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Please confirm or deny what's going on with slabbed gold $20 grades.
Insider2
Posts: 14,452 ✭✭✭✭✭
We all know the price of graded generic gold is getting closer to spot. That's a good thing if you are a collector. However, I've just received a call that some TPGS are slabbing anything round and gold as MS-64! Even coins that were formerly graded in the low MS range.
I say NUTS to that but I'm not in PA to see for myself. Although no grading service was mentioned specifically, this topic may be taboo so if you don't wish to post, please PM me as I can't believe this is true.
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Let the market decide whether the grading is acceptable; I thought you had said that grading was pretty subjective anyway.
If anyone is doing it, it is NOT one of the big 2 services. There are still a lot of 62/63 coins entering the market from what I've seen.
Actually, I edited my statement to limit it to the Big Two services. I haven't seen a lot of ANACS 62/63 stuff.
Let me answer in this way with I hope is a silly, non-existent example just to make a point about the "subjectivity" you bring up...If an XF/AU coin is graded Mint State IT IS NOT SUBJECTIVE ANYMORE! It becomes criminal or ignorant.
Thankfully, this is not the case I was told about in my OP.
Wanna have another CAC thread
If you stay in grading game long enough, you might know why CAC wasn’t sticker too many 20$ gold coins. The problem is on TPGs.
Thanks,
I was unaware of the scarcity of "stickered" gold.
We should! We haven't had a good CAC thread in at least a week!
Would my eyes be _fooled_when I see the MS64 label on an obvious 62...I hope NOT but it is their prerogative to risk their integrity
Given these price drops, my goal for a Saint in my type set will be 65 or 66. Preferably with a sticker.
My YouTube Channel
Influx of gold flowing from Europe increasing supply. Since trading around melt no need of sticker on this material.
Since there is no premium for MS $20 common gold they should just let the submitter pick the grade, with the submitter's name on the slab, their signature and the reason they think it is that grade; that way all the submitting customers would be happy, and there wouldn't be any hurt feelings. "MS63++ by Peter Griffin"
Meaning it is time to crack out and resubmit 60+61 Saints?
I would like to see some recent examples of low end grade gold getting the MS 64 or it is simply rumor.
That's what I'm trying to find out. Posting a few over-graded coins would prove nothing.
Please sell me some US 20's in NGC or PCGS MS-64 holders. Heck I'll take a homeloan for that one
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
at spot
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
Actually a little over at the wholesale level. We'll see what lots sell for after the ANA.
But, but standards change even from week to week...
This is what you tell me when I gripe about grade inflation. 
So what?
Micro standards may change and I've been watching for favoritism toward any particular submitter everywhere I've worked. No one can argue that over time there has been large changes in standards. Dealers even post that some submissions are graded tight when compared to other times. In spite of all this, telling me that any Saint that is round and gold gets graded MS-64 does not compute.
If he said that incuse Indians start a MS-62, that's very old news.I
gtgs
LOL. Based on this thread only: At least MS-64!
I edited out my first guess as MS-65. I suspect your image does not show the beautiful luster on many coins of this date that over powers all the chatter and makes it a 65. .
Edit again: I'm guessing on the top coin.
I find both scenarios equally distasteful and equally corrupt. You can have grade inflation and no guarantee or you can offer a guarantee with consistent standards, but not both. When you attempt both you end up in breach of warranty or actual/constructive fraud territory in my humble opinion.
It sounds like it is time for me to submit my PCGS MS62 graded 1907 High Relief $20 for an upgrade! (Years ago, after I had "won" it in a Tulving auction, I was actually told by several dealers at a major coin show that it looked nicer than the MS64 HR that I had also brought with me.)
FWIW, this is the coin that I had completely forgot I had until I came across it stuck in an envelope in a pile of old papers I was about to toss out.
RE: "If an XF/AU coin is graded Mint State IT IS NOT SUBJECTIVE ANYMORE! It becomes criminal or ignorant."
With there being no standards accepted by TPGs and strictly followed by all, it follows that the above statement cannot be supported. ALL coin grading is subjective and ALL coin grading is defective because claimed values are not fixed. This, of course, flows back to "grade inflation" and the other evils of the entire nefarious mess.
Reality is - there are a finite quantity of US coins that justify authentication and 'grading.' That quantity has decreased, and to maintain or grow revenue, TPGs and lesser lights began sliding their previous "standards" so that regrading became profitable. Multiple submissions and human greed worked to create the present unstable situation, as mentioned in another post about grades and populations of Jefferson nickels.
This entire fiasco is toxic to coin collecting as a hobby and a business. Enjoy the tulips.
All TPG get more liberal as time goes on. What once was a certain grade is now 2, 3 even 4 points higher. It's not just gold either although I will concede these coins tend to get the biggest jumps. It's a business just like everything else. Money talks, as it always has.
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
Chatter in the fields, rim nibbles, and Ms. Liberty needs to have that gash on her knee tended to. .. I'm thinking this is the poster child for 62...
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One prominent dealer had a stack of green label ms 62 and 63 saints he was sell for about
75 over spot on quantities
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
Care to share? Maybe PM?
I just don't know if that is the case but margin on generic gold has been small for awhile as a buyer and seller. The grade doesn't matter much in the MS 61 to MS 64 grades..
@cameonut2011 said: "I find both scenarios equally distasteful and equally corrupt. You can have grade inflation and no guarantee or you can offer a guarantee with consistent standards, but NOT BOTH. both. When you attempt both you end up in breach of warranty or actual/constructive fraud territory in my humble opinion."
LOL, Earth to Cameonut, Earth to Cameonut....
What planet are you living on? We've had BOTH for decades ever since the dealer owned, operated, and employed TPGS's came about in 1986!
That doesn't make it right or change what I said. Many of the things collectors take for granted (like TPG guarantees) are chimeras.
While I have many, many, many slabbed coins, the slab has never been the criteria by which I buy a coin. I truly buy the coin.....and also have raw coins that, if I were a seller, would definitely benefit from a slab..... However, not necessary in my case. No doubt there is currently gradeflation.... I say currently, but it has been going on for a while. I have not seen the issue on gold, personally. No reason to doubt it though. Cheers, RickO
True, it DOES NOT CHANGE anything you posted. However, it refutes your opinion rather clearly.
CHECKMATE!
I'll bet less than .001% (if there are any at all) of the members here have had poor results using a TPGS guarantee on authenticity. Who knows about the grading guarantees? Grading is another thing because even folks with more knowledge and experience than you and I will ever have cannot always agree - and they must deal with ignorant dealers and collectors on a daily basis!
I find it hard to believe that they would loosen their grading standards based on the market. There may be gradeflation, but I doubt any and all Saints that are UNC receive a 64 just because.
My YouTube Channel
Except that guarantees cover both authenticity and grade ... When TPG guarantees and supposedly consistent standards are the foundation of the rare coin market, collectors should not passively accept encroachments whether they be overt such as an outright refusal to honor (rarer) or more subtle (through the erosion of standards such that previous errors are normalized and are now accurately graded based on new "standards"). We're not talking about a mere difference of opinion based on existing standards Skip; we're talking about the wholesale abandonment of existing standards and replacing them with lenient standards. Look at the Liberty Head Nickel series. Look at the examples from the OGH/rattler era and compare them to today. Try taking the standards from older blue holders (pre gradient label) and compare them to coins graded in the last three years. The differences should be illuminating for you.
You're wrong on this. Standards have indeed changed, but that does not legitimize what has happened in this hobby. You have been around for a long time; surely you must remember the time that federal regulators chimed in to chastise more than one grading service and at least one in particular for advertising a guarantee based on objective/consistent grading when regulators believed the opposite to be true. In fact, this was one of the factors that have been cited, at least in part, for the 1989-1990 market dynamics and ultimate crash. We're getting to that point again.
I agree with your second sentence. I disagree with your first sentence. Isn't the first sentence the essence of market grading?
This is so obvious, I'm not sure why he's fighting with you.
There's a reason that MS65 morgans now have the prices that MS64 Morgans used to. I was amazed yesterday at the prices for MS66 Saints. But, of course, the reason is that MS66 Saints today were MS65 Saints before. That price shift makes the grade guarantee all but worthless. If you bought a Morgan 10 years ago in an MS65 holder and cashed in the guarantee, you would be getting MS64 prices on your MS65 coin.
Only the TPGS board rooms know for sure, but they have two somewhat nefarious reasons for a constantly inflating grade standard:
1. Resubmissions
2. Price guarantees
Collectors suffer from both. If you have an old MS65 Saint (current value around $2k), you have to reslab it as an MS66 (current value around $5k) even though it's the same coin and you probably already paid $4k for it back in the day.
@Cameonut
While I understand your post and your frustration, I cannot give you a like or agree due to part of it.
LOL, You are preaching to the "preacher":
Little known secret: I claim sole responsibility for developing what we called the "Technical Grading System" in 1973 that was used to ID coins for internal records at the ANA's Certification Service in DC. This system is not the same as the ANA ever used in CO after they left DC. However, the rookie employee who transferred to the CO office form DC may have adopted the name as they "claimed" to grade coins "technically."
True technical grading was used publicly at the FIRST TPGS - INSAB. Grades were provided for free upon request on a buff card kept separate from the Photo Certificate of Authenticity. True technical grading was based on the standards of the 60's -70's when MS coins had no trace of wear. Eye appeal and strike did not matter. Our grading did not change over time BECAUSE the standards were tight and we made no attempt to place a value on a coin. A coin's value had nothing to do with being able to ID it (along with weight and photo image) at any time in the future as long as its condition was not changed. Dealers hated our grading as they should have. It was too strict and it had no relation to a coin's commercial value! Even back then, we recognized that no person's grade was infallible and above review. I will add that any person
today willing to back his grading opinion with money and a sticker has proven me wrong.
I started off with this history so you would understand that I've fought all my career against any change in the old standards to no avail. I've gotten over it enough so that I can teach a beginner strict technical grading so he/she understands all the characteristics on a coin that affect its grade (except for value). Then, they are able to understand what's needed to grade a coin using the commercial standards of today. Example, depending on the coin, a little "cabinet friction
" is allowed on a MS coin.
A coin's authenticity is guaranteed. So is its grade (except for some "modern changes due to spotting)." The problems associated with winning a grading dispute are out of the scope of my reply. It boils down to subjectivity, CYA, and company standards! When a group of professional numismatic expert witnesses can grade a 1924 $20 from AU-58 to MS-65 under oath in a U.S. Federal Court grading case, good luck with your guarantee. You can't beat city hall.
In my biased opinion, the TPGS do a good job overall providing a necessary service. Back in the 70's there were NO GUARANTEES of anything. If a mistake was made it was corrected and the authentication service learned something. Only one prominent auction house ever questioned a grade we assigned (and threatened to sue us). Our litigious society of today is different.
So my advice to you is get with the present. Keep your own tight grading standards and learn to adopt. You, me, Bill, etc. can whine all we wish yet nothing will change.
Whine?
No there is a sensible alternative. I have cut way back on what I buy and will enjoy what I have,
Whine was not the correct word. Complain and bring to the attention of others would have been a better thing to write.
It’s useless. I've been told to be quiet, and that's what I shall do. I’ll give advice to the collectors in my local club, But i am done with that here, except perhaps in a PM sent to someone I know.
@Insider2
PLEASE keep Cameonut2011 separate from me - I am the original Cameonut.
I knew this was going to happen. I have no intention of defending any of his posts.
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson
My digital cameo album 1950-64 Cameos - take a look!
Yikes! Big mistake. Not funny.