Do you have any Idea who is grading your coins? Does it matter?

KOYNGUY

Where did all the big name graders go?
I am in the business and I can't keep track.!
I can name only a few of the graders of the 1980's and 90's still around. Every year I hear of a new hotshot in charge of grading. We now have billion dollar services with Corporate mindsets, Favoring Investors, bulk dealers, marketers over collectors. I heard Mark Zuckerburg is paying 200 million a year to some Ai hotshots, Why can't top grading services afford a few hundred grand for talent? Money calls the shots i guess.
In my opinion, the make up of the all the grading teams has changed alot in the last 5 years. The move is in an effort to make the grading more cost efficient. Novice graders have replaced the more highly paid experienced grader. Instead of an all around numismatist Grading copper to gold, You have more teams grading a specialties. Dollars, Modern, Foreign, Bullion. Fewer of these graders have tempered their skills in the blast furnace of the competition of a bourse floor.
Betting your own dollars on your opinion has been my best teacher in improving my skills. My losing calls stare at you from your dealers case saying that you over- graded or over-priced this purchase. On the other hand ,coins leaving your case in the first hours of a show suggest you may have under-graded or underpriced those coins. You learn what coins deserve a higher or lower grade.
These less experienced graders tend not to award exceptional coins, nor punish below average coins. You
cannot judge the high and low end without experiencing the best and the worst. Judging MS-65 Morgans comes from seeing thousands other coins in various grades, not just 64-66 grades. I have seen over a MILLION Morgan dollars in 63 and under to appreciate the 2 dozen coins I have graded MS-68.
Creating new top pops draw attention and criticism from the finalizers. Breaking new higher ground is the responsibility of the more experienced finalizers. Stay in the pack, don't stand out, keep your job.
As I have told my graders, You can have your outlier opinion to a degree, but I can find any Joe walking the street to disagree with me and not take constructive criticism.
Naming your top graders has it's downside. They are humans, They move to your competition, steal, have scandals. change jobs, bad mouth their employers, get caught on Kiss Cams, and generally are not good long term assets for propaganda. That is why the majors no longer flaunt their graders. as they did in the first 30 years.
Anonymous is better, Especially after a good reputation is already established. Ask Hertz, Subway, Jello, Coke Etc.
The ability to have 10,000 coins graded in a day only works if you have a consistent Finalizer team to over see the final product. A thousand coins a day is about all a good finalizer should do. that means 10 working finalizers, out of a pool of 12-15 accounting for show work, sickness, vacations, research.
No Service I am aware of has this many Qualified Finalizers despite the hundreds of Millions taken in for fees over the years.. There are not that many numismatists with the required diversified experience willing to move to the relatively expensive areas of the country that services are presently located. Most customer service has dropped perceptibly. How much money do you have to make before you can offer a personal response to a submission? You have to expand customer service as you grow, Heard of Ai?, not cheap but effective. How about a flow chart? your coins are here map.
So, how do they do it?
I think the majors rely on a hybrid system. More use of better prefinal graders 2nd-3rd base to take load off
finalizers, rely of your reputation to carry you. The result is a homogenized product with an acceptable amount of hiccups, managed risk.
There is a loss of institutional memory, fewer old heads looking over your shoulder. That's why grades change, usually higher. Path of least resistance. Don't get me started on grade inflation.
Hoping Ai will put me out of a job and put expensive coin grading out of business before this decade is out. At least it will remove one angle that parts buyers from their money and gives us a clearer vision of what coins are out there.
But, I digress. Thanks for listening and as always, with respect to our host that I hold in high regard, J.P. Martin

Morgan White

Polly C. Gilmore grades all my submissions with loving care.

jedm

I appreciate you sharing your insight of the goings on behind the curtain and consider it to be very enlightening. Thank you.

Aotearoa

Forum rule #5

gumby1234

Tell us how you really feel.

seatedlib3991

Interesting post. I won't lie. You would not be my choice to update my resume even if you did hold me in high regard. james

Creg

Thank you.

@KOYNGUY personifies a slab artfully:
My losing calls stare at you from your dealers case saying that you over- graded or over-priced this purchase.

MWallace

@KOYNGUY
You just described every job in this country in one way or another.

CaptHenway

Is it my imagination, or are Rarity Points becoming more common?

logger7

There are many seasoned graders at all the services; Jeff Howard at PCGS, Rick Montgomery at NGC, JA and his team in VA; Mike Fahey at Anacs, Skip Fazzari and Mark Jaffee at ICG.

PerryHall

When I buy a slabbed coin, it doesn't matter to me who the actual graders were since I grade the coin myself at the time of purchase.

coinkat

After reading this post, perhaps the time has come to just retire and call it a career.

Maywood

We now have billion dollar services with Corporate mindsets, Favoring Investors, bulk dealers, marketers over collectors. Money calls the shots i guess.

And this news to you just now??

seatedlib3991

I must say that I think having specialists might be a distinct improvement overall. You of course need someone tried and true to make the final call. Look at the medical field.
At 2.15 pm today the top 2 pancreas guys in the world; Dr. Martin Freeman University of Minnesota and Dr. James White John Hopkins have a zoom call with me. We live in a world of specialists. James

TwoSides2aCoin

I know where mine go but have no clue who is grading them. We disagree 30% of the time and I still pay them. Whoever they are at PCGS. No it doesn’t matter, either.

mr1931S

@gumby1234 said:
Tell us how you really feel.

Sure. Rules are like laws. Laws that aren't enforced are useless. Same with rules.

mr1931S

@PerryHall said:
When I buy a slabbed coin, it doesn't matter to me who the actual graders were since I grade the coin myself at the time of purchase.

You grade coins for yourself too? Don't you know that makes us rather peculiar, Mr. Hall.

Cuprinkor

Wow, thanks for the insight, J.P.!

I liked it when PCGS & NGC had coin people grade the coins. These persons, because of their years of experience, knew what the coins were supposed to look like for their respective grades.

I have submitted coins for grading since the beginning (1986) and became an authorized PCGS Dealer back in 1990. I wonder how many of today's graders weren't even born at that time. Just a thought.

mbogoman

No. Yes.

CaptHenway

A lot of water under the dam since the day when every ANACS Grader had been trained by me..........

KOYNGUY

Yes Tom, I remember your days as "The Fount" of Knowledge in 1984 at ANACS. You could ramble on about
your experiences and detailed information like Walter Breen. My first 3 months with you was an eye opener. By the way I still have my "MUSHROOM" dollar. Your moniker as "The Fount" is still how you are remembered at ANACS over 40 years later. Nice to see you still gathering fans and respect here on the boards. By the way, have you ever told the board members how you took an ANACS submitted trime to lunch.? Looking forward to seeing your new book! J.P. Martin

PeakRarities

Not really, but I can tell you that it seems like it's definitely not the graders of the archived auction coins that make me think that mine deserve an upgrade 😂.

lermish

@KOYNGUY said:
You could ramble on about your experiences and detailed information like Walter Breen.

😬

coinkat

@seatedlib3991

Hope you're okay

Aotearoa

@lermish said:

@KOYNGUY said:
You could ramble on about your experiences and detailed information like Walter Breen.

😬

I cringed at that, as well.

seatedlib3991

@coinkat. Me to. Will know soon. biopsy's and marker tests set for Oct. 2nd. thanks for asking. james

SimonW

On one of your points, I think it's a great idea that they specialize in a specific kind of coin. One set of graders does Morgans, another early copper, another moderns. I feel like they'd be more consistent not flipping from one kind to another. I couldn't care less if they cut their teeth on the bourse floor or not, I'm looking for accuracy and precision. I don't need them to have an encyclopedic knowledge of all the coins, just the ones they're responsible for grading. I think the grading companies would do better that way.

MrEureka

Back in the late 80’s when the TPGs got started, graders probably earned an average of $1250+ a day, the equivalent of about $3500 today when adjusted for inflation. How much do graders actually earn these days?

And back in the late 80’s, I could have named 100 people under 50 years old who I considered perfectly capable of doing the job. Today, I probably can’t name 20, and most of them wouldn’t consider the job at any realistically imaginable salary.

logger7

It's a high stress job; a former NGC grader told me it was like dropping all the pieces of a puzzle on a table having to put them back in the same spots.

I heard it was a six figure job, a lot less today except for the finalizers and long term top tier ones who handle express submissions and higher.

MFeld

@logger7 said:
It's a high stress job; a former NGC grader told me it was like dropping all the pieces of a puzzle on a table having to put them back in the same spots.

I heard it was a six figure job, a lot less today except for the finalizers and long term top tier ones who handle express submissions and higher.

This former NGC grader had a very different grading experience. I didn’t see it as stressful - typically, work was more of a steady grind. And as for a puzzle analogy, grading was more like figuring out which of two (or occasionally more) spaces (grade categories) a piece (coin) fit into properly (accurately).

Coin Finder

I wonder if AI could grade coins after millions of images of graded coins are available which they are now of course, but they can never see all the edges or third side of a coin. Just wondering.

BryceM

If people can learn a set of criteria, AI will too, eventually. I wouldn’t compare AI’s ability to grade from images with a human’s ability to grade in-hand. That’s not fair.

Once AI is “all there”, the statistical precision of grading events (or lack thereof) will be better understood by all. AI will, of course, need to “learn” the subjective part of grading which is deeply nuanced and influenced by human perceptions of rarity, value, “prettiness”, long term trends of acceptability, and such. The objective part of grading is simple, in comparison.

Catbert

No and no.

TrickleCharge

I would like to see how AI would compare to humans grading something like ASEs, where the majority grade either MS69 or MS70. The graders would probably enjoy not having to look at them anymore.

CaptHenway

@MrEureka said:
Back in the late 80’s when the TPGs got started, graders probably earned an average of $1250+ a day, the equivalent of about $3500 today when adjusted for inflation. How much do graders actually earn these days?

And back in the late 80’s, I could have named 100 people under 50 years old who I considered perfectly capable of doing the job. Today, I probably can’t name 20, and most of them wouldn’t consider the job at any realistically imaginable salary.

Are you crazy? Third Party Grading started in March of 1979. We sure as Hell were not making $1250 per day!

KOYNGUY

Tom, Andy did say late 1980's and was probably only thinking of PCGS/NGC. Our best graders at ANACS were only pulling 50k then. Well, we were working for a non profit at the time.$1,250 a day times 250 working days is 313k. Most graders could not grade every day and burned out or left. I turned down an offer from one of the majors was only 140k in the early 90's. Most graders can sprint at a higher pace, but eventually hit the wall and dropped out or could only work for short term, say 2 weeks or so. it takes a special kind of guy to sit in a dark room day in, day out for decades. Think factory work, widgets in, widgets out. I did hear David Hall say his graders all made 100K or more c.1989 in St. Louis. I think his Salary was 500k when he left, according to financial filings.
I am told there is a salary of over 500k today, possibly as high as a million at the top Firms.
As for me in terms of sales, I drew a higher percentage as any one at the top grading services. A bigger piece of a smaller pie. J.P. Martin