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Author	Replies: 7 / Views: 1,283
gshawn New Member United States 8 Posts	Posted 03/26/2006 03:49 am Hello everyone! I'm just starting to get into graded coins and buying coins for more than their "melt" value. Before now, I wasn't really concerned with what the MS or PF was on a coin, I just wanted to know how many ounces it was and what was it made of My son got me started on looking into this more and everyone here seem friendly and willing to answer questions, so I thought I would bother you all if you don't mind. The truly burning question in my mind right now is why would someone pay to have a coin graded and then sell that coin on ebay for less money than it cost to have it graded? I must be missing something because I just had a couple of coins graded (NGC) and they were 12.50+ per coin to get graded! Then I'm crusing ebay and I see someone selling an NGC graded cent for 12 bucks and the seller wasn't charging an obscene amount for shipping so this person is clearly losing money if they paid the same 12.50 I had to pay. I guess I'm asking if there is another pricing level for dealer that submit hundreds or thousands of coins to be graded that would make it profitable for them to sell a graded coin for less than what it costs me to get a coin graded. I know, of all the questions somebody could ask, this one may not have been the best first question, but it's just driving me crazy and I have to find out what's going on. I kind of feel like I'm sitting at a poker table where everyone knows each other, except me, and I can't figure out who the fish at the table is......... I'd really appreciate any input and I'll just stop at this one question for now. I don't want my first post to be a brain dump.... Edited by Metalman 03/26/2006 4:51 pm Report this Post to the Staff

Metalman Pillar of the Community United States 7123 Posts	Posted 03/26/2006 04:22 am Hi gshawn Welcome to the forum !!! Many times when a person joins a grading company ,which is required by NGC and PCGS in order to submit coins for grading, different levels of membership come with coupons for free grading of a few coins, these grading companies also offer coupons for reduced or free grading for different reasons. without a doubt some of these coins offered on ebay are coins from these specials and coupons and didnt cost the seller anything to have graded. But then again there is always the chance that the seller expected more for the coin but the market wasn't behind it !! Im not a slab collector My collection is 99.9% raw,, I just received my only slabbed coin as a gift from another forum member !! Hope this helps ? Im sure others that are more familiar with grading companies can and will add to my response. Rick Edited by Metalman 03/26/2006 04:27 am Report this Post to the Staff
Morgan Fred Rest in Peace United States 2684 Posts	Posted 03/26/2006 10:58 am Hi Gshawn and welcome to the forum! Rick pretty much covered it all: the freebie grading which comes with membership in a grading service and, possibly more common, the overly optimistic submissions of raw coins in hopes they will grade higher than they actually do. Additionally, a seller who has had a coin come back from the graders lower (or considerably lower) than s/he had hoped will often just dump the coin on the market just to get rid of it and take the loss as a cost of doing business or the cost of the hobby. Many collectors want only coins of a certain grade in their collection. Still others will sell such coins because they suddenly need money and will take whatever they can get, even if it's a net loss due to grading costs. Fred Report this Post to the Staff
gshawn New Member United States 8 Posts	Posted 03/26/2006 11:18 am Thanks for the welcome Metalman! I did'nt consider the freebies for joining the various grading services. As I said, I just had a couple of coins graded, submitted really since I haven't received them back yet :) , and I had to join some club for $99 dollars as well. I got 5 free grades at a certain "level" of service from them, so that's a good point. I'm glad to meet someone who also likes raw coins! I was beginning to think something was wrong with me. I've been to a couple of shows and a few different coin shops and they all act like I'm joe newbie because I said I like raw coins just as much or more than the professionally graded ones. Report this Post to the Staff
Bryan1315 Bedrock of the Community United States 14454 Posts	Posted 03/26/2006 12:48 pm I have found that a low grade coin will bring the opposite of a high grade coin when its time to sell. If you are cruising ebay look at the PF morgans, If you see one that they are saying is a "Proof" coin (not prooflike) and one that has been graded as PF the price is much different and we are talking about thousands of dollars different. So in cases like this and high grade key coins (Top100 and HOT50 VAM's, and Rarities)will bring alot more money if they are graded because even dealers that find out that you want to sell your collection will pay what the coin is worth sight unseen if the coin is graded by a top TPG and not a coin someone saying it should grade X and worth X amount. I myself would never buy a high dollar coin unless it was one of the key type of coins mentioned bove and I thought it would grade good and even then I wouldnt pay top dollar for the coin because I am not good at telling if the coin has been whizzed or cleaned or not. Edited by Bryan1315 03/26/2006 12:57 pm Report this Post to the Staff
gshawn New Member United States 8 Posts	Posted 03/26/2006 2:33 pm I wanted to thank everyone for the welcomes and the responses to my question. I checked quite a few of these types of forums before I joined this one. Everyone here seemed really knowledgeable and friendly and it didn't appear that "newbies" would be ignored and from the looks of it so far, I made the right cnoice! Back to the discussion, I agree with you Bryan. I wouldn't pay top dollar for a high value coin unless it was graded by a top service either, but I'm still stunned with I see '06 "First Strike", MS69 Silver Eagles graded by PCGS selling for $20.50 on ebay?!?! I don't think dealers can buy a coin below the value of Silver, and even going low on the price of an ounce of silver, a dealer would almost certainly paided around 10 bucks an ounce. A 2006 Silver Eagle would also have a slight premium from the mint, I'm sure. So let's say a dealer paid 11 bucks for a 2006 Silver Eagle, including shipping from the U.S. Mint. They then have to send that coin, along with many others I'm sure, to one of the grading services, which will cause them to incur a shipping charge (to and from), insurance charge, and then a grading charge. Even on the low side, that's got to amount to around $12 - $15 a coin. So the original price of $10 or $11 bucks + the $12 - $15 to get it graded would set a minimum price of $22 just to break even. The example I used sold for $20.49 and then the seller had to pay ebay fees, and possibly PayPal fees. There's no way anybody is making money doing it that way, so they must either be getting the coins at a much cheaper price, (doubtful), or as most of you have said, they're getting the grading at a heavily discounted price. A dealer would most certainly use up any free gradings very quickly, so there must be a huge discount for coin dealers getting hundreds or thousands of coins graded at once. My guess is, most larger dealers will buy very large amounts of Gold/Silver eagles, along with various quantities of whatever other coins they want to carry and then send one huge batch to the grading service of choice. The service then has some volumne discount where they'll grade 1,000 coins for $5,000 bucks, which enables the dealers to make a slight profit on a coin that sells for $20 on ebay. Well, I think I've run this one into the ground long enough, so I'll let it go now. This question is just one of those things that got me thinking after I submitted a few coins to be graded and I figured this would be a good place, and the people here would know enough about the subject to shed some light on the issue. Thanks again for everyone's input and thoughts! Report this Post to the Staff
Metalman Pillar of the Community United States 7123 Posts	Posted 03/26/2006 4:49 pm Hi gshawn The only silver eagles the Mint sells to the public are Proof coins. The MS or Business strike coins are sold to huge wholesalers who in turn sell the coins to the rertail dealers who in turn sell the coins to the general public. I would imagine that the Big dealers who can afford to submit 500 or 1000 coins at a time may get some form of discount, I cant say for sure because that will never be the case for me, and I do not know any extremely large dealers where I'm privy to that info. Hope you stick around and continue posting,, this has been an interesting conversation. Im going to move the thread to the main coin forum where it will gather a little more interest, and see if some of the questions can be answered for both of us. Rick Report this Post to the Staff
Bryan1315 Bedrock of the Community United States 14454 Posts	Posted 03/26/2006 7:27 pm I do know dealers get a discount on submissions, how much of a discount I am not sure of but I know its a discount none the less Report this Post to the Staff
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