I (DO) know that we DON'T really know whether grading is looser or tighter at a given time....and, h
coinguy1
Posts: 13,484 ✭✭✭
There is often quite a bit of discussion on the forum, regarding whether PCGS's grading is loose or tight at or over a given time (period). I briefly addressed this subject in a recent post to another thread which had been started by someone else and thought I'd elaborate on it a bit here....
First, PCGS grades (edited to add: in excess of) roughly 50,000 coins per month (or 600,000 per year). While this is a very imprecise guesstimate, hopefully it will serve to make my point, that no matter how hard we might try, none of us sees a significant percentage of the coins that are graded over the course of a day, week, month, year, whatever. So, when we experience and/or speak about grading results, we are typically dealing with an extremely small percentage and relative sample size.
Second, even if we could see all of those coins, most of us don't necessarily have the required experience, reference points/perspective and expertise to determine whether the grading is tight, loose or on the money. For example - collector or dealer X might proclaim that PCGS was loose, because his/her grading results were better than expected. Perhaps PCGS was loose BUT, perhaps HE/SHE was tight and/or expected too little.
Conversely, dealer or collector Z complains bitterly that PCGS was brutally tight because his/her grading results were worse than expected. Maybe PCGS was tight BUT, maybe HE/SHE was loose and/or expected too much. How do we know which it is in each case just mentioned? Answer - we don't.
Third, even if we did have all of the required experience, reference points/perspective and expertise mentioned above, it is my contention that each of us, for various reasons, has our own built in bias's and that none of us can be completely objective in evaluating grading results.
In virtually every case, we want high grades - we don't want low grades. If we have paid a 65 price for a coin, we don't want a 64 grade assigned to it. If our 65 price coin comes back graded 64, that is a bad thing, emotionally and financially, so surely, PCGS must have been tight if that happened. Then again, maybe not!
I think it is human nature to want to see/acknowledge the positives in our coins/prizes - we don't want to see/acknowledge the negatives. I have seen buyers of uncertified coins or crack-outs examine them, hoping NOT to find any flaws which could account for a lower grade than would be financially beneficial. I have also seen these buyers cringe, when detecting flaws upon re-examination, which they did not see at the time they purchased the coin. It is understandable that we want to see the positives, not the negatives in our coins. But, that reality usually prevents us from being objective in our assessments. If our "expectations" are based upon "hope", we're not being objective.
Fourth, most of us want to feel (and/or be acknowledged by others as) "sharp", capable, correct, knowledgeable, etc. It's difficult for many to accept the responsibility/reality that maybe such is not (always) the case. This often causes us to blame the grading company, rather than ourselves, when things don't turn out the way we want them to.
I don't expect everyone to agree with me on this subject but hope this will stir up some thinking and discussion on a topic which affects many of us, occasionally, if not often.
First, PCGS grades (edited to add: in excess of) roughly 50,000 coins per month (or 600,000 per year). While this is a very imprecise guesstimate, hopefully it will serve to make my point, that no matter how hard we might try, none of us sees a significant percentage of the coins that are graded over the course of a day, week, month, year, whatever. So, when we experience and/or speak about grading results, we are typically dealing with an extremely small percentage and relative sample size.
Second, even if we could see all of those coins, most of us don't necessarily have the required experience, reference points/perspective and expertise to determine whether the grading is tight, loose or on the money. For example - collector or dealer X might proclaim that PCGS was loose, because his/her grading results were better than expected. Perhaps PCGS was loose BUT, perhaps HE/SHE was tight and/or expected too little.
Conversely, dealer or collector Z complains bitterly that PCGS was brutally tight because his/her grading results were worse than expected. Maybe PCGS was tight BUT, maybe HE/SHE was loose and/or expected too much. How do we know which it is in each case just mentioned? Answer - we don't.
Third, even if we did have all of the required experience, reference points/perspective and expertise mentioned above, it is my contention that each of us, for various reasons, has our own built in bias's and that none of us can be completely objective in evaluating grading results.
In virtually every case, we want high grades - we don't want low grades. If we have paid a 65 price for a coin, we don't want a 64 grade assigned to it. If our 65 price coin comes back graded 64, that is a bad thing, emotionally and financially, so surely, PCGS must have been tight if that happened. Then again, maybe not!
I think it is human nature to want to see/acknowledge the positives in our coins/prizes - we don't want to see/acknowledge the negatives. I have seen buyers of uncertified coins or crack-outs examine them, hoping NOT to find any flaws which could account for a lower grade than would be financially beneficial. I have also seen these buyers cringe, when detecting flaws upon re-examination, which they did not see at the time they purchased the coin. It is understandable that we want to see the positives, not the negatives in our coins. But, that reality usually prevents us from being objective in our assessments. If our "expectations" are based upon "hope", we're not being objective.
Fourth, most of us want to feel (and/or be acknowledged by others as) "sharp", capable, correct, knowledgeable, etc. It's difficult for many to accept the responsibility/reality that maybe such is not (always) the case. This often causes us to blame the grading company, rather than ourselves, when things don't turn out the way we want them to.
I don't expect everyone to agree with me on this subject but hope this will stir up some thinking and discussion on a topic which affects many of us, occasionally, if not often.
0
Comments
With statistics, even a small sampling can be utilized to represent the whole. Perhaps not 10 coins from 1 individual submitter, but if 20 members submitted coins at a particular show and received back 200 coins, then perhaps that would suffice as a representative sampling. While it cannot be said for sure PCGS was 2 points tighter this show, a general consensus can be reached that either the grading was a bit tighter or softer than normal, especially if those 20 submitters were quite experienced and were frequent submitters.
Just because a sampling is small doesn't mean it has no validity. And again, I must say this really depends on who was submitting the various coins and what their experience level is in regards to grading a particular series as well as their experience with prior submissions.
I guess the easiest way to tell how the grading is going to be is to simply ask David Hall what instructions did he give the graders -- tight/lose for any particular show.
Michael
Apparently, what you are saying is the art of coin grading is somewhat subjective.
What a grading service must do is apply their rules consistently. The “rules” of what it takes to be graded a 68 instead of a 67 or a 69 instead of a 70 shouldn’t change over time, even though there are different people assigning the numbers to the coins. It’s an acquired skill that can only be developed from experience.
But when it is all said and done, you could say consistent is +- 1 point.
My posts viewed
since 8/1/6
I agree with most of what you say, but I would like to add something I believe you missed. Different graders grade differently, and it's not the same graders grading every coin at PCGS. So "loose or tight" might also depend on who the graders were for that day.
why is plastic SOOOOOOOOOOOO important to you?
i think the answer to that question is the real issue, not "looser/tighter"grading. your hobby is pretty pathetic when all your enjoyment hingest on whether pcgs is loose or tight.
yes, PATHETIC.
K S
Good job Mark
42/92
<< <i>my issue is, & i agree w/ coinguy1's premise, by why is pcgs grading such a desperate, vital need for the submitters of SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND COINS per year? why is it SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO difficult for SOOOOOOOOOOOO many of you to simply enjoy your coins?
why is plastic SOOOOOOOOOOOO important to you?
i think the answer to that question is the real issue, not "looser/tighter"grading. your hobby is pretty pathetic when all your enjoyment hingest on whether pcgs is loose or tight.
yes, PATHETIC.
K S >>
Maybe, but a small segment of my enjoyment comes in submitting coins, waiting for their return and then seeing how close I graded them myself compared to the Grading Service. I get a kick out of collecting, but admittingly, and I guess, possibly apologetically, I do like certifying some of them in "plastic". I like raw. I like slabbed.
peacockcoins
<< <i>my issue is, & i agree w/ coinguy1's premise, by why is pcgs grading such a desperate, vital need for the submitters of SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND COINS per year? why is it SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO difficult for SOOOOOOOOOOOO many of you to simply enjoy your coins?
why is plastic SOOOOOOOOOOOO important to you?
i think the answer to that question is the real issue, not "looser/tighter"grading. your hobby is pretty pathetic when all your enjoyment hingest on whether pcgs is loose or tight.
yes, PATHETIC.
K S >>
Karl,
I"m pleased to see you're discussing a different topic, for a change.
<< <i>why is plastic SOOOOOOOOOOOO important to you? >>
$$$
Dork
Do you ever get tired of saying the same old thing? just curious.
PCGS graded over 125,000 coins last month.
Facts...
1. PCGS is grading over 100,000 coins a month
2. We never say to the graders, "Grade looser" or "Grade tighter," or anything likr that.
3. No offense but, most of the people who submitt coins to PCGS are not that good at grading coins, i.e. they are not as good at grading as the 50 or so best graders in the world. Consequently, grade expectations of the submitters can be unrealistic and heavily influenced by personal preferences and financial interests (or dreams.)
Specualtion...
I think that some graders may fluctuate in their application of the standards very slightly from time to time. This is why we use the consensus method of finanlizing grades coupled with the verification process. A lot of eyes look at the coins before they go out the PCGS door.
You might be able to poll the top twenty dealer submitters from time to time to get their opinion on how grading is going. However, they too have their financial interests.
My advice to collectors...
If you need a coin grade, submitt it.
If you have a coin you truly believe is undergraded, submitt through regrade service once. If you keep submitting coins and never have any upgrades, forget about that game and go back to just enjoying your coins.
Leave the crack-out game to the professionals.
Have fun with your coins.
David Hall
I agree with all the comments you made in this thread. You are describing human expectations and the game of value associated with grade.
While well thought out and articulated, your comments do not really deal with the issue of grade consistency and standards. The grading companies make a huge amount of money from resubmissions. If there were no increases in grades there would be a loss of revenue; if there were many downgrades, resubmissions would also fall and revenue lost.
Grading companies have two separate but interactive components: 1) professionalism (maintaining standards and consistency) and 2) business ( marketing and finace). Unless this business were different than all others I know, discusions take place on a regular basis and decisions made to maintain both. When striking contrasts between these driving forces take place, business usually wins.
My question: what percentage of that 100,000 submissions each month are regrades/crackouts?
<< <i>what percentage of that 600,000 submissions each month are regrades/crackouts? >>
correction: 100,000 a month
I have traced many early halves back to previous auctions in holders of lower grades, I own two of these, but this is such a small piece of the pie within a very small segment of the coin market that the data is meaningless. IMHO PCGS has not changed grading standards on early halves, but another respected grading service has changed grading on these coins, which is proven by PR info, for what its worth.
Although grading is subjective and can never be 100% consistent, coins will not change over time, unless doctored which includes dipping. Fortunately, grades are not that important to me with early halves, as I enjoy my F12's as much as my AU55's. It is the coins that are important, not the second opinion on grades that collectors spend millions on.
<< <i>Maybe, but a small segment of my enjoyment comes in submitting coins, waiting for their return and then seeing how close I graded them myself compared to the Grading Service. >>
hey braddick, that's fine & dandy, my point was regarding homerunhall's figure of ONE-MILLION TWO-HUNDRED THOUSAND COINS per year. seems a bit excessive for the "small segment" you mention.
<< <i>Dork Do you ever get tired of saying the same old thing? just curious. >>
no. here's why.
i mean, c'mon dudes, if you want another eyeball idea of whether your 1893-s morgan dollar, or 1909-s vdb is this grade or that, great.
but ONE-MILLION TWO-HUNDRED THOUSAND COINS from just a single plastic company??? double that figure to add in the other plastic co's, you got TWO MILLION FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND COINS PER YEAR
are there REALLY SOOOOOOOOOO many coins popping up out of the woodwork that just gotta get slabed???
TWO MILLION FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND COINS PER YEAR think about it, he11, there's not even that many coins worth collecting & that's a single year's worth of plastic!
sheesh. who in he11 ends up paying the bill for all this plastic??? THINK about it!!!
K S
Good reading--too fast for it to be on the second page.
We CAN get along!!
I agree with Mark, Dork and HRH on most of their points. We do focus alot on how grades come back because, unlike most hobbies this one has close ties to dollars!!
When money is involved,everybody has strong opinions.
It is a big game, but hey, we all seem to enjoy playing it dont we? Dont see tons of people leaving the hobby to join the local chapter of ornithologists anonymous!!
Sometimes, humans just like to crab and gripe.
We have a saying in the navy that a b*#ching sailor is a happy sailor. Maybe that should apply to collectors too!!
John
siliconvalleycoins.com
FOUR HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS in plastic fees!!! ... & YOU ARE PAYING FOR IT!!!
would you really rather have $400,000,000 worth of plastic? or coins?
THINK about it.
even if you believe certain coins should be slabed because of a huge price jump between certain grades, $400,000,000 is a lot of money to pay for that privilege, which after all doesn't really apply to all that many coins.
THINK
K S
it is called supply and demand. Plain and simple
but what's generating the demand? is it really collectors? or speculators?
K S
<< <i>but what's generating the demand? is it really collectors? or speculators? >>
both
until people stop buying slabs for what they say on the holder then they will stay around. I know your opinion on this but mine is they are a good thing overall. Slabs have good points and bad points but it still comes down to supply and demand.
<< <i>the old adage about the forest & the trees really comes into play here. if you think that over the past 10 years, there's been some 25,000,000 (25 million) coins slabed >>
Not that many coins have been graded. Many of the same coins have been graded over and over.
Many of the coins that have been graded are moderns. Personally, moderns and chasing 69/70s, DMPLs, DCAMs, etc don't interest me, but it interests some people - enough to pay for the all those submissions.
I can say with certainty that in the last couple months, PCGS has been grading accurately. How do I know? The majority of my coins are coming back at the same grades I assigned.
<< <i>A lot of eyes look at the coins before they go out the PCGS door. >>
David,
How many eyes looked at this one?
It started as an NGC MS64RB.
Submission # 3032533 - cross at minimum MS63RB - DNC
Submission # 3032534 - cracked, submitted raw - Bodybag, Altered Surfaces
Submission # 3032536 - graded MS65BN
Russ, NCNE
<< <i>Not that many coins have been graded. Many of the same coins have been graded over and over. >>
it doesn't change the amount charged in plastic fees! the estimate doesn't even take into account the mountains of bodybags ... which you ALSO pay for!
the point is that whether he likes it or not, the collector who doesn't collect plastic, or collects it only on a small basis is forced to help foot an enormous plastic bill of $400 MILLION, because ultimately someone has to pay for that ridiculous mountain of slabing fees.
reminds me an awful lot of the tax burden necessary to pay off the national debt.... & 1 thing i'm sick of is taxes!
K S
K S
Russ, NCNE
K S
<< <i>Here's some facts...and some of my speculation... Facts... 1. PCGS is grading over 100,000 coins a month 2. We never say to the graders, "Grade looser" or "Grade tighter," or anything likr that. 3. No offense but, most of the people who submitt coins to PCGS are not that good at grading coins, i.e. they are not as good at grading as the 50 or so best graders in the world. Consequently, grade expectations of the submitters can be unrealistic and heavily influenced by personal preferences and financial interests (or dreams.) Specualtion... I think that some graders may fluctuate in their application of the standards very slightly from time to time. This is why we use the consensus method of finanlizing grades coupled with the verification process. A lot of eyes look at the coins before they go out the PCGS door. You might be able to poll the top twenty dealer submitters from time to time to get their opinion on how grading is going. However, they too have their financial interests. My advice to collectors... If you need a coin grade, submitt it. If you have a coin you truly believe is undergraded, submitt through regrade service once. If you keep submitting coins and never have any upgrades, forget about that game and go back to just enjoying your coins. Leave the crack-out game to the professionals. Have fun with your coins. David Hall >>
Have fun with your coins.
I guess it's only fair as eBay Sellers are ripping off your PCGS Price Guide to quote value on PCI coins... it's only right you rip off Tonecoin2003's eBay signature line.
peacockcoins
Karl's points are quite salient here, and are really fed by point (3) above, which is to say that before we suffer the mania or depression of someone else evaluating our coin(s), we should be contented with them for their intrinsic worth to each of us. However, on the economic playing field where coins will change hands, the so-called objectivity of the TPGs is a mediating good or evil, depending on one's perspective. No matter one's perspective, that mediation allows for some market-reliability of exchange, even if it's highly imperfect. The problem of taking advantage of and exploiting that system is as old as mankind and will not be solved except for individual collectors to become as informed as possible. And that leads to...
...the fact that the only way for us to realize the intrinsic worth of our coins is to not worry about how much we pay for them or turn around and sell them for. That's a tough place to arrive at. Most of us are not so fiscally sound.
One other point, and it's one that old TomB and DonHeath made across the street. Occasionally, series receive so little attention from collectors that there has been entirely too little interest for much in the way of submissions. To the point, how many submissions does it take for graders to become truly well-versed in the highs and lows of a series, such that their grades are consistent and reflective of current standards of market grading? (NOT to create an argument about market vs. technical grading - graders market grade with a dash of the technical, period.) And even with experience, is there occasionally a piece that crosses the grading room floor that alters the way that graders consider a particular issue within the series or even the series as a whole? The point is that it is likely that graders "update" their own ideas of the distribution of grades within a series and for each issue in a series the same way that a Bayesian statistician updates prior distributions with additional data. It's human nature to operate this way and it only makes sense. In that context, the "looser" vs. "tighter" is nearly irrelevant, except when there is a mandate to adjust the scale as part of business tact. No doubt, that has happened within and between TPGs, as well.
Great stuff.
Hoot
You are missing the point entirely!!!!!!!
Either one of the following two points are fact and you overlooked them:
(1) The additional demand to new plastic is helping to fuel additional demand for oil and helps to keep oil prices high to encourage more conservation by U.S. consumers of petroleum products.
OR
I2) The usage to recycled plastic by all the TPG's are helping to keep our used plastics from overwhelming and polluting our landfills and planet.
I am surprised and disappointed in that you have failed. to see the clear benefits of plastic in our hobby.
your saying that the $$$ that's been wasted putting coins in plastic is all ........ DONALD RUMSFELD'S fault!?!?!?
K S
<< <i>
<< <i>A lot of eyes look at the coins before they go out the PCGS door. >>
David,
How many eyes looked at this one?
It started as an NGC MS64RB.
Submission # 3032533 - cross at minimum MS63RB - DNC
Submission # 3032534 - cracked, submitted raw - Bodybag, Altered Surfaces
Submission # 3032536 - graded MS65BN
Russ, NCNE >>
Obviously some very seasoned graders were on the job when this coin had its little adventure.
It started as an NGC MS64RB. 3?
Submission # 3032533 - cross at minimum MS63RB - DNC 1
Submission # 3032534 - cracked, submitted raw - Bodybag, Altered Surfaces 1
Submission # 3032536 - graded MS65BN 3 or 4
Or if you want to be picky double those numbers because we will assume that each persn had two eyes.
K S
Greg Hansen, Melbourne, FL Click here for any current EBAY auctions Multiple "Circle of Trust" transactions over 14 years on forum