UPDATE 3/8: PCGS grader fails to recognize 1875 S/CC Trade $1

mbogoman

My grades just posted on this, and even though I paid for variety attribution, the grader failed to recognize this as an S/CC FS-501. The mint mark position is the first clue and of course the remnants of the "C" to the right are there, although somewhat difficult to see because of the level of wear, it is obvious when you tilt the coin. I specified the correct coin number on my submission and that's how it appeared at first when checking the status, but at some point the grader changed it to a plain vanilla 75-S. I notified customer service at that point (via email - could not get through on the phone), suggesting they take another look as it is a "no doubt" S/CC, but I never heard back nor received any acknowledgement.

What's the best way to get this fixed? I don't want to pay for another grading cycle - I feel I paid for the "expertise" and they dropped the ball. It is near impossible to get through on the phone, and email didn't work before. Any suggestions? Has anyone else gone through this?

Update: Heather put me in touch with David S., who kindly agreed to do a “No Charge” review of the coin. I am happy to say that the new result just posted today (3/8) and PCGS has properly attributed the coin as an S/CC FS-501. All's well that ends well! Thank you, PCGS!

jmlanzaf

Contact customer service. There is no other way.

It is, of course, possible that they simply do not agree with your attribution.

PerryHall

Send a PM to Heather.

mbogoman

@jmlanzaf said:
Contact customer service. There is no other way.

It is, of course, possible that they simply do not agree with your attribution.

With all due respect, of course, they would be, and are, wrong.

In hand, the effaced "C" is clearly visible. It is apparently an early die state and does not exhibit the often seen die cracks around the reverse perimeter. But the mint mark position on this variety is a no doubt indicator.

I will take PerryHall's advice and send a PM to Heather.

jmlanzaf

@mbogoman said:

@jmlanzaf said:
Contact customer service. There is no other way.

It is, of course, possible that they simply do not agree with your attribution.

With all due respect, of course, they would be, and are, wrong.

In hand, the effaced "C" is clearly visible. It is apparently an early die state and does not exhibit the often seen die cracks around the reverse perimeter. But the mint mark position on this variety is a no doubt indicator.

I will take PerryHall's advice and send a PM to Heather.

I'm not saying that they are right or that you are right. But it may be their considered opinion. You can ask for reconsideration. But, either way, it has to go through CS. Heather might put you in touch with them, but I don't know that that's in her job description as Director of Marketing.

Barndog

when this happens for me (half dimes), I call right away before the coin(s) leave the building. You should too.

dbldie55

Did you have a "variety attribution" on your order?

keets

save your "paper trail" and be patient. keep trying till you get a hold of the right CU rep and then I'm sure you'll get the proper attribution with a refund or credit on any additional costs. I have had similar things happen and PCGS acknowledged their error and made me whole.

MFeld

@mbogoman said:

@jmlanzaf said:
Contact customer service. There is no other way.

It is, of course, possible that they simply do not agree with your attribution.

With all due respect, of course, they would be, and are, wrong.

In hand, the effaced "C" is clearly visible. It is apparently an early die state and does not exhibit the often seen die cracks around the reverse perimeter. But the mint mark position on this variety is a no doubt indicator.

I will take PerryHall's advice and send a PM to Heather.

Have you seen other early die state examples without the die cracks, in PCGS holders, attributed as 1875 S/CC?

mbogoman

@dbldie55 said:
Did you have a "variety attribution" on your order?

Yes. As well as the correct PCGS number for the variety.

mbogoman

@MFeld said:

@mbogoman said:

@jmlanzaf said:
Contact customer service. There is no other way.

It is, of course, possible that they simply do not agree with your attribution.

With all due respect, of course, they would be, and are, wrong.

In hand, the effaced "C" is clearly visible. It is apparently an early die state and does not exhibit the often seen die cracks around the reverse perimeter. But the mint mark position on this variety is a no doubt indicator.

I will take PerryHall's advice and send a PM to Heather.

Have you seen other early die state examples without the die cracks, in PCGS holders, attributed as 1875 S/CC?

Yes. Several. For example, here is the CoinFacts image of an MS64 from the main CoinFacts page for the variety:

MFeld

@mbogoman said:

@MFeld said:

@mbogoman said:

@jmlanzaf said:
Contact customer service. There is no other way.

It is, of course, possible that they simply do not agree with your attribution.

With all due respect, of course, they would be, and are, wrong.

In hand, the effaced "C" is clearly visible. It is apparently an early die state and does not exhibit the often seen die cracks around the reverse perimeter. But the mint mark position on this variety is a no doubt indicator.

I will take PerryHall's advice and send a PM to Heather.

Have you seen other early die state examples without the die cracks, in PCGS holders, attributed as 1875 S/CC?

Yes. Several. For example, here is the CoinFacts image of an MS64 from the main CoinFacts page for the variety:

I'd email the detailed information to customer service, as well as try to get a hold of someone over the phone and be as patient as possible.

ms70

Email anyone and everyone. Hopefully someone will see it before it gets shipped. Customer service won't respond to your email in time to stop it. The only other option is to get up early and start calling them. In my experience when the grades pop it's too late to stop the shipping.

ms70

It would be nice if they had an e-mail only for critical issues prior to shipping.

mbogoman

@MFeld said:

@mbogoman said:

@MFeld said:

@mbogoman said:

@jmlanzaf said:
Contact customer service. There is no other way.

It is, of course, possible that they simply do not agree with your attribution.

With all due respect, of course, they would be, and are, wrong.

In hand, the effaced "C" is clearly visible. It is apparently an early die state and does not exhibit the often seen die cracks around the reverse perimeter. But the mint mark position on this variety is a no doubt indicator.

I will take PerryHall's advice and send a PM to Heather.

Have you seen other early die state examples without the die cracks, in PCGS holders, attributed as 1875 S/CC?

Yes. Several. For example, here is the CoinFacts image of an MS64 from the main CoinFacts page for the variety:

I'd email the detailed information to customer service, as well as try to get a hold of someone over the phone and be as patient as possible.

I email CS on Jan 12 with detailed info, although I did not have the nice TrueView images to accompany the email. I have not been able to get through on the phone yet. I also sent a PM with all the details to Heather as suggested by another member earlier this morning, but that hasn't gotten a response yet. My hope is that she will pass it along to the appropriate person(s).

OriginalDan

Bottom line, whoever is doing varieties for trade dollars these days doesn’t know enough to do the job. It didn’t used to be this way, got much worse a few years ago. I no longer waste money on this anymore.

I talked to Brett about this at a Long Beach show a while back and he said they’d work on it, looks like there’s still a ways to go. Not like this is a minor variety.

mbogoman

@OriginalDan said:
Bottom line, whoever is doing varieties for trade dollars these days doesn’t know enough to do the job. It didn’t used to be this way, got much worse a few years ago. I no longer waste money on this anymore.

I talked to Brett about this at a Long Beach show a while back and he said they’d work on it, looks like there’s still a ways to go. Not like this is a minor variety.

Agreed. Definitely not a minor variety. It's quite mainstream. And I'm certainly not going to waste the time or money to send it through again on my own dime. The value of this coin at this grade level precludes it.

messydesk

I hope you get this resolved. I'll beat on this drum again in case our hosts are looking for ways to improve the customer experience. Submitters should be given an opportunity to throw a "challenge flag" before a submission heads to shipping to catch things that are believed to be mistakes, with the exception of grades, so they can be corrected quickly and cheaply.

LanceNewmanOCC

@messydesk said:
I hope you get this resolved. I'll beat on this drum again in case our hosts are looking for ways to improve the customer experience. Submitters should be given an opportunity to throw a "challenge flag" before a submission heads to shipping to catch things that are believed to be mistakes, with the exception of grades, so they can be corrected quickly and cheaply.

honestly, that would probably save both parties time and money.

LanceNewmanOCC

here is the close-up from the CF page for those wanting to do some comp.

Batman23

I would think that with the variety attribution checked and the coin number properly listed for the S/CC variety that it should have been up to PCGS to reach out and make contact with the submitter on the issue instead of changing everything on their own with no discussion and kicking it out the door in a label it does not belong under. If the "C" can be seen under angled light it "should have" been harder to argue it is not an S/CC.

Do they have multiples of experts review varieties or is it up to just one guy? Unlike the three graders that assign the grade.

DDR

Mbogoman:

That exact same thing happened to me with a 75-S/CC! I took the coin to the PCGS booth at a Baltimore show a few years back and discussed it with one of the PCGS reps there. The rep agreed it was a 75-S/CC, resubmitted the coin for me, marked "mechanical error" or something like that. It came back in the correct holder. I was not happy with the original mistake, but pleased with the response from PCGS.

mbogoman

@DDR said:
Mbogoman:

That exact same thing happened to me with a 75-S/CC! I took the coin to the PCGS booth at a Baltimore show a few years back and discussed it with one of the PCGS reps there. The rep agreed it was a 75-S/CC, resubmitted the coin for me, marked "mechanical error" or something like that. It came back in the correct holder. I was not happy with the original mistake, but pleased with the response from PCGS.

Interesting...seems to be a pattern here. I know it happened to Dan a few years back on an S/CC FS-502 which is much more difficult to identify. When that coin came into my hands, I sent it in for variety attribution with plenty of paper backup and it came back properly attributed as an FS-502. But I never thought I would need to do the same for a very well known and easily attributed variety. Live and learn, I guess...

mbogoman

FWIW - in the same submission, they did properly attribute this 77-S DDR FS-802:

MFeld

@Batman23 said:
I would think that with the variety attribution checked and the coin number properly listed for the S/CC variety that it should have been up to PCGS to reach out and make contact with the submitter on the issue instead of changing everything on their own with no discussion and kicking it out the door in a label it does not belong under. If the "C" can be seen under angled light it "should have" been harder to argue it is not an S/CC.

Do they have multiples of experts review varieties or is it up to just one guy? Unlike the three graders that assign the grade.

That sounds like a very time consuming and impractical change to their procedures. While the coin appears to have been written up correctly in this instance, think about all of the times when that probably isn’t the case.

Batman23

@MFeld said:

@Batman23 said:
I would think that with the variety attribution checked and the coin number properly listed for the S/CC variety that it should have been up to PCGS to reach out and make contact with the submitter on the issue instead of changing everything on their own with no discussion and kicking it out the door in a label it does not belong under. If the "C" can be seen under angled light it "should have" been harder to argue it is not an S/CC.

Do they have multiples of experts review varieties or is it up to just one guy? Unlike the three graders that assign the grade.

That sounds like a very time consuming and impractical change to their procedures. While the coin appears to have been written up correctly in this instance, think about all of the times when that probably isn’t the case.

For the times it happens and the variety is obviously not there, I could see your argument. In this case the variety might be questionable to the variety "expert" and if so flag it and put it off to the side with an email going out to the submitter. If you claim that the expert might think this one is "obviously not" then I would question the validity of the variety expert. Seems like a pause and email would be good customer service and prevent added frustration, time and expense like is happening here in this case if the coin is shipped and later needs to be returned. Getting kicked to the back of the line is better than getting kicked out the door sometimes. I'm sure it happens, but just how often are we talking?

dbldie55

@mbogoman said:

@dbldie55 said:
Did you have a "variety attribution" on your order?

Yes. As well as the correct PCGS number for the variety.

My bad. I just re-read your post and see you stated you put in the variety in your submission.

tradedollarnut

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody can actually see the undermintmark, does it still make a sound?

HeatherBoyd

Hello @mbogoman someone from our customer service team will be reaching out to you.

mbogoman

@HeatherBoyd said:
Hello @mbogoman someone from our customer service team will be reaching out to you.

Many thanks, Heather.

Crypto

@tradedollarnut said:
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody can actually see the undermintmark, does it still make a sound?

Yes, the die pair is the die pair. Is it worth as much as a bold example? Not to the informed

OriginalDan

@tradedollarnut said:
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody can actually see the undermintmark, does it still make a sound?

Hey not everyone has a pristine MS65 😜

mbogoman

Update in OP. All's well that ends well!

oih82w8

You are very lucky that you caught this BEFORE it left PCGS.

Their email response time is slow at times to no response at all. Anytime I have a difference in opinion on a submission I would call them ASAP.

Nice crusty Trade Dollar! Did you opt for the TrueViews?

messydesk

Glad throwing the "challenge flag" worked.

TurtleCat

I’m glad it worked out for you. Nice to see a happy ending.

TradesWithChops

You shouldn't have to pay for the variety because S/CC is listed as a major variety, not a minor variety. It is the only variety listed this way.

That said, The mintmark location is a DEAD giveaway, as 100% of them are the S/CC. Sloppy work by PCGS.

thefinn

@dbldie55 said:
Did you have a "variety attribution" on your order?

He mentioned he did in the description of the OP.

cameonut2011

Moot