Ani

Susan and everyone, I am frankly flabbergasted, astounded, and embarrassed to the point of tears (literally) by the outpouring of support and kind words for which I deeply and sincerely thank everyone. I do not seek the limelight, prefer to remain in the background to come and go without fanfare, but this situation put me on the spot and under scrutiny, a position in which I am most uncomfortable. I am still, obviously, upset over ancientmoderngold's post; accusations and character assassinations of this nature are confrontations with which I have seldom had to treat, even in the days of long ago when I was in the Army and, afterward, involved with the political aspects of environmental consulting (labels such as "stupid", "moron", "idiot", and "ignoramus" I can live with... and have been so tagged in the past, perhaps sometimes with a little truth; they are meaningless exercises in name-calling for less-erudite and less-articulate souls).

As several pointed out, disagreement among family members is common and to be expected. After all, if we agreed on everything, what would be the point in there being two of us? And I am more than happy to jump into a disagreement on a coin's attribution, grade, condition, provenance, or anything else which stimulates the intellect and sharpens my knowledge of coins while remaining friends with those whom I disagree. Friendly disagreement merely enhances relationships and strengthens families. To the contrary, however, personal attacks lead to divorce. I come to CCF as an enjoyable escape from life's daily crises, a place where I can be among friends without fear of recriminations and perhaps learn a few things along the way as well as occasionally contribute to CCF's collective knowledge.

At this moment, Susan, since you put the matter into my hands, I am at a loss what to recommend. I am still not thinking quite rationally on the issue and have been emotionally consumed by it for two days. On one hand, I would just as soon the derogatory post and perhaps the whole thread just went away. But it is already there and the damage has been done; once gone, it is gone forever along with any gainful information. Further, there are some very useful data and educational responses to the original post, even in ancientmoderngold's reply, character defamations aside. I lack the sagacity and clarity of thought to make a go-no go decision on this at this time, but perhaps it is best if the offending post and thread remain intact. I believe the CCF members and readership have the ability to get beyond the vituperations and glean the useful information without being influenced by negative and irrelevant statements and derogatory comments.

Again, thank you all for the demonstrations of support.

Fred

Fred, I'm sure you know how I feel. There are none finer than you. Peace.....

cute dsking. I like it

Do what you Got to do MOM. and no forgivness is in order. You are fine. I think everyone has made it clear o what the truth is. Thanks for the great Forum. If I am ever out of line someone please tell me.






** Edited To SAY YOU ROCK FORUM MOM** Keep up with the good work.

Morgan Fred:
I am glad to see a bunch of your friends on the forum came to your defense. I don't doubt that you are a great person and very helpful in educating the new collectors. However I think I am justified in taking exception to a couple of things you have said on this forum and especially in this thread.

You stated quite clearly that ANI overgrades their own coins in order to sell them for highly inflated prices. That is a very serious accusation that should not be taken lightly. Do you have any evidence to prove this allegation? You stated that ANI was therefore in the same league as SGS, NNC, NTC, PGS, HGCS and that infers that these companies also sell their own overgraded coins. Do you have evidence that any of these companies besides SGS are guilty of your accusation? We have seen evidence here (https://goccf.com/t/5135) that SGS might do so. What about the others? I have not seen any evidence that NNC or NTC sell their own coins. Unless you have such evidence it is dishonest to claim they are guilty of this practice.

Most of your reply to my post was accurate but it did not address the points I made in my post. I did not claim that SEGS, PCI, NNC or NTC grade the same way as NGC and PCGS. I don't believe they do. Your many examples of overgraded coins were helpful and insightful but I believe they don't address the points I was making unless you factor in the price -- the most important factor. My point is that while the off-brand slabs may be overgraded they still have quite a bit of value and there is where the savvy investor will find the best deals.

By the way there are plenty of examples of overgraded and mislabelled coins from NGC and PCGS too. In general though you are right -- NGC and PCGS are much more conservative and more likely to spot problem coins. I think almost everyone knows that and it is reflected in the sales prices. An NTC MS66 is going to sell for a tiny fraction of an equivalent PCGS MS66. What it really comes down to is would the buyer rather have the NTC MS66 for $300 or a PCGS AU58 for $300 as an example. That is when you have to examine the coins and make your decision. Sometimes the NTC MS66 will be the better coin.

When you suggest to the original poster that he should buy only coins graded by the big three TPGs you are essentially advising him to make a poor investment. If you buy a coin you should be able to sell it for the same price or more immediately or else you are getting a bad deal. If a collector buys a PCGS coin from a dealer on Saturday and then for some reason he needed to sell it on Sunday he would probably have to take a loss. Collectors usually can't sell a coin for as high a price as a coin shop owner can. The collector relies on holding the coin for an extended period until the coin's value appreciates enough to allow him to sell it for a profit. Coin dealers buy the coins in bulk and then sell them individually for a large profit. Their strategy is to turn the coins over as fast as possible and use the money to repeat the process. Therefore if you advise the new collector to buy PCGS slabs you are advising them to take a loss on the deal and hope he can make a profit in a few years.

Better advice is to tell them to not buy any expensive coins until they learn to grade. Then concentrate on finding bargain coins that they can sell immediately for a profit.

It is bad advice to tell collectors that all slabbed coins are worthless junk unless they are graded by NGC, PCGS or ANACS. I realize you said in your last sentence that some bargains can be had in off-brand slabs and on that we agree.

I will now comment on your second post:
Regarding my identity I prefer to keep that private for one reason. My home has been burglarized twice. Both times they were caught after tripping my top-notch security system. Both times they were after my coins and other collectibles. I am now very careful about security and my wife is almost paranoid now. I do not keep any valuable items at my home but the criminals may not know that. When I buy and sell I do not use my real address.

You can be a (semi)reputable grading company if you are consistent and don't give preferential treatment to any submitters even if your grading opinions are less conservative than some other companies'.

Error #1: Thank you for saying SGS accepts submissions from outside people. I was not aware of that. While this information is helpful it does not change my opinion of them as being different from NTC, NNC, SEGS and PCI. SGS is suspected by some people of selling their own coins and this separates them from the others.

Error #2: It is not an error to mention PCI and SEGS. I am not limited to speaking only of the ones you mentioned. After all you mentioned several grading services in your reply to the original poster's question about ANI.

Error #3: How is giving a thorough opinion an error? I stated why it is my opinion that you cannot compare grades from one grading company to another. Giving a multi-faceted answer is not obfuscation.

Error #4: I do not defend the grades given by any grading company. I don't care what their opinions are. My opinion is what matters to me. I only care about two things: what a coin costs and how much I can sell it for. I don't think it is fraud to give your opinion on the grade of a coin. It could be fraud to tell someone for example "This coin is worth $5000" when in reality it is only worth $300, but I don't think any of these companies are telling people what the coin is worth. They are just saying "According to the way we grade coins this is an MS66." Judging by the prices realized on ebay for off-brand graded coins I don't think very many people are being fooled into thinking an NTC coin is the same as a PCGS coin.
I have not followed it closely and I could be wrong but it is my understanding that ACG is the initiator of the lawsuits. They were not sued for the quality of their work as far as I know. They sued some people and companies for making allegedly slanderous or libelous statements very similar to the one you made about ANI and the others in this thread ironically enough. They were then countersued by the defendants and it is still in the courts.

Your second post was full of good information, but it does not disprove my statement that your accusations against the grading services are unwarranted and false. Your opinion on this forum is valued by many readers. It is unfair of you to disparage the integrity and affect the livelihood of many people by levelling accusations that are not based on fact.

My statement regarding the PNG survey was deleted from my message by the moderator even though it was factual and accurate. You agreed with me in prior threads that the survey was inaccurate and severely biased. Despite this acknoweledgment you continued to cite the survey to substantiate your opinions in subsequent threads. How is this not dishonest? It is better to avoid citing surveys than to use surveys you have acknowledged were severely flawed. If someone would tell me how to access archived threads I will find links to the threads where we discussed the survey on this forum and post them here to show how you continued to use the survey after we agreed it was bogus.

SUSANLYNN:
You accused me of flaming Morgan Fred. Flaming is when insults, threatening and name-calling and other needlessly rude and crude things are said. It is not flaming to bring the forum's attention to severely incorrect and false statements made by a poster. I think it is unfair to delete portions of posts just because you don't want to have one of your most valued members embarrassed. Maybe I was a bit harsh, but what I said was true and so it should be there for the record. If you would rather have your favorite posters be allowed to say whatever they want whether or not it is true then go ahead and edit or ban people with different opinions. That approach would make your forum biased and useless other than to spread the propaganda of the big dealers and major grading companies. This is supposed to be an open forum so you shouldn't be editing other people's words unless they are vulgar or threatening. I think the readers are entitled to hear everyone, not just your friends.

Now you guys can have fun yelling at me again!

hmm

I can only make these personal observations regarding ANI graded
slabs.

1) the slabs appear to be of good quality
2) the grading of the coins, across the board, appears to be inflated by 2-5 points for uncirculated coins (the only types of ANI slabs I have seen.) For example, A Proof Eisenhower $1 was graded MS69 where I would not expect it to grade any higher than the base MS65 (comparing to other MS69+ equivalent coins I have seen from PGCS or NGC). All proofs I have seen from them are either MS69 or MS70. My guess is that they dont give out lower than MS69 grade for any unc. proofs. Has anyone seen ANI proofs < MS69?
3) they seem to be very liberal in granting Full Bell Lines designations for Franklins. On my 1956 Proof Franklin, the FBLs are fuzzy at best. The lincoln cents they graded as RED were also RED in my opinion. My guess is that all unc proofs would automatically get the FBL by default. Anyone seen and ANI Franklin Proofs w/o FBLs?
4) I have not personally seen any ANI coins graded as MS60+ than were actually circulated, although I seem to recall someone claiming that on some other thread.

I am planning on removing my ANI-graded coins from their slabs and the ANI slab does not add any value to me. I may resubmit one of the coins for grading by PCGS, ICG or NGC, but the rest are just as well off being unslabbed.