Frustrated. It should be much easier than this ...
Insider2
Posts: 14,452 ✭✭✭✭✭
I've got a beautiful 1923-S peace dollar in hand. Much nicer that the usual coins I see of this date. Full luster, no friction, very nice strike. In the old days an easy call - Choice Uncirculated = MS-65 (Today MS-65 coins are called Gem). What to grade it? If I owned the coin MS-65 all day long and I wouldn't bother looking for a nicer coin. However, a coin's grade dictates its value. Think I'll look this one up for fun. Around $200 in 64. Around $1500 in 65. There is a big jump in value between grades. This is NOT UNCOMMON.
Word around a grading room is a coin needs to be "all there" to overcome the automatic barrier where there is a leap in price between two grades. OMG! Perhaps there is a reason to have decimal grading. Just something to think about.
I guess if it goes out in a MS-64 slab the dealer will put a PQ Sticker on the slab and price it as an MS-64.8 or MS-64.9 with
a $1300 price tag. So who needs grading? Perhaps an Independent National Coin Pricing Authority is already a twinkle in someone's eye. 
What do you think?
Comments
LOL, I've just been told to quit my complaining and just grade the coin!
If it's a 65, call it a 65.
Collector, occasional seller
I didn't realize graders factored in value in their grade assessment.
I could be ignorant, naive or both I suppose.
"However, a coin's grade dictates its value."
No. That's the lie. Grade and value cannot be mixed and the system remain honest. As your quandary clearly states, one affects the other. Your "honest" grade of MS-65 should stand on its own merit. What someone might value the coin should also stand on it's merit.
This is not some ideal - it is common business sense. It is why companies bid contracts and prohibit self-dealing. Why should a grading aspect be any different.
Now, I agree that the hobby does not like that approach. After all, it places considerable burden on graders to be consistent and it requires collectors to be aware and knowledgeable. Maybe both are too much to ask - but a few decades ago, they were not.
Are you wanting to give it a 65+ or 66?
I can see the double edge to this scenario: on one hand the coin could be super nice and warrant a high grade, on the other hand an overgraded coin is a liability for a TPG?
That is a line I am glad I am not walking, lol, regarding grading.
Good luck in your decision.
http://www.pcgs.com/SetRegistry/publishedset.aspx?s=142753
https://www.autismforums.com/media/albums/acrylic-colors-by-rocco.291/
Should not factor it in, but cannot help being aware of it.
You are describing the subjective bias that all graders are subject to.
Just grade the coin. If it's a 65, grade it a 65 the first time. Spare everyone the drama of three regrades and two crossovers before it gets in the "right" holder. Also, enjoy the opportunity to examine such a nice Peace dollar. The 23-S doesn't come nice very often.
I entered it as a 65.
Most longtime professional graders and dealers know the value of the coins they examine. They don't need to look at a Graysheet. I purposely never gave a flying care
about the value of the coins I grade. THANKFULLY, I have always been the first grader on the box everywhere I have worked. I grade them as I see them and let the Value graders who know the coin market grade (price) them. It get's funny sometimes as one of the guys will tell me I just graded a coin 16K!
Brief background --
Long ago when TPGs were being created, there was considerable collector and coin dealer concern about the companies grading and then selling coins they owned or brokered. This stalled progress until a general understanding took place that no person or company involved in independent coin grading could buy or sell coins, or grade any coin in which they had any financial interest. I don't remember if this was ever put in legal binding form, but the idea was certainly important to all.
Why not give her a 66...what would Centsles do?...if he still graded his own stuff
@RogerB said: "Grade and value cannot be mixed and the system remain honest."
While I think that the only thing a grade should indicate is the coin's condition of preservation from its "as struck condition (the old and obsolete true "Technical System."), that has NOT BEEN THE CASE FOR MANY DECADES! I know it, most know it, and you SHOULD too! Commercial grading is a fact and AFAIK, the folks at the TPGS's are an honest bunch.
I'll be searching the 'bay for freshly graded ICG 23-S Peace dollars, just in case they are grading it to sell.
Collector, occasional seller
Years ago in the Advanced Grading class at the ANA Summer Seminar I had an interesting conversation with JD. He was talking about a nice 1893-S Morgan that was in the grading room earlier in the year. It was a solid MS-65 and the graders agreed, but did not want to grade it MS-65 because of the price jump. When asked, JD's comment to them was to grade the coin and stop wringing their hands over the jump in value (or words to that effect).
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
It happened. But it took some abuse AFTER the TPGS's were around for a while for that to be enforced better.
But how can you do it if you don't have a price sheet?
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And at least the prices realized from at least 5 auctions.
.....................(graders may ignore the auction charges)
Nope.
(With apologies to Dr. Seuss)
I'll repeat the fundamental rule in case it was missed: "Grade and value cannot be mixed and the system remain honest." The two are commercially interconnected and therefore subject to abuse. [Some might enjoy taking EMB761 "Corporate Governance, Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility" at USC. It's not difficult.]
Also. Your comment about TPGs being honest might apply to the main ones, but look at all the others/ self-slabbers who boast about their work. The opportunity for dishonesty is contained in any system that makes money/value dependent on some subjective factor.
I have no expectation of any of this changing - especially so long as people either run with the system or stick their heads in the sand and plead ignorance. But, I'll continue to hope collectors will be more astute and fully understand the dynamic situation in which they participate.
Just an aside to think about --- what has been and continues to be the impact of grade inflation and related depredations upon overall coin price levels and attraction of new collectors?
If in doubt it always goes to the lower grade.
You want one more layer of difficulty? I'm virtually certain that each coin enters the grading room with a different handicap. Show me a Peace dollar and Morgan dollar with similar marks, similar luster, similar strike, and similar eye appeal and the Morgan will grade a full point higher than the Peace dollar. This is tradition, it's how it's done, it's how it was always done, and you'd better not be the guy to start calling balls and strikes like you see them.
I dont think decimal grading would get rid of those large gaps.
Inevitably a large gap would form between two deicmals, say 65.4 and 65.5.
Then people would start saying we need to split grades into hundredths!
65.49 vs 65.50
You never did that on mine!
This discussion reminds me why I like to buy a coin in the highest grade before the big jump in price in the next higher grade.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
RE: "The market can't even come close to agreeing on what an attractive coin is."
That's true -- and one of the few things collectors might agree on.
Yeah. The cat has been let out of the bag.
@Insider2 said: "LOL, I've just been told to quit my complaining and just grade the coin!"
@topstuf asked: "But how can you do it if you don't have a price sheet?"
I don't use the price guides, no need to. I just look for pluses and defects.
@RogerB said: "I'll repeat the fundamental rule in case it was missed: "Grade and value cannot be mixed and the system remain honest." T
The only thing that was missed is the fact that YOU AND I ARE IN AGREEMENT! Unfortunately, that is not going to change the fact that for most folks, grade and value are CONNECTED.
@RogerB continued: Also. Your comment about TPGs being honest might apply to the main ones, but look at all the others/ self-slabbers who boast about their work
There are only FOUR major grading Services + SEGS and one modern and one foreign TPGS. I would say that they are honest and the other fly-by-night graders don't exist.
@RogerB said: "Just an aside to think about --- what has been and continues to be the impact of grade inflation and related depredations upon overall coin price levels and attraction of new collectors?"
As long as there are collectors, coins will be collected. How they are graded, what they cost will not factor into anything. There are new collectors on this forum who don't have a clue to when went on even a decade ago.
If coins fall out of favor as other collectibles have in the past, it will not be because of their grade or price.
AMEN!!! There are several series of coins where the same thing happens but Peace dollars get the bad rap.
Never mind,,,,,,,
Here’s a very recent real world example supporting this conclusion. I purchased for my Type Set a real nice 1858 Large Letters F.E. Cent graded MS66 by PCGS with a CAC. I sent it to Rick Snow (Eagle Eye), and he applied his Photo Seal. I then it back to PCGS for Reconsideration (I don’t do Regrade or crack out, as I always want to keep the same Cert Number so I don’t risk losing the CAC or Photo Seal if the coin should get a “Plus”). Lucky me — it came back 66+. PCGS Price Guide value (ignoring the CAC and Photo Seal) went from $9,500 to $28,500.
My collecting “Pride & Joy” is my PCGS Registry Dansco 7070 Set:
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/type-sets/design-type-sets/complete-dansco-7070-modified-type-set-1796-date/publishedset/213996
Calls it as yous sees it.
"A dog breaks your heart only one time and that is when they pass on". Unknown
The lack of standards in coin grading will always allow opinions to enter into the decision. When standards are implemented, the opinions will vanish. Pricing will always be subject to demand. Cheers, RickO
It is interesting that most collectors think the value is one or the other. There are a lot of dollars in between the extremes. It will only sell when two individuals agree on which mark to make the trade at.