Grading fees

lincolnSence

David - could you shed a little light on why the prices for grading is pegged at what they are. To me it seems like the fees are way to high at shows for instance. In addition, I am confused that a coin worth 5K costs as much as a coin worth 100K. I would think the higher the value the higher the cost. After all who better to bare the burden? All I read or see from PCGS relates to the value of the coin so I don't expect your answer to be related to the amout of time it takes to perform the actual grading procedure. I hate to say it, but since both PCGS and NGC are so much the same on fees, it smells a little like the pricing at the cereal companies a little while back, when we all found out it {pricing} was all agreed to "behind" the scenes. Thanks.

homerunhall

The pricing is based upon demand for the product. For example, at the FUN show we charged $100 per coin for coins worth over $1500, and $65 a coin for $1500 and under coins. While some may think this is high, we received nearly 5000 coins for show service grading and barely were able to grade them all, even with the graders working virtually non-stop from 9 am to 8 pm every day of the show.

In terms of pricing based on value, we've kicked that around over the years but the problem is that the final grade determines the value, and we can't get paid based on our grade as that would be a conflict of interest. So we charge a "basic service" fee depending upon the speed of the service and the fee is not directly tied to individual coin values.