PCGS Announces "Coin Sniffer" And Lawsuit

Take a vacation, Halfwitty. The rules are the rules. You broke them. You refuse to live within the rules, we refuse to let you post here. See you in a week.

Dave, I also think that PCGS is being a little ridiculous for suing these guys when THEY made the mistake. Don't get me wrong, coin doctors are jerks and scammers and should be gotten rid of as much as possible, but there are two sides to this story. Also if PCGS really is going to destroy the coins, it seems more like an irrational act of revenge than anything. Honestly PCGS and other TPG's can be careless; one PCGS coin (supposedly problem free) I recently bought from teletrade is clearly wiped to a high extent, and might even be called lightly polished by some. However, its not evident to a high extent at a certain angle. They look at coins for less than a minute and then sue coin doctors for their own incompetence? How about spending more time with coins instead of blasting through them carelessly and often missing grades, resulting in $1000 or more differences of value? Then, there wouldn't even BE this problem and the resubmission game would be mostly over.

PCGS just as easily could be sued for fraudulent and unethical business practices if someone really tried hard enough. I doubt they would win, but yeah. I have no problem with TPG's for authentication, but the whole resubmission game and the way they grade makes me sick.

Many new and naive collectors tend to not learn how to grade and authenticate coins themselves and buy coins certified by TPG's. They do not focus on the coin, since they can't grade themselves. I feel slightly more safer if I buy a slabbed coin but that is only an addition to my own opinion that I like the coin and that it is genuine.

I am with PCGS as well on this too. Good, one more to put a roadblock into place for these unethical folks. Unfortunately, that's all it is, a roadblock. That head looks terrible BTW. Did he expect that to get by them!

That's an interesting point. It's one thing to discover doctored coins from specific people in your slabs, but quite another to prove deliberate intent on their part. Methinks somebody's talking.

I agree that "newbies" to the hobby do rely on TPG companys to do the work of grading, I being one of them. And you should buy the coin not the holder. But I'm working on learning to grade coins for myself. Just bought the book "American Numismatic Association - Grading Standards". But I think what a TGP coin does give the hobby is the ability to resell that coin with fewer problems. Eliminating the "no I think its a VF, no I think its only just F" scenario. The sight-unseen market rely s on the TPG company to do business from dealer to dealer as well. In MHO, with respect!

SuperDave, I agree with you 100%. Aside from improving their slabs over the last 25 years or so, NGC really hasn't done much from a technology standpoint. I think it's possible that coin docs increase their submissions to NGC (since PCGS is working hard to stop them) and more and more messed with coins could end up in NGC slabs. If this scenario is repeated enough times, collectors may shy away from new NGC slabs and could have a serious impact on their reputation. Bottom line is that they need to be creative and come up with new technologies or partner up with PCGS in some capacity.