@FlyingAl said:
At CACs forums, there was a group of 20 MS66 coins submitted to CACG.
Here was the grade distribution:
MS66:0
MS65+:0
MS65:3
MS64+:15
MS64:1
Details:1
I’d say they’re pretty tough.
Without knowing the specifics of what was submitted, I'd have to conclude from the results of this exercise that if I want my coins to be under graded, CACG would be the place to send them.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
@FlyingAl said:
At CACs forums, there was a group of 20 MS66 coins submitted to CACG.
Here was the grade distribution:
MS66:0
MS65+:0
MS65:3
MS64+:15
MS64:1
Details:1
I’d say they’re pretty tough.
Without knowing the specifics of what was submitted, I'd have to conclude from the results of this exercise that if I want my coins to be under graded, CACG would be the place to send them.
More proof that people think the higher number must be the right number...
@FlyingAl said:
At CACs forums, there was a group of 20 MS66 coins submitted to CACG.
Here was the grade distribution:
MS66:0
MS65+:0
MS65:3
MS64+:15
MS64:1
Details:1
I’d say they’re pretty tough.
Without knowing the specifics of what was submitted, I'd have to conclude from the results of this exercise that if I want my coins to be under graded, CACG would be the place to send them.
More proof that people think the higher number must be the right number...
I think that submitters and/or sellers tend to want to believe that the higher grade is the “right” one, while buyers tend to want to believe that the lower grade is the “right” one.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
@Walkerguy21D said:
** As such, both of these are fairly predictable. CACG appears to be entirely and completely random.**
I wonder how they ensure they don’t get duplicate serial numbers? Even if the probability is low, it could still happen. I suppose they could have software that would flag if a generated random series of numbers had been used previously.
Nope. The serial number is a field which is indexed and does not allow duplicates. That's a basic part of any database. It simply will not let you store bad data.
Where you get in trouble is when you go to merge data from multiple systems later on.
-----Burton ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
@jonruns said:
A submission of 200 would be enough to be statistically significant.
Er, where does this magical number come from? Statistical theory? Do you have refs to back it up or your personal preference? If the former, please provide links to the paper(s)..................
Scarlet "L"....random serial numbers.....Registry points assigned to details coins. These are facts..not speculation. They have nothing to do with sample size or margin of error. These three key points coupled with strong anecdotal evidence...see Gerry Fortin...the 20 coin MS66 exercise lead one to believe that grading at CACG is willfully tighter.
This is not enough to convict beyond a reasonable doubt,,,,but in the court of public opinion there is a preponderance of evidence that CACG is grading coins differently than other TPGs.
@RLSnapper said:
Scarlet "L"....random serial numbers.....Registry points assigned to details coins. These are facts..not speculation. They have nothing to do with sample size or margin of error. These three key points coupled with strong anecdotal evidence...see Gerry Fortin...the 20 coin MS66 exercise lead one to believe that grading at CACG is willfully tighter.
This is not enough to convict beyond a reasonable doubt,,,,but in the court of public opinion there is a preponderance of evidence that CACG is grading coins differently than other TPGs.
It was expected that CACG would grade very similarly to CAC, which, in general, grades more strictly then the other TPG’s. So, for example, if CACG is grading differently from NGC and PCGS, that shouldn’t be a surprise. The potential surprises, are how differently they grade from CAC, NGC and PCGS. And while some people believe that we already have the answer(s), I’m going to wait and see before coming to a conclusion.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
@slider23 said:
The 20 coins can not be used to determine the level of tighter grading by CACG as the 20 coins were sent in for crossover and graded through plastic.
That’s an interesting point. However, if the 20 coins had been in NGC holders, submitted to PCGS for crossover and the results were the same, what would you say about both PCGS and NGC grading?
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Sorry but I don’t need some foolish expensive exercise to explore CACG grading. The few I have my take - toughly graded if not undergraded plus over priced. Had to pay thru the gazoo to get them. At a recent show not a person asked a price on them. In discussing w the guy setup next to me (a major player just back from FUN) well censored lol. If that’s your hobby direction however - enjoy.
@Cougar1978 said:
Sorry but I don’t need some foolish expensive exercise to explore CACG grading. The few I have my take - undergraded / over priced.
Sorry, but I don’t see where anyone suggested that you do that. And some people would rather base their conclusions on more than just the “few” that you have.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
This sounds like financial suicide. There is a lot of risk and downside but no upside. And if you are to submit 500 widgets, that does not necessarily reflect the larger market. All TPGs are stricter with higher value coins. I guess we could have 500 dealers and collectors here post their random crack outs but there is a concern about whether this would truly produce a random sample. And if the sample is not random, there would likely be selection bias and skew of the data obtained.
Sorry, but I don’t see where anyone suggested that you do that. And some people would rather base their conclusions on more than just the “few” that you have.
Maybe he meant that he already was fully stocked up on foolishness?
I'm quite new to the hobby and surely have no idea what I'm talking about, but this whole CAC stuff seems counterproductive and more of a spiel to sell you a service over the competition.
It seems they are trying more to blur the lines to create their own market space rather than produce a valuable service. Feeding more towards collectors who only want the highest quality coin and those looking to expose that type of collector to higher priced coins.
When in truth, it is just blurs the lines on an already blurry highway making collectors even more unsure about their coins.
Very similar to the Umpire argument in baseball. If you want to call balls and strikes. Using a less human form of calling them will be closer to the actual truth than having every grader who already has opinions of their own being told to use different grading scales on top of that compounding the fact that nobody actually knows what they actually have in the eyes of our fellow hobbyists.
Personally being new to the hobby. I tend to just buy what I'm attracted too without too much worry about the grade (unless it becomes a cost things) When I do look at the grade, it's usually for a 70 as I'm wanting a "supposedly" perfect example of a struck coin.
@McMiserton said:
I'm quite new to the hobby and surely have no idea what I'm talking about, but this whole CAC stuff seems counterproductive and more of a spiel to sell you a service over the competition.
It seems they are trying more to blur the lines to create their own market space rather than produce a valuable service. Feeding more towards collectors who only want the highest quality coin and those looking to expose that type of collector to higher priced coins.
When in truth, it is just blurs the lines on an already blurry highway making collectors even more unsure about their coins.
Very similar to the Umpire argument in baseball. If you want to call balls and strikes. Using a less human form of calling them will be closer to the actual truth than having every grader who already has opinions of their own being told to use different grading scales on top of that compounding the fact that nobody actually knows what they actually have in the eyes of our fellow hobbyists.
Personally being new to the hobby. I tend to just buy what I'm attracted too without too much worry about the grade (unless it becomes a cost things) When I do look at the grade, it's usually for a 70 as I'm wanting a "supposedly" perfect example of a struck coin.
But what do I know! hah
Welcome to the hobby.
As the expression goes, “to each his own”. Many people think CAC offers an extremely valuable service at a very reasonable price, while others don’t care about it at all.
Yes, collectors typically have to pay more for CAC coins. But they can usually get more for them when they sell and enjoy increased liquidity, as well. That goes for coins collectors have bought that were already srickered and coins that they submitted to CAC and got stickered.
All of that having been said, this thread started off as being (and is mostly) about CACG, not CAC.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
@slider23 said:
The 20 coins can not be used to determine the level of tighter grading by CACG as the 20 coins were sent in for crossover and graded through plastic.
That’s an interesting point. However, if the 20 coins had been in NGC holders, submitted to PCGS for crossover and the results were the same, what would you say about both PCGS and NGC grading?
And we're not talking about a close call. It was 0 for 20. It's not definitive, but if the sampling was sufficiently random, it does have meaning
@McMiserton said:
I'm quite new to the hobby and surely have no idea what I'm talking about, but this whole CAC stuff seems counterproductive and more of a spiel to sell you a service over the competition.
It seems they are trying more to blur the lines to create their own market space rather than produce a valuable service. Feeding more towards collectors who only want the highest quality coin and those looking to expose that type of collector to higher priced coins.
When in truth, it is just blurs the lines on an already blurry highway making collectors even more unsure about their coins.
Very similar to the Umpire argument in baseball. If you want to call balls and strikes. Using a less human form of calling them will be closer to the actual truth than having every grader who already has opinions of their own being told to use different grading scales on top of that compounding the fact that nobody actually knows what they actually have in the eyes of our fellow hobbyists.
Personally being new to the hobby. I tend to just buy what I'm attracted too without too much worry about the grade (unless it becomes a cost things) When I do look at the grade, it's usually for a 70 as I'm wanting a "supposedly" perfect example of a struck coin.
But what do I know! hah
Welcome to the boards and the hobby-industry.
If you are truly new, and not just someone trolling for a response, then I will simply state "you don't know what you don't know". Stick around and learn a bit.
If you are truly new, and not just someone trolling for a response, then I will simply state "you don't know what you don't know". Stick around and learn a bit.
Here's another one-liner I heard at a quality seminar decades ago, "If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work".
@RLSnapper said: @MFeld perhaps I was a bit over the top....but you don't dispute the business model that I have laid out for CACG seems to be playing out. Scarlet "L"....random serial numbers are factual and done so for a reason. Only JA knows the true reason....seems his early effort to make a market in details coins would have fit nicely into his business model of strict grading....CACG details coins would have been marketable to registry players according to his CACG point system....brilliant idea but the blowback ruined that market. I have nothing but admiration for JA the business man......
As far as I know, NGC and PCGS both use random serial numbers, too.
Mark, both PCGS and NGC do not use random serial numbers.
PCGS uses a series of numbers that is constantly increasing at a pretty normal rate based upon submissions. Currently that number is in the 485000000 or so range.
NGC uses the submission form numbers as the serial numbers, with the three digits after the dash representing the line number on the submission. This is also increasing linearly.
As such, both of these are fairly predictable. CACG appears to be entirely and completely random.
Alex, if that’s the case, thank you for setting the record straight.
At least with PCGS and NGC if your submission has multiple coins they will come back in numerical sequential order. With CACG every cert number looks like they were all from different submissions. No sequence whatsoever.
@jonruns said:
A submission of 200 would be enough to be statistically significant.
Er, where does this magical number come from? Statistical theory? Do you have refs to back it up or your personal preference? If the former, please provide links to the paper(s)..................
Cochran’s formula is perhaps the most well known equation for calculating sample size, and widely used when the population is large or unknown.
I chose a 90% confidence level, .5 standard deviation, and a margin of error (confidence interval) of +/- 7.5%.
According to the tables the Z score for a 90% confidence is 1.65
144 respondents are needed
I rounded up to 200 to account to account for any differences between PCGS and NGC graded coins.
In an effort to add some humor, it does seems more reason might help... So we have 20 MS66 Saints that were graded 66 that went to CACG and because the results were well below 66 , there seems to be some an immediate decision that the sky is falling that the grading world as we know it is coming to an end.
Really?
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
@DeplorableDan said:
Sounds like a great idea, keep us posted with the results.
@coinkat said:
In an effort to add some humor, it does seems more reason might help... So we have 20 MS66 Saints that were graded 66 that went to CACG and because the results were well below 66 , there seems to be some an immediate decision that the sky is falling that the grading world as we know it is coming to an end.
Really?
No need for panic. I love ❤️ my PCGS/CAC collection. There is no great need for CACG except for raw classic coins that collectors submit to eliminate the double expense of submitting to PCGS and then CAC.
Personally I don’t care for the thicker holders that scratch easily. I am happy 😊 with the system as it was with CAC being my stickering company and the consistency of CAC.
@jonruns said:
A submission of 200 would be enough to be statistically significant.
Er, where does this magical number come from? Statistical theory? Do you have refs to back it up or your personal preference? If the former, please provide links to the paper(s)..................
Cochran’s formula is perhaps the most well known equation for calculating sample size, and widely used when the population is large or unknown.
I chose a 90% confidence level, .5 standard deviation, and a margin of error (confidence interval) of +/- 7.5%.
According to the tables the Z score for a 90% confidence is 1.65
144 respondents are needed
I rounded up to 200 to account to account for any differences between PCGS and NGC graded coins.
@coinkat said:
In an effort to add some humor, it does seems more reason might help... So we have 20 MS66 Saints that were graded 66 that went to CACG and because the results were well below 66 , there seems to be some an immediate decision that the sky is falling that the grading world as we know it is coming to an end.
Really?
As the proverb says: you can never stick your toe in the same river twice.
@Luxor said:
<<< Can you please post a few that you claim are brutally overgraded >>>
Here's one in a non legacy CACG holder. Does this look like a strictly graded MS65 coin to anyone?
Looks like a common date and the coin must be extremely flashy. I'll remind anyone that by moving the coin into different angles to the light or eotating it we would end up with images looking like entirely different ccoins. Perhaps 80-S don't matter a whole lot. One of my instructors got me to loosen up (I'm the guy that really got burned badly by over graded dollars and left the hobby for years) my grading by telling me over and over there are five more grades between MS-64 and MS-70 when I graded a coin like this MS-64.
@RLSnapper said: @MFeld perhaps I was a bit over the top....but you don't dispute the business model that I have laid out for CACG seems to be playing out. Scarlet "L"....random serial numbers are factual and done so for a reason. Only JA knows the true reason....seems his early effort to make a market in details coins would have fit nicely into his business model of strict grading....CACG details coins would have been marketable to registry players according to his CACG point system....brilliant idea but the blowback ruined that market. I have nothing but admiration for JA the business man......
Yes, perhaps you were a bit over the top. 😉
As far as I know, NGC and PCGS both use random serial numbers, too.
.
winesteven had a thread asking about pcgs cert number (link below). From what I have seen over the years, pcgs seems to issue what I will call a block of numbers. A submission will have cert numbers in sequence / order. Next show might still be the same block but then a new block appears (different starting numbers). The link below I listed some of mine and a couple of others did so also. It kind of show the jumping of the blocks of numbers.
If I sent 20 MS 66 coins to CACG and none 66, just 3 were 65, others lower then that’s the last time they would get my money. A buddy at shows submitted 20 toners to them and none stickered or whatever.
@Cougar1978 said:
If I sent 20 MS 66 coins to CACG and none 66, just 3 were 65, others lower then that’s the last time they would get my money. If any offered to me on bourse / would low ball the heck outta that guy.
Makes sense as it’s a statistical improbability of 15 66 grading only 64+. It would be illuminating if the owner and CACG would be willing to provide images so we can judge for ourselves and see the truth
@coinkat said:
In an effort to add some humor, it does seems more reason might help... So we have 20 MS66 Saints that were graded 66 that went to CACG and because the results were well below 66 , there seems to be some an immediate decision that the sky is falling that the grading world as we know it is coming to an end.
Really?
Not to worry - I think that’s hardly the case - certainly considering the pop of their material on the bay tiny fraction of PCGS / NGC.
Anymore comparative results please Convey. I do wonder if players will crack out CG and shoot for higher grade somewhere else. Would be an interesting project huh? Hey maybe u could get double bubble if y submission upgraded somewhere else. Have fun, buy low sell high, don’t let them bug you, don’t get stuck in some promo rip off deal where u could take loss in market once they came out.
@Cougar1978 said:
If I sent 20 MS 66 coins to CACG and none 66, just 3 were 65, others lower then that’s the last time they would get my money. A buddy at shows submitted 20 toners to them and none stickered or whatever.
It could be all the MS66s that were available to your buddy from his/her sources were actually C coins or worse.
@Cougar1978 said:
If I sent 20 MS 66 coins to CACG and none 66, just 3 were 65, others lower then that’s the last time they would get my money. A buddy at shows submitted 20 toners to them and none stickered or whatever.
It could be all the MS66s that were available to your buddy from his/her sources were actually C coins or worse.
I’m glad, and not surprised, to hear that NONE of those 20 coins in the so-called “Experiment” had a CAC sticker! Matter of fact, while I didn’t read that post from the very top, it sounds like the original presenter of that “experiment” left out that very critical point at the time of the original post. If I’m correct, that shows the bias of that post!
Now that it’s been confirmed that NONE of those 20 coins had a CAC sticker, my guess is due to the likely value at 66, those coins likely had been submitted at some point to CAC stickering, and FAILED!
So is it any surprise to see those crossed results on coins that don’t merit CAC stickers? I’m not surprised one bit!
Steve
A day without fine wine and working on your coin collection is like a day without sunshine!!!
@Cougar1978 said:
If I sent 20 MS 66 coins to CACG and none 66, just 3 were 65, others lower then that’s the last time they would get my money. A buddy at shows submitted 20 toners to them and none stickered or whatever.
It could be all the MS66s that were available to your buddy from his/her sources were actually C coins or worse.
I’m glad, and not surprised, to hear that NONE of those 20 coins in the so-called “Experiment” had a CAC sticker! Matter of fact, while I didn’t read that post from the very top, it sounds like the original presenter of that “experiment” left out that very critical point at the time of the original post. If I’m correct, that shows the bias of that post!
Now that it’s been confirmed that NONE of those 20 coins had a CAC sticker, my guess is due to the likely value at 66, those coins likely had been submitted at some point to CAC stickering, and FAILED!
So is it any surprise to see those crossed results on coins that don’t merit CAC stickers? I’m not surprised one bit!
Steve
Steve,
The presenter of the original info was a CACG finalizer, so if there was bias, there's a high probability that it is in the favor of CACG.
@Cougar1978 said:
If I sent 20 MS 66 coins to CACG and none 66, just 3 were 65, others lower then that’s the last time they would get my money. A buddy at shows submitted 20 toners to them and none stickered or whatever.
It could be all the MS66s that were available to your buddy from his/her sources were actually C coins or worse.
I’m glad, and not surprised, to hear that NONE of those 20 coins in the so-called “Experiment” had a CAC sticker! Matter of fact, while I didn’t read that post from the very top, it sounds like the original presenter of that “experiment” left out that very critical point at the time of the original post. If I’m correct, that shows the bias of that post!
Now that it’s been confirmed that NONE of those 20 coins had a CAC sticker, my guess is due to the likely value at 66, those coins likely had been submitted at some point to CAC stickering, and FAILED!
So is it any surprise to see those crossed results on coins that don’t merit CAC stickers? I’m not surprised one bit!
Steve
Steve,
The presenter of the original info was a CACG finalizer, so if there was bias, there's a high probability that it is in the favor of CACG.
I think we should all be fair to John Butler over at CACG with respect to this thread.
His thread on the CAC forum was specifically about the theories being thrown out on the PCGS boards about the + designation and + percentages at CACG. He used the 20-coin example as a way to show that 15-of the coins would have received the + designation at CACG as MS64+ if the submitter chose to allow the coins to cross at that level. However, since the submitter chose to cross only at MS65 or higher, the submitter received zero + designation coins out of 20. This made it appear that zero out of 20 would have been + designation at CACG when in reality 15 out of 20 would have been + designation.
John used this to show that population reports, and other customer facing data, is not always complete and cannot always be used accurately to determine trends or absolute data. That was what much of the thread that John started was about. In that first post he also stated that none of the coins previously had a CAC sticker, which I don't believe was initially mentioned in this thread.
As for sharing what the coins were and/or images, he is precluded from doing so. No doubt by the submitter, but perhaps also as a company policy.
John is a great guy and did a wonderful job in my opinion at PCGS for years. I would personally like to see John candidly discuss why Walkers and other classics at PCGS received Gem grades while his team was grading them over at PCGS (assuming that was the case) only to now receive AU58+ grades and the like at CAC today. I believe this would help immensely with many collectors understand of what is truly happening- yes? Wondercoin.
Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
@Cougar1978 said:
If I sent 20 MS 66 coins to CACG and none 66, just 3 were 65, others lower then that’s the last time they would get my money. A buddy at shows submitted 20 toners to them and none stickered or whatever.
It could be all the MS66s that were available to your buddy from his/her sources were actually C coins or worse.
I’m glad, and not surprised, to hear that NONE of those 20 coins in the so-called “Experiment” had a CAC sticker! Matter of fact, while I didn’t read that post from the very top, it sounds like the original presenter of that “experiment” left out that very critical point at the time of the original post. If I’m correct, that shows the bias of that post!
Now that it’s been confirmed that NONE of those 20 coins had a CAC sticker, my guess is due to the likely value at 66, those coins likely had been submitted at some point to CAC stickering, and FAILED!
So is it any surprise to see those crossed results on coins that don’t merit CAC stickers? I’m not surprised one bit!
Steve
Steve,
The presenter of the original info was a CACG finalizer, so if there was bias, there's a high probability that it is in the favor of CACG.
I believe @TomB clarified this quite well. Thank you Tom.
Steve
A day without fine wine and working on your coin collection is like a day without sunshine!!!
@coinkat said:
In an effort to add some humor, it does seems more reason might help... So we have 20 MS66 Saints that were >graded 66 that went to CACG and because the results were well below 66 , there seems to be some an immediate >decision that the sky is falling that the grading world as we know it is coming to an end.
We don't know for sure they were Saints, do we ?
If they WERE Saints, given some times when those coins were very loosely graded -- and JA's/CACs/CACG's tough standards on gold/Saints -- that could explain the grade distribution.
@Cougar1978 said:
If I sent 20 MS 66 coins to CACG and none 66, just 3 were 65, others lower then that’s the last time they would get >my money. A buddy at shows submitted 20 toners to them and none stickered or whatever.
A 2 grade increment between a TPG's "loose" grading time period and the CACG "strict" current grading is not shocking to me.
If that difference held for a TPG over MULTIPLE time periods including non-loose and "strict" time periods...that would be concerning.
Threads like this highlight the immense difficulty most people have in understanding the difference between anecdotes and statistically valid information. We humans are incredibly influenced by individual things that have happened to us, both good and bad. With this information, we apply our experiences to predict future events, but we ENORMOUSLY put too much stock in these little bits of information.
An actual, thorough statistical analysis of coin grading would be worthy of a dissertation-level research project. I have my own suspicions, but likely many of them would prove to be incorrect. You’d need to account for variability in grading today, grading done years earlier, and the various TPGs. You’d also need to account for different series, strike descriptors (FBL, FH, FS, etc.), colors (RD, RB, BN), and proof-like designation (DMPL, PL, etc.). It would be an enormous undertaking.
Ultimately, I’d think you’d find that grading in general is not consistent over time, that reproducibility of results is quite poor, and that there is enormous variability between the TPGs, and even within the same TPGs over time. The lack of precision works in the favor of TPGs (crackouts, regrades, crossovers) so there’s little incentive to standardize it.
Can you give me a single example of another area in business where you can pay an expert an additional fee to see if they’ll change their earlier opinion that you already paid for?
Looks like a common date and the coin must be extremely flashy. I'll remind anyone that by moving the coin into different angles to the light or eotating it we would end up with images looking like entirely different ccoins. Perhaps 80-S don't matter a whole lot. One of my instructors got me to loosen up (I'm the guy that really got burned badly by over graded dollars and left the hobby for years) my grading by telling me over and over there are five more grades between MS-64 and MS-70 when I graded a coin like this MS-64.
It's amusing how when someone here brings up even the possibility that CACG may have overgraded a coin and posts pics of such coin, that it will be immediately dismissed and CACG absolved with reasons such as "perhaps 80-S don't matter a whole lot", "the coin must be extremely flashy", or that it must be the angle or the lighting or.......... LOL.
On another note, wondercoin pretty much hit the nail on the head IMO in another thread where he mentioned that these guys regarded as world class graders are simply 'hired guns' and will grade to the standard they're told to.
Your hobby is supposed to be your therapy, not the reason you need it.
@FlyingAl said:
At CACs forums, there was a group of 20 MS66 coins submitted to CACG.
Here was the grade distribution:
MS66:0
MS65+:0
MS65:3
MS64+:15
MS64:1
Details:1
I’d say they’re pretty tough.
Without knowing the specifics of what was submitted, I'd have to conclude from the results of this exercise that if I want my coins to be under graded, CACG would be the place to send them.
More proof that people think the higher number must be the right number...
I think that submitters and/or sellers tend to want to believe that the higher grade is the “right” one, while buyers tend to want to believe that the lower grade is the “right” one.
@MFeld That's a really good way of putting it. That's clears up some of my misunderstandings when it comes to grading a coin. Never thought of it that way. I'm going to need to remember that.
Student of numismatics and collector of Morgan dollars
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I would be willing to bet that these 20 MS66 slabbed coins from an undisclosed grading company are 1908NM Saints from the Wells Fargo hoard which have an unsavory reputation for being overgraded. The results of this test could be vastly different with a different group of 20 coins.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
@PerryHall said:
I would be willing to bet that these 20 MS66 slabbed coins from an undisclosed grading company are 1908NM Saints from the Wells Fargo hoard which have an unsavory reputation for being overgraded. The results of this test could be vastly different with a different group of 20 coins.
And even if the coins weren’t 1908 No Motto Saints, the results could (and probably would) be vastly different with another group of 20 coins. I think some people are giving far too much weight to statistically insignificant sample sizes.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
I'm curious if there are any legal exposures for the new cac company in litigation nation, as people with multiple submissions of the same coin could claim arbitrary and capricious standards where valuations would be all over the place based on their assigned grade, making consumers getting unreasonably low grades resubmit, pay even more money for their claimed accurate grading standards?
@PerryHall said:
I would be willing to bet that these 20 MS66 slabbed coins from an undisclosed grading company are 1908NM Saints from the Wells Fargo hoard which have an unsavory reputation for being overgraded. The results of this test could be vastly different with a different group of 20 coins.
My first guess was Saints and Wells Fargo coin hoards are frequently graded optimistically. I think you are likely right. If not, it was probably a bunch of hoard date Morgans.
@logger7 said:
I'm curious if there are any legal exposures for the new cac company in litigation nation, as people with multiple submissions of the same coin could claim arbitrary and capricious standards where valuations would be all over the place based on their assigned grade, making consumers getting unreasonably low grades resubmit, pay even more money for their claimed accurate grading standards?
No. A submitter is paying for their honest opinion, and CACG is giving the submitter just that. That the submitter doesn’t like the result doesn’t change that.
Regardless of sample size, 0 out of 20 is a pretty awful number. John Butler goes on in the CAC thread and says that there are many F coins out there and probably more than the CAC ABC language is interpreted by many as implying. Unless CACG 64+ coins (15/20 coins) are selling for non CACG 66 money, CACG will not have a lot of business going forward. Most submitters are going to get the coins in the holder that will yield the highest resale value.
@wondercoin said:
John is a great guy and did a wonderful job in my opinion at PCGS for years. I would personally like to see John candidly discuss why Walkers and other classics at PCGS received Gem grades while his team was grading them over at PCGS (assuming that was the case) only to now receive AU58+ grades and the like at CAC today. I believe this would help immensely with many collectors understand of what is truly happening- yes? Wondercoin.
They speak about it during Scott Travers seminar at FUN on the NNP link
@BryceM said:
Threads like this highlight the immense difficulty most people have in understanding the difference between anecdotes and statistically valid information. We humans are incredibly influenced by individual things that have happened to us, both good and bad. With this information, we apply our experiences to predict future events, but we ENORMOUSLY put too much stock in these little bits of information.
An actual, thorough statistical analysis of coin grading would be worthy of a dissertation-level research project. I have my own suspicions, but likely many of them would prove to be incorrect. You’d need to account for variability in grading today, grading done years earlier, and the various TPGs. You’d also need to account for different series, strike descriptors (FBL, FH, FS, etc.), colors (RD, RB, BN), and proof-like designation (DMPL, PL, etc.). It would be an enormous undertaking.
Ultimately, I’d think you’d find that grading in general is not consistent over time, that reproducibility of results is quite poor, and that there is enormous variability between the TPGs, and even within the same TPGs over time. The lack of precision works in the favor of TPGs (crackouts, regrades, crossovers) so there’s little incentive to standardize it.
Can you give me a single example of another area in business where you can pay an expert an additional fee to see if they’ll change their earlier opinion that you already paid for?
Grading is subjective. Period.
Medicine. Diagnosis can be iterative. Trial and error sometimes also occurs for illnesses that have no definitive test.
@PerryHall said:
I would be willing to bet that these 20 MS66 slabbed coins from an undisclosed grading company are 1908NM Saints from the Wells Fargo hoard which have an unsavory reputation for being overgraded. The results of this test could be vastly different with a different group of 20 coins.
And even if the coins weren’t 1908 No Motto Saints, the results could (and probably would) be vastly different with another group of 20 coins. I think some people are giving far too much weight to statistically insignificant sample sizes.
The sample size is adequate IF THE SAMPLING is random. While you require a sample size of 200 for a margin of error of 7% or so, this is a rather definitive result. There isn't disagreement on 1 or 2 coins. There isn't a range of results with some higher and some lower. There is a 100% incidence of grades AT LEAST one grade lower.
The bigger question is not sample size. It's sampling. You could easily skew the results by choosing the coins rather than randomly sampling them.
@cameonut2011 said:
Regardless of sample size, 0 out of 20 is a pretty awful number. John Butler goes on in the CAC thread and says that there are many F coins out there and probably more than the CAC ABC language is interpreted by many as implying. Unless CACG 64+ coins (15/20 coins) are selling for non CACG 66 money, CACG will not have a lot of business going forward. Most submitters are going to get the coins in the holder that will yield the highest resale value.
I wonder if the other grading services are tightening up their grades as a result of CACG being the new boy. Yes, CACG is tough; but, if you are buying coins, wouldn't you want to buy coins in holders from the service that is known for being spot on in terms of grading?
Comments
Without knowing the specifics of what was submitted, I'd have to conclude from the results of this exercise that if I want my coins to be under graded, CACG would be the place to send them.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
More proof that people think the higher number must be the right number...
I think that submitters and/or sellers tend to want to believe that the higher grade is the “right” one, while buyers tend to want to believe that the lower grade is the “right” one.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Nope. The serial number is a field which is indexed and does not allow duplicates. That's a basic part of any database. It simply will not let you store bad data.
Where you get in trouble is when you go to merge data from multiple systems later on.
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Best answer ever!
30+ years coin shop experience (ret.) Coins, bullion, currency, scrap & interesting folks. Loved every minute!
Scarlet "L"....random serial numbers.....Registry points assigned to details coins. These are facts..not speculation. They have nothing to do with sample size or margin of error. These three key points coupled with strong anecdotal evidence...see Gerry Fortin...the 20 coin MS66 exercise lead one to believe that grading at CACG is willfully tighter.
This is not enough to convict beyond a reasonable doubt,,,,but in the court of public opinion there is a preponderance of evidence that CACG is grading coins differently than other TPGs.
It was expected that CACG would grade very similarly to CAC, which, in general, grades more strictly then the other TPG’s. So, for example, if CACG is grading differently from NGC and PCGS, that shouldn’t be a surprise. The potential surprises, are how differently they grade from CAC, NGC and PCGS. And while some people believe that we already have the answer(s), I’m going to wait and see before coming to a conclusion.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
The 20 coins can not be used to determine the level of tighter grading by CACG as the 20 coins were sent in for crossover and graded through plastic.
That’s an interesting point. However, if the 20 coins had been in NGC holders, submitted to PCGS for crossover and the results were the same, what would you say about both PCGS and NGC grading?
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Sorry but I don’t need some foolish expensive exercise to explore CACG grading. The few I have my take - toughly graded if not undergraded plus over priced. Had to pay thru the gazoo to get them. At a recent show not a person asked a price on them. In discussing w the guy setup next to me (a major player just back from FUN) well censored lol. If that’s your hobby direction however - enjoy.
Sorry, but I don’t see where anyone suggested that you do that. And some people would rather base their conclusions on more than just the “few” that you have.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
This sounds like financial suicide. There is a lot of risk and downside but no upside. And if you are to submit 500 widgets, that does not necessarily reflect the larger market. All TPGs are stricter with higher value coins. I guess we could have 500 dealers and collectors here post their random crack outs but there is a concern about whether this would truly produce a random sample. And if the sample is not random, there would likely be selection bias and skew of the data obtained.
Maybe he meant that he already was fully stocked up on foolishness?
Chopmarked Trade Dollar Registry Set --- US & World Gold Showcase --- World Chopmark Showcase
I'm quite new to the hobby and surely have no idea what I'm talking about, but this whole CAC stuff seems counterproductive and more of a spiel to sell you a service over the competition.
It seems they are trying more to blur the lines to create their own market space rather than produce a valuable service. Feeding more towards collectors who only want the highest quality coin and those looking to expose that type of collector to higher priced coins.
When in truth, it is just blurs the lines on an already blurry highway making collectors even more unsure about their coins.
Very similar to the Umpire argument in baseball. If you want to call balls and strikes. Using a less human form of calling them will be closer to the actual truth than having every grader who already has opinions of their own being told to use different grading scales on top of that compounding the fact that nobody actually knows what they actually have in the eyes of our fellow hobbyists.
Personally being new to the hobby. I tend to just buy what I'm attracted too without too much worry about the grade (unless it becomes a cost things) When I do look at the grade, it's usually for a 70 as I'm wanting a "supposedly" perfect example of a struck coin.
But what do I know! hah
Welcome to the hobby.
As the expression goes, “to each his own”. Many people think CAC offers an extremely valuable service at a very reasonable price, while others don’t care about it at all.
Yes, collectors typically have to pay more for CAC coins. But they can usually get more for them when they sell and enjoy increased liquidity, as well. That goes for coins collectors have bought that were already srickered and coins that they submitted to CAC and got stickered.
All of that having been said, this thread started off as being (and is mostly) about CACG, not CAC.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
And we're not talking about a close call. It was 0 for 20. It's not definitive, but if the sampling was sufficiently random, it does have meaning
Welcome to the boards and the hobby-industry.
If you are truly new, and not just someone trolling for a response, then I will simply state "you don't know what you don't know". Stick around and learn a bit.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
Here's another one-liner I heard at a quality seminar decades ago, "If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work".
At least with PCGS and NGC if your submission has multiple coins they will come back in numerical sequential order. With CACG every cert number looks like they were all from different submissions. No sequence whatsoever.
- Bob -
MPL's - Lincolns of Color
Central Valley Roosevelts
Cochran’s formula is perhaps the most well known equation for calculating sample size, and widely used when the population is large or unknown.
I chose a 90% confidence level, .5 standard deviation, and a margin of error (confidence interval) of +/- 7.5%.
According to the tables the Z score for a 90% confidence is 1.65
144 respondents are needed
I rounded up to 200 to account to account for any differences between PCGS and NGC graded coins.
In an effort to add some humor, it does seems more reason might help... So we have 20 MS66 Saints that were graded 66 that went to CACG and because the results were well below 66 , there seems to be some an immediate decision that the sky is falling that the grading world as we know it is coming to an end.
Really?
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
No need for panic. I love ❤️ my PCGS/CAC collection. There is no great need for CACG except for raw classic coins that collectors submit to eliminate the double expense of submitting to PCGS and then CAC.
Personally I don’t care for the thicker holders that scratch easily. I am happy 😊 with the system as it was with CAC being my stickering company and the consistency of CAC.
Is it okay if I'm a little turned on right now...
As the proverb says: you can never stick your toe in the same river twice.
Looks like a common date and the coin must be extremely flashy. I'll remind anyone that by moving the coin into different angles to the light or eotating it we would end up with images looking like entirely different ccoins. Perhaps 80-S don't matter a whole lot. One of my instructors got me to loosen up (I'm the guy that really got burned badly by over graded dollars and left the hobby for years) my grading by telling me over and over there are five more grades between MS-64 and MS-70 when I graded a coin like this MS-64.
.
winesteven had a thread asking about pcgs cert number (link below). From what I have seen over the years, pcgs seems to issue what I will call a block of numbers. A submission will have cert numbers in sequence / order. Next show might still be the same block but then a new block appears (different starting numbers). The link below I listed some of mine and a couple of others did so also. It kind of show the jumping of the blocks of numbers.
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/comment/13618827#Comment_13618827
https://youtube.com/watch?v=_KWVk0XeB9o - Ruby Starr (from 'Go Jim Dandy') Piece Of My Heart
.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=D0FPxuQv2ns - Ruby Starr (from 'Go Jim Dandy') Maybe I'm Amazed
RLJ 1958 - 2023
If I sent 20 MS 66 coins to CACG and none 66, just 3 were 65, others lower then that’s the last time they would get my money. A buddy at shows submitted 20 toners to them and none stickered or whatever.
Makes sense as it’s a statistical improbability of 15 66 grading only 64+. It would be illuminating if the owner and CACG would be willing to provide images so we can judge for ourselves and see the truth
Not to worry - I think that’s hardly the case - certainly considering the pop of their material on the bay tiny fraction of PCGS / NGC.
Anymore comparative results please Convey. I do wonder if players will crack out CG and shoot for higher grade somewhere else. Would be an interesting project huh? Hey maybe u could get double bubble if y submission upgraded somewhere else. Have fun, buy low sell high, don’t let them bug you, don’t get stuck in some promo rip off deal where u could take loss in market once they came out.
It could be all the MS66s that were available to your buddy from his/her sources were actually C coins or worse.
I’m glad, and not surprised, to hear that NONE of those 20 coins in the so-called “Experiment” had a CAC sticker! Matter of fact, while I didn’t read that post from the very top, it sounds like the original presenter of that “experiment” left out that very critical point at the time of the original post. If I’m correct, that shows the bias of that post!
Now that it’s been confirmed that NONE of those 20 coins had a CAC sticker, my guess is due to the likely value at 66, those coins likely had been submitted at some point to CAC stickering, and FAILED!
So is it any surprise to see those crossed results on coins that don’t merit CAC stickers? I’m not surprised one bit!
Steve
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
Steve,
The presenter of the original info was a CACG finalizer, so if there was bias, there's a high probability that it is in the favor of CACG.
Coin Photographer.
I think we should all be fair to John Butler over at CACG with respect to this thread.
His thread on the CAC forum was specifically about the theories being thrown out on the PCGS boards about the + designation and + percentages at CACG. He used the 20-coin example as a way to show that 15-of the coins would have received the + designation at CACG as MS64+ if the submitter chose to allow the coins to cross at that level. However, since the submitter chose to cross only at MS65 or higher, the submitter received zero + designation coins out of 20. This made it appear that zero out of 20 would have been + designation at CACG when in reality 15 out of 20 would have been + designation.
John used this to show that population reports, and other customer facing data, is not always complete and cannot always be used accurately to determine trends or absolute data. That was what much of the thread that John started was about. In that first post he also stated that none of the coins previously had a CAC sticker, which I don't believe was initially mentioned in this thread.
As for sharing what the coins were and/or images, he is precluded from doing so. No doubt by the submitter, but perhaps also as a company policy.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
John is a great guy and did a wonderful job in my opinion at PCGS for years. I would personally like to see John candidly discuss why Walkers and other classics at PCGS received Gem grades while his team was grading them over at PCGS (assuming that was the case) only to now receive AU58+ grades and the like at CAC today. I believe this would help immensely with many collectors understand of what is truly happening- yes? Wondercoin.
I believe @TomB clarified this quite well. Thank you Tom.
Steve
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
We don't know for sure they were Saints, do we ?
If they WERE Saints, given some times when those coins were very loosely graded -- and JA's/CACs/CACG's tough standards on gold/Saints -- that could explain the grade distribution.
A 2 grade increment between a TPG's "loose" grading time period and the CACG "strict" current grading is not shocking to me.
If that difference held for a TPG over MULTIPLE time periods including non-loose and "strict" time periods...that would be concerning.
Threads like this highlight the immense difficulty most people have in understanding the difference between anecdotes and statistically valid information. We humans are incredibly influenced by individual things that have happened to us, both good and bad. With this information, we apply our experiences to predict future events, but we ENORMOUSLY put too much stock in these little bits of information.
An actual, thorough statistical analysis of coin grading would be worthy of a dissertation-level research project. I have my own suspicions, but likely many of them would prove to be incorrect. You’d need to account for variability in grading today, grading done years earlier, and the various TPGs. You’d also need to account for different series, strike descriptors (FBL, FH, FS, etc.), colors (RD, RB, BN), and proof-like designation (DMPL, PL, etc.). It would be an enormous undertaking.
Ultimately, I’d think you’d find that grading in general is not consistent over time, that reproducibility of results is quite poor, and that there is enormous variability between the TPGs, and even within the same TPGs over time. The lack of precision works in the favor of TPGs (crackouts, regrades, crossovers) so there’s little incentive to standardize it.
Can you give me a single example of another area in business where you can pay an expert an additional fee to see if they’ll change their earlier opinion that you already paid for?
Grading is subjective. Period.
It's amusing how when someone here brings up even the possibility that CACG may have overgraded a coin and posts pics of such coin, that it will be immediately dismissed and CACG absolved with reasons such as "perhaps 80-S don't matter a whole lot", "the coin must be extremely flashy", or that it must be the angle or the lighting or.......... LOL.
On another note, wondercoin pretty much hit the nail on the head IMO in another thread where he mentioned that these guys regarded as world class graders are simply 'hired guns' and will grade to the standard they're told to.
Your hobby is supposed to be your therapy, not the reason you need it.
@MFeld That's a really good way of putting it. That's clears up some of my misunderstandings when it comes to grading a coin. Never thought of it that way. I'm going to need to remember that.
Student of numismatics and collector of Morgan dollars
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I would be willing to bet that these 20 MS66 slabbed coins from an undisclosed grading company are 1908NM Saints from the Wells Fargo hoard which have an unsavory reputation for being overgraded. The results of this test could be vastly different with a different group of 20 coins.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
And even if the coins weren’t 1908 No Motto Saints, the results could (and probably would) be vastly different with another group of 20 coins. I think some people are giving far too much weight to statistically insignificant sample sizes.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
I'm curious if there are any legal exposures for the new cac company in litigation nation, as people with multiple submissions of the same coin could claim arbitrary and capricious standards where valuations would be all over the place based on their assigned grade, making consumers getting unreasonably low grades resubmit, pay even more money for their claimed accurate grading standards?
My first guess was Saints and Wells Fargo coin hoards are frequently graded optimistically. I think you are likely right. If not, it was probably a bunch of hoard date Morgans.
No. A submitter is paying for their honest opinion, and CACG is giving the submitter just that. That the submitter doesn’t like the result doesn’t change that.
Regardless of sample size, 0 out of 20 is a pretty awful number. John Butler goes on in the CAC thread and says that there are many F coins out there and probably more than the CAC ABC language is interpreted by many as implying. Unless CACG 64+ coins (15/20 coins) are selling for non CACG 66 money, CACG will not have a lot of business going forward. Most submitters are going to get the coins in the holder that will yield the highest resale value.
They speak about it during Scott Travers seminar at FUN on the NNP link
Medicine. Diagnosis can be iterative. Trial and error sometimes also occurs for illnesses that have no definitive test.
The sample size is adequate IF THE SAMPLING is random. While you require a sample size of 200 for a margin of error of 7% or so, this is a rather definitive result. There isn't disagreement on 1 or 2 coins. There isn't a range of results with some higher and some lower. There is a 100% incidence of grades AT LEAST one grade lower.
The bigger question is not sample size. It's sampling. You could easily skew the results by choosing the coins rather than randomly sampling them.
I wonder if the other grading services are tightening up their grades as a result of CACG being the new boy. Yes, CACG is tough; but, if you are buying coins, wouldn't you want to buy coins in holders from the service that is known for being spot on in terms of grading?