Is All The Complaining About PCGS Grading Just the Outliers?
Typetone
Posts: 1,621 ✭✭
I own about 300 PCGS graded coins. I truly believe that about 15 to 20 are undergraded and will keep working to get them upgraded. Honestly, another 15 to 20 are probably overgraded or at least low end for the grade. This means the vast majority (probably about 90%) are correctly graded in my opinion. I don't see the problem if everyone else stands about the same way.
Frankly, we will all complain about the 5% we think are undergraded. Nobody is going to complain about the overgrades they got, or even the accurate grades. So, what I am hearing seems very consistent with PCGS being right almost all of the time, with the subject of the spitting being a small % of coins. Of course it would be better if they got it 100% right, but I'm not sure that will be possible with coin grades.
This reminds me of property tax assessments. Everyone screams and runs to the Board of Review when they think they were assessed too high. The huge majority do not complain. And, nobody complains that they were assessed too low, nor do they publically thank the assessor for low valuations.
I think I will keep buying PCGS coins, and maybe a few NGC ones as well. This is all sure better than when we had to try to buy raw coins.
Greg
Frankly, we will all complain about the 5% we think are undergraded. Nobody is going to complain about the overgrades they got, or even the accurate grades. So, what I am hearing seems very consistent with PCGS being right almost all of the time, with the subject of the spitting being a small % of coins. Of course it would be better if they got it 100% right, but I'm not sure that will be possible with coin grades.
This reminds me of property tax assessments. Everyone screams and runs to the Board of Review when they think they were assessed too high. The huge majority do not complain. And, nobody complains that they were assessed too low, nor do they publically thank the assessor for low valuations.
I think I will keep buying PCGS coins, and maybe a few NGC ones as well. This is all sure better than when we had to try to buy raw coins.
Greg
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Comments
Can you imagine if other businesses were allowed to get away with 10% mistakes? Would you go to a restaurant if they screwed up your order 10% of the time? Would you buy a car if you knew 1-in-10 was defective?
Just something to think about. I don't necessarily agree with the 10% figure.
for the tweeners. Add a little bit of competative politics, some mystery changes is philosophy
and allowing for the varience in human graders moods.Whether they are sick, had an argument
with the wife or just wracked up the car, make that 10% not seem like such a very large number.
Camelot
I'm sorry, but 10% (not a number I necessarily endorse) is massive. I cannot imagine getting thru the day with getting 10% of the things wrong.
The big difference here is you almost certainly hold a winning lottery ticket, if you get the right lawyer.
An undergraded coin, on the other hand, rewards you with the (privilege) of spending more money to (try) to get it graded correctly.
Disagreements over grades does not necessarily/always mean that PCGS is "wrong" or has made "mistakes."
Granted, many experts can agree on a single/particular grade for many coins. However, for many others, there is no single "right" grade. Whether we accept the fact or not, the art of grading is not always that precise or objective. And, because of its subjective nature, it is unfair to compare grading and its imperfections to certain other businesses.
Now, if you want to compare correct/accurate grading to how often someone whose business it is to pick out wedding dresses for brides-to-be and what percentage of the time that is successful....
But, somehow, I can't see you doing that.
Yesterday, I attended an exclusive dealer only auction in Orlando. There with my competitors, I selected several pieces that I really wanted. They were PQ, with fully original surfaces, fresh un-doctored specimens, with "the look". I chose them because of their originality. They were outstanding examples for the date, and had loads of eye-appeal. I was interested in mint specimens with little or no visible wear. Very quickly, I found myself in the thick of heavy bidding, as all of us who have grading skills recognized the few examples as the ones we were interested in, while all the rest were sold at less than what most would have believed was fair market. My competitors streched me all the way out, and I was forced to pay a little more than I hoped, but I knew the pieces I chose would satisfy my most demanding customer.
One was an 03 Mercedes E320 with 7700 miles, panoramic roof, full leather, and a pedigree, the other was a 98 540i with 38000 miles, and all service records.
and it sets us apart from practitioners and consultants. Gregor
Camelot
Wondercoin
PCGS didn't make the coins- they only provide an (expert) opinion as to grade (value).
Now- if you had a critic eat at the restaurant and write a review, would they be "off" 10% of the time?
How about a write-up in a car magazine on your favorite automobile? Would you agree with their opinions and assessments 90% of the time?
You can't compare the front line maker and user to that of a critic.
PCGS's role is really that of critic*, not a producer. They look for attributes that bring your coin away from "70".
You either agree with them (most of the time) and continue to use their service or you don't and go elsewhere.
*(Whereas "PCGS" may think the garlic bread was soggy and salty- "NGC" may think it was crispy and delicious. Neither of them baked the garlic bread.)
peacockcoins
while your point is understood, your comparison is poor at best. coin grading is simply not cut and dried, but you already know that. an error of 10% in terms of you not agreeing with a services assessment is just that, you not agreeing with a services assessment. perhaps typetone or someone else---me for instance---would view the same lot of coins and opine that they got 3% wrong. neither you, me, typetone or the service would be right or wrong, just at a point of disagreement.
what perplexes me about this whole inane string of threads is that we are all in agreement that we should view a coin in a holder and judge whether the sale price is in line with our grade opinion and the price that a sheet assigns to that grade. we all acknowledge that as the way we operate. so why go round and round about PCGS et al and the number they assign? they do what they do and we do what we do.
the solution for me is simple: if i like a coin and the price is right, it matters little what the service opinion or even service name is on the holder.
al h.
I have a couple that I feel are undergraded (again because I'm a picky s.o.b. @ buying time) but I like having highend coins for the grade in my collection so I'm not really worried about it. One of them is a CC Morgan that may indeed be undergraded, I feel it's a borderliner @ least. If I ever sell it I will probably get it regraded first because it's a difference of about $2,000. It's in a green holder from the mid/late 1990s.
Same with another CC that's in a early blue holder from when PCGS was pretty tough after the years of the green holders.
I have CC DMPL that will upgrade if it catches the graders on the right day, it's only about $300 difference so I'm not really worried about. It's in the first blue holder from when PCGS was pretty tough after the years of the green holders too.
Got a handfull of toned Morgans in the rattler holders that are accurate/undergraded but I'm not messing with them because the 15 year old slab is at least a little proof they haven't been "messed with" LATELY and are probably original coins.
And a handfull of undergraded rattler holders but they are less than $100 coins so it wouldn't be worth the effort to try but if I ever get another submission together they're getting my 28 oz Estwing applied to the slabs just to see.
many of the liner coins will someday be slabbed as PCGS 66.5 , and you may even see like 65.3 and 65.7, or even something in the format of MS64, +/- 1.5 (multicolor toning) or MS63.5 +/- 0.7 (DMPL obverse, semi PL reverse)
such descriptors are necessary when describing a high end coin, and imo its just a matter of time until PCGS starts using them, again for a large additional fee, and again, only on the highest end coins when a fraction of a point may mean hundreds or thousands of dollars.
An idea whose time has come! (time for a separate thread!)
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
I agree completely with Typetone that we are FAR better off with slabs than we were when there were just raw coins.
if they called the first coin a 64.5, +/- 0.5, or the second a 66.3-66.7, then who could argue with that?
never mind, the submitter would still whine that the numbers were'nt high enough, and that the coin is better.
I really think it boils down to, "if it's your coin and you're selling it, it's PQ, and if it's someone else's coin, it just isn't as nice, especially if you're trying to buy it cheap"
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
Think about it - if PCGS screws up 1% of the time and they get 75,000 submissions/month, that means 750 mistakes. That can lead to alot of griping. That would be a remarkable performance - I would guess it's closer to 5%.
I read Xrays all day. Sometimes I look at my old dictations and think, "What the heck was I thinking"?? I'm sure the graders have the same thoughts. Whether you like it or not, grading coins is alot like reading Xrays - it's a subjective art, not a science.
Are the people cracking these coins really that out of touch with the grading of those coins or is PCGS just out for money on re$ubmi$$ion$?
<< <i>I fully understand that we are looking at a subjective item, but they are the experts. Someone at PCGS once said that they remove 10,000 inserts a month from their database. Figuring that they grade about 50,000 coins a month on average, that means that the public feels that PCGS incorrectly grades about 20% of the time. Now figure all the inserts that are thrown into the trash. Probably just as many. That would mean that 40% of the coins graded by PCGS are viewed as graded incorrectly. Are the people cracking these coins really that out of touch with the grading of those coins or is PCGS just out for money on re$ubmi$$ion$? >>
Those numbers seem incredibly high, but even taken at face value, the key words are, "That would mean that 40% of the coins graded by PCGS are viewed as graded incorrectly."
Now, of that "40%" how many really are graded incorrectly?
peacockcoins
I don't know what percentage is really misgraded, but the fact that so many people think that PCGS misgraded has to say something. Also, all these crackouts are to the right of the bell curve. How many to the left never get cracked out?
I'd even imagine of those thousands of throwaway inserts many are coins that have been tried over and over again. And, why not? All it takes it one is a large grouping to upgrade to pay for all the others and thensome.
I think what PCGS is doing now is turning off that spigot. Bummer. Dealers are going to have to go about making money in coins the old fashion way.
peacockcoins
<< <i>I'd rather PCGS just grades the coins the same today as yesterday and leave my spigot alone. >>
And on that, we both agree.
peacockcoins
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