo there to some extent. That's not a conspiracy, but just human nature, leverage, fundamental business practices, whatever you want to call it. If I buy thousands in chops at the butcher he's gonna throw in a few filets to ensure that I come back. Vendors that I do business will throw tickets to boxes at games my way from time to time. I lean on people when I have leverage sometimes and feel it coming my way too depending on the situation.

It doesn't seem right when it comes to grading because you are telling people one thing and doing another when no one is looking. But am I naive enough to think it never happens? I hope not. I wasn't born yesterday - some of you may disagree.

I will preface this with I have no proof. That said I don't think there is any doubt that the large auction houses (Heritage, Stacks) and large dealers get preferential treatment and grading. On another site I read a post by a grader that has worked at all the TPGs and despite the fact that we are told graders don't know whose coin they are grading, he said he knew at every TPG except for NGC (and he does not currently work at NGC). I believe this is true.

At the end of January I sent in coins to PCGS for the first time since the early 1990s. So that did not stop me from sending them in myself.

I have seen this effect myself (and also the "key date bump") from all the major TPG's. But it's entirely anecdotal and has no empirical data to back it up.

That being said, it may be a case of correlation vs. causation.

In other words, if I see a coin for sale at a large dealer or auction and disagree with the TPG's grade (mostly if it's higher or straight grade) it's natural to assume that there was special treatment involved, when in reality that's just me trying to make the facts fit the theory instead of the other way around.

There are probably lots of overgraded coins in TPG holders, but by virtue of their visibility when listed with big sellers or big auctions, those particular coins are the ones that draw our attention, and can reinforce the perception that those dealers/sellers are getting preferential treatment for that reason. (If you were to look at the inventory of ALL dealers, not just "big" dealers, you'd probably find some TPG coins that you didn't agree with on the grade, either.)