What One Can Learn From Collecting A Series

Just yesterday (11/19) I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal about coin collecting (focused on very high end coins). One interesting fact mentioned was that the PCGS has a staff of about 20 graders (I'm guessing they mean on any given day) and grade about 12,000 coins per day. That means each grader is doing 600 coins per day. That would suggest a rate of more than one coin per minute! I have a hard time believing that they can keep up that rate without making a lot of mistakes.

Actually, I think each coin is graded by 2 graders at PCGS so each grader would have to grade 1,200 coins a day if information is correct

I'm pretty suspicious of the whole industry behind slabbed coins. Graders have to use some objective criteria, like degree of wear for AU or lower and number/size of bag marks for MS. But these criteria cannot take eye appeal into any real consideration.

And it is also true that the number of coins they have to grade virtually assures that they can only give the coin a cursory look.

The fact that the CAC exists (which is essentially a fourth party grader) demonstrates that the system is flawed.

Where will it end? A firm that certifies its judgment of CAC's judgment of PCGS?

600 coins per day?!?! If I had a pile of 600 coins and all I had to do was record the denomination, year and mint I'm not so sure I could get through THAT in 8 hours, much less ACCURATELY determine the grade! Sheesh!

If they have 20 graders then they must have another 30 for S&R + billing.

As much as we hate the thought the upper end of the coin market wants graded coins and are willing to pay for them. Buyers want an "impartial" third party opinion. I don't know how you can be an impartial third party when you are charging $35.00 + - to get a coin graded. Nevertheless this is the state of the numismatic world where building registry sets is a past time of the big money. One of my friends who has an inside track to one of the big grading companies said they will let you "buy" the grade. How? Just submit the same coin 20 or 30 times. Sooner or later they will give you that next higher grade which can be a very significant difference in price. It is ok to spend a grand or two if the value of the coin goes from $1,000 to $10,000 for the next higher grade.

A part of the problem is a lot of people are simply too lazy to learn how to grade a coin themselves. When they purchase a graded coin they are removing the responsibility of choosing a grade themselves. As mentioned before this is very dangerous as many coins are not "universal" in the same grades. One coin will be extra nice and another with the same date will grade the same even if it in no way compares to the first. Let the graded coin buyer beware!

In a nutshell we coin dealers want you to remember this. BUY THE COIN, NOT THE CONTAINER. Quality and value are obvious when looking at a beautiful coin. If you think it is beautiful, someone else will also. If you think the coin is ugly, guess what, it is ugly regardless of how the company graded it. You can still sell ugly coins but it is much harder to do.

Oh and on another note. This is a CLASSIC EXAMPLE of failure on the part of a customer to trust a dealers opinion. One of my friends had a key date Morgan and was asking $1,500 for it. He figured it graded better than the price he was charging but was happy with that price. One of his customers INSISTED he get it graded before he would buy it. No problem he replied and sent it in. It graded higher just like he thought it would. New price of coin? $3,000. Customer should have listened to the dealer or better yet, learned to grade coins himself! Sincerely, John Leckrone