@291fifth said:
The way to solve your problem ... learn to grade.
Trying to clear the backlog of things to do since I went into semi retirement.
Now.... I have cut down working to 10-12 hours / day. Most of the rest of the time is spent sleeping, family matters, and chores. Now ... you tell me to learn to grade? Thinking about it... I can slot out some time in the middle of the night when I have a number of bathroom breaks.
You have to start somewhere. NO ONE learns to grade overnight. I've been at this for over 40 years now.
Am I a better grader than when I started? Yes. Am I perfect? No. i learned from looking at coins and also
selling duplicates to get an idea if my judgement was correct. The market is the ultimate decider if a coin
is correctly graded. I worked 50 + hours a week and am now semi-retired so I understand time constraints.
However, if you're spending serious money (I realize that can vary greatly from person to person) ,
it's in your best interest to invest some time along with your money.
Basically right.
Here is a sample list of DE's I purchased recently.
1911 MS 62 PCGS
1856 AU 55 NGC
1866 XF40 NGC
1903 MS 64+ CAC PCGS
1920 MS62 NGC
1915-S MS64+ PCGS
1889-S ms61 PCGS
1857 AU58 PCGS
(2) 1926 ms64 NGC
(1)1904-S MS63 NGC
(1) 1907 MS 63 Liberty
Paid roughly $30000 for the 12. Maybe I'll purchase 40 coins this year. Serious money? In total paid $6000 above spot gold so far this year. Basically paid $2500/ coin. For the most part, I'm buying lower end coins / buying price.
The question is... do I wish to invest time to learn all about grading so I can improve my "investment" ? My investment is gold. My market risk is gold / not coins. I am risking a much smaller amount in premium decay and that I understand. If you believe that spending x amount of add'l time will change much then good for you. I already know who I am and have evaluated my game.
Here is a sample list of DE's I purchased recently.
1911 MS 62 PCGS
1856 AU 55 NGC
1866 XF40 NGC
1903 MS 64+ CAC PCGS
1920 MS62 NGC
1915-S MS64+ PCGS
1889-S ms61 PCGS
1857 AU58 PCGS
(2) 1926 ms64 NGC
(1)1904-S MS63 NGC
(1) 1907 MS 63
Paid roughly $30000 for the 12. Maybe I'll purchase 40 coins this year. Serious money? In total paid $6000 above spot gold so far this year. Basically paid $2500/ coin. For the most part, I'm buying lower end coins / buying price.
The question is... do I wish to invest time to learn all about grading so I can improve my "investment" ? My investment is gold. My market risk is gold / not coins. I am risking a much smaller amount in premium decay and that I understand. If you believe that spending x amount of add'l time will change much then good for you. I already know who I am and have evaluated my game.
If all you're concerned about is premium above spot price, then it won't matter very much what third party
your coins are graded by. The risk increases the higher the grade. Your initial post questioned ICG grading
vs PCGS/NGC. Unless you are considering ICG or any other slab than the "Big two" ,I think the only downside
could be paying a premium for a high grade slab from ICG. I've bought ICG coins because I felt that they
were accurately graded and fairly priced but they're for my collection. If your investment is gold, the only
difference that matters is the premium above spot price
ICG and ANACS are just as acceptable as PCGS and NGC for the service of authentication and encapsulation. We could endlessly debate the grading standards, consistency, and history thereof. In the end, you are buying a coin and you want the one that works for you at a price you can accept. If flipping coins from one platform to another for fast profits, that might not be as wise, but I care little for that practice and wouldn't defend it.
My late friend Mikey (Mike DeFalco) used to favor the phrase, "Paralyzed By Plastic," to condense it all into three words. That is not just old-timers trash talking the ubiquity of certified coins, but the collectors' full faith in grading services and tag numbers. None of them have uniformly perfect records and balancing oscillations in market grading with complete disregard for eye appeal in grading would make an easy prosecution victory in the court of honest public opinion. Over a long enough run, with shuffling of graders/standards and high current of submissions, it is impossible to maintain anything close to perfection. If CAC's service takes off, it would be just a matter of time before someone would start stickering subsets of their certifications too.
You are the final judge on coins you buy, whether raw or certified. Either you like it at the price or not. Certification takes away some risk in the hobby, but not very well on overgraded coins usually. Any graded coin not tied to precious metals over a couple hundred dollars I would want to be extra certain on the accuracy of the grading. Recently I sent in a certified Morgan dollar to ICG that looked to have developed a problem while in the holder, the guy I got it from thought that too, and they said that it looked ok to them. But they said that to keep me happy, they had a nice example of the date and mm pleasantly toned that they would let me have without charge, Skip said that it looked MS64+ to him but he would let Randy make the final decision. They ended up bumping it to MS65 and I could see how the toning made the argument for the grade that may have been optimistic. No cost except shipping it to them.
Comments
Basically right.
Here is a sample list of DE's I purchased recently.
1911 MS 62 PCGS
1856 AU 55 NGC
1866 XF40 NGC
1903 MS 64+ CAC PCGS
1920 MS62 NGC
1915-S MS64+ PCGS
1889-S ms61 PCGS
1857 AU58 PCGS
(2) 1926 ms64 NGC
(1)1904-S MS63 NGC
(1) 1907 MS 63 Liberty
Paid roughly $30000 for the 12. Maybe I'll purchase 40 coins this year. Serious money? In total paid $6000 above spot gold so far this year. Basically paid $2500/ coin. For the most part, I'm buying lower end coins / buying price.
The question is... do I wish to invest time to learn all about grading so I can improve my "investment" ? My investment is gold. My market risk is gold / not coins. I am risking a much smaller amount in premium decay and that I understand. If you believe that spending x amount of add'l time will change much then good for you. I already know who I am and have evaluated my game.
If all you're concerned about is premium above spot price, then it won't matter very much what third party
your coins are graded by. The risk increases the higher the grade. Your initial post questioned ICG grading
vs PCGS/NGC. Unless you are considering ICG or any other slab than the "Big two" ,I think the only downside
could be paying a premium for a high grade slab from ICG. I've bought ICG coins because I felt that they
were accurately graded and fairly priced but they're for my collection. If your investment is gold, the only
difference that matters is the premium above spot price
Bottom line... The thread helped me out as I was starting to stray from who I am and recognized that as the posts went on.
ICG and ANACS are just as acceptable as PCGS and NGC for the service of authentication and encapsulation. We could endlessly debate the grading standards, consistency, and history thereof. In the end, you are buying a coin and you want the one that works for you at a price you can accept. If flipping coins from one platform to another for fast profits, that might not be as wise, but I care little for that practice and wouldn't defend it.
My late friend Mikey (Mike DeFalco) used to favor the phrase, "Paralyzed By Plastic," to condense it all into three words. That is not just old-timers trash talking the ubiquity of certified coins, but the collectors' full faith in grading services and tag numbers. None of them have uniformly perfect records and balancing oscillations in market grading with complete disregard for eye appeal in grading would make an easy prosecution victory in the court of honest public opinion. Over a long enough run, with shuffling of graders/standards and high current of submissions, it is impossible to maintain anything close to perfection. If CAC's service takes off, it would be just a matter of time before someone would start stickering subsets of their certifications too.
You are the final judge on coins you buy, whether raw or certified. Either you like it at the price or not. Certification takes away some risk in the hobby, but not very well on overgraded coins usually. Any graded coin not tied to precious metals over a couple hundred dollars I would want to be extra certain on the accuracy of the grading. Recently I sent in a certified Morgan dollar to ICG that looked to have developed a problem while in the holder, the guy I got it from thought that too, and they said that it looked ok to them. But they said that to keep me happy, they had a nice example of the date and mm pleasantly toned that they would let me have without charge, Skip said that it looked MS64+ to him but he would let Randy make the final decision. They ended up bumping it to MS65 and I could see how the toning made the argument for the grade that may have been optimistic. No cost except shipping it to them.
I think ICG is really good with authentication; I also like their educational/ counterfeit holder: