Does anyone know what the results are of the ANA hearing between Barry Stupler and ACG? I know that
wingedliberty
Posts: 4,805 ✭✭✭
Any news?
Brian.
Brian.
0
Comments
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
and it sets us apart from practitioners and consultants. Gregor
<< <i>Barry has been fined $10,000 for his comments, however he is allowed to pay in ACG coins at full list value. Net cost to Barry $2.49
Good One
It's like making a statement of fact of something you've never seen!
NEVER LET HIPPO MOUTH OVERLOAD HUMMINGBIRD BUTT!!!
WORK HARDER!!!!
Millions on WELFARE depend on you!
Cameron Kiefer
Another person who attended said on RCC:
"I will add that at times the events were entertaining, were intense, were enlightening. There was a lot of opinion dispensed by all sides. Ms. Hagar had no witnesses testifying on her behalf, and there were at least two distinct times when it was not very clear whose side the testimony she provided was intended to help, IMO."
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
making false accusations? Is it in the bylaws?
Brian.
I was there, and was a witness. The decision is expected by Sunday, and until it is announced I feel it would be improper for me to give my opinion on the way things went. As soon as the decision is announced, and I get home to my normal keyboard, I will give everyone a full account of what happened.
Go BIG or GO HOME. ©Bill
How long did it last? Did Barry have witnesses? What kind of support/evidence was presented, if any? How did it begin? Proceed? Who presided? Was there a panel, and if so, how many sat on it?
You don't have to answer every question, but, how many of us have been to this kind of hearing? I'm curious how it went procedurally. It seems there is still info to be shared, even without opining one way or the other.
I wonder if one can get a transcript? Yeah, I found sitting in on court martials intriguing too.
Can't wait to hear it all!!!!!
unfortunately, I missed the first ten minutes or so, wherein perhaps the complaint was read. My best guess is that Mrs. Hagar filed some sort of grievance with the ANA with respect to Mr. Stuppler's being both a governor on the board, and a dealer who gives advice to people with respect to numismatics that includes his opinion, shared obviously by many, that acg-accugrade is not well respected within much of the coin collecting/dealing community.
By the time I arrived Mrs Hagar was making her presentation, which almost solely was related to a looseleaf binder of evidentiary exhibits which were apparently given to each of the board members who were present for the hearing. She called no witnesses.
She seemed to refer to items in roughly the order in which they were assembled in the binders. Various emails from Mr. Stuppler to others, references to web sites that advise against using or purchasing acg products.
There were attempts to link Mr. Stuppler with Eric Tillery, who maintains at least one anti-acg website, attempts to prove that any boycott that was initiated through this link would somehow be illegal, assertions that as a pcgs dealer Mr. Stuppler and his connection with the grading service were somehow involved in federal trade violations, and perhaps other allegations that were presented before I arrived.
Mr. Stuppler's presentation consisted of a sample of twelve acg holdered coins which had been reviewed by both PCGS and NGC, presentation of the previously mentioned emails, in their entirety, the PNG/ICTA survey, 5 live witnesses and two telephonic witnesses.
The twelve coins, it was asserted, if valued by the greysheet at the "grades" assigned by acg were worth over a quarter million dollars, while if they were valued at the grades provided by the other services the number would be just over 3 thousand dollars.
Mark Feld was called as a witness by Mr. Stuppler, but most of his brief testimony, unfortunately, was in response to questions posed by Mrs. Hagar regarding whether the letters "ms" appeared on the slabs.
Larry Whitlow was telephonically interviewed and related a story wherein he presented a coin to Alan Hagar as inauthentic as slabbed. Mr. Hagar's response to which was to turn his back, crack it out of the acg slab and hand it back to Mr. Whitlow. Mr. Whitlow did testify that he was at some future point reimbursed for the amount he lost in the coin.
Julian Leidman then was called and related a story where a coin that a client of his presented to him in an acg slab was determined to be counterfeit. The whereabouts of the coin are not known.
Greg Rohan, president of Heritage, then testified as to the number of misgraded, etc. coins in acg slabs which have passed through the doors of Heritage, and that they now refuse to deal with any coin in such slabs.
John Callendrella (sp.?) was then telephonically interviewed. He was an employee of acg and ah collectables for a half year or so in 2002. He testified as to various "shady transactions" (his words) that he witnessed while in their employ. These included silver eagles pulled from rolls and marked on slabs as being from millenium sets, deals with Bob Johnson from Censtles, wherein coins were misgraded on the low side, accepted as payment for services, then reslabbed in higher grades, and coins marked as from the Binion collection when in fact they were not, among other such dealings.
Eric Tillery then testified as to the number of Morgan dollars he had seen in acg slabs (at least 162 in the past 3 years) the number of those with problems (54), and the fact that those which were able to cross at the same grade to ANACS were all worth less than $50 while those which didn't generally were valued at $75-500.
Finally, Jim Bruegman (sp.?, sorry) was called and he testified as to the the origins and machinations of the png/icta survey.
Mrs. Hagar had a rebuttal which sort of morphed into her closing statement, and Mr. Stuppler closed, mentioning that most of the points brought up by Mrs. Hagar (liquidity problems, pricing problems, mass neglect by many png dealers, etc.) only proved his case.
The one thing that i found curious was that while Mrs. Hagar seemed to hinge her entire case on the fact that certain acg slabs do not contain the letters "ms" in front of what are clearly Sheldon-scale-like numbers (64,65,66), (this was pretty much the only point Mark was able to testify to, in fact,) Mr. Stuppler did not question their use of such numbers if they are not using the Sheldon scale for mint state grading.
There were approximately 35-40 bystanders in attendance and those with whom I spoke agreed it was at least amusing, if not, as of this writing, satisfying.
Needless to say, I look forward to the ANA's ruling.
z
Thanks for thedetailed update.
Rich
Peak Numismatics
Monument, CO
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
All in all, the hearing took over two and a half hours and I suspect that everyone but the principals would have LOVED to leave after about forty-five minutes. Someone said that Diane Hager is a lawyer, and if so, I wouldn't hire her to defend me. She had a lot of notes, but her presentation wasn't particularly well presented or convincing, and her tactic of trying to impeach Barry's witnesses would have been weak in a courtroom and was totally ineffective in this venue. Then again, I don't see that she had much of a case.
Peak Numismatics
Monument, CO
Not good for AGC. I wonder if a transcript is available from the hearing? Was there a court reporter in attendance?
The really legally damaging statements came from John Callendrella, an insider from ACG. There could be a class action in there against ACG!
Please don't flame me, but I really think with an insider like Mr. Callendrella as a witness, lawsuits can abound vs. the Hagars and ACG.
Very interesting and thanks Zenny! And BRAVO to Mark and K6AZ for taking the time to help Mr. Stuppler, the hobby and US!
Michael
Brian.
<< <i>Thanks for that write-up, zenny. I'm trying to figure out what significance there would be to the letters "MS" being on the slab or not. >>
Kranky
The theory that Hagar presented was that acg doesn't grade like the other companies. (insert joke of choice here.) Alan Hagar was said to have written a book some time ago wherein he came up with some way of grading "by strike and luster." I have seen some of these photoslabs with the strike and luster annotations, but in my mind that is all that they are, annotations. There is always a number between the strike/luster - number/letter designation which corresponds in no small way with the sheldon scale.
The fact that there is allegedly a completely different method of grading going on here begs the question, "then why do you insert numbers between the strike/luster designation that correspond so very closely to the sheldon "ms" scale that is utilized by every other professional grading service that has ever existed?"
Mrs. Hagar had no problem asking the various witnesses for the other side the obvious corollary question "if you don't understand how we grade, how can you question it?"
To me the manner in which this "other method" of grading is represented shouts pretty loud DECEPTIVE BUSINESS PRACTICE but that's just the lawyer in me talking.
I was honestly dying in there hoping just one person would ask the key question, "if your method of grading is so different why is there a #%&*ing "66" (whether or not it is preceeded by the letters "ms" or not) in the middle of the revolutionary strike and luster grade?"
Obviously neither of the participants in the hearing had lawyers present while they were making their cases, (although from their presentations it would not surprise me if one or both had legal training of some sort), but it was clear from both presentations that an objective voice could have crystallized some of the points that probably needed to have been made.
As I mentioned in the earlier post, apparently Mrs. Hagar compiled a looseleaf binder of approximately 30 exhibits in support of her complaint. These binders were sitting on the table in front of each of the officers present at the hearing but it was not clear to me that Mr. Stuppler had received a copy of it, as it was not in plain sight with his collection of materials. She relied, in the main, on information she had gathered from the internet, although it was not clear to me how she was in possession of two email communications that Mr. Stuppler had had with either clients or acquaintances.
Her presentation was, IMHO, somewhat unfocussed, in fact at several points during the hearing she actually admitted that she had lost her focus and needed a break to gather herself. She called no witnesses, although she did readily concede various points, as i mentioned in the earlier post, that seemed to speak better for Mr. Stuppler's side of the argument than hers.
Mr. Stuppler, on the other hand, made a far more dynamic presentation, with the use of overhead projections, a dozen acg slabs which had been reviewed by both PCGS and NGC, and live and telephonic witnesses. Although most, if not all of the witnesses could have been utilized in a more impressive manner, Mr. Rohan and Mr. Tillery both clearly demonstrated their own personal distaste for the company's products with intelligently reasoned passion.
The former employee's testimony also seemed impassioned, but as a clearly disgruntled employee (insert next joke here) one had to perhaps read into it just a little bit. The other "shady transaction" that he spoke of, i couldn't remember it last night, was that he was the go between for the Hagar's with respect to NGC. He claimed that the good coins that came in to ah collectables were sent to NGC through him, although if the grade received wasn't high enough, it was cracked out and put in an overgraded acg slab.
z
Particularly delicious is the fact that all this came about at Hagar's initiative, taking it upon herself to stir the moribund ANA in this ACG business. FINALLY the ANA may make some public pronouncement about this company. I fervently hope this is the long overdue beginning of the end for Accugrade.
Great reports. Thanks!!
Here's a warning parable for coin collectors...
Interesting to hear That ACG has their own grading scale similar to, but not based on Sheldon.
Joe
How did they get the e-mails between Stupler and his clients. Possibly through the rewards they offered for negative emails.
There questioning about the MS letters strikes me as odd. The special Accugrade grading system with its own numbers and letters relating to strike etc are only found on ACG photoslabs from the 1984-85 and 99-2000 periods. All of their small size slabs use MS, PF, and the other standard grade abbrieviations as does the last 1985 photoslab.
<< <i>
Interesting to hear That ACG has their own grading scale similar to, but not based on Sheldon.
Joe >>
Joe, although that is not the impression i got, that is an interesting way to put it.
z
<< <i>I was not there but a couple of comments.
How did they get the e-mails between Stupler and his clients. Possibly through the rewards they offered for negative emails.
There questioning about the MS letters strikes me as odd. The special Accugrade grading system with its own numbers and letters relating to strike etc are only found on ACG photoslabs from the 1984-85 and 99-2000 periods. All of their small size slabs use MS, PF, and the other standard grade abbrieviations as does the last 1985 photoslab. >>
Conder
I don't know the answer to number one, but it seems that most, but not all of the slabs put in as evidence were such photoslabs. Do any of the photoslabs contain MS? ( i think one of those presented did).
Mrs. Hagar did admit that the minislabs use the MS designation, although i don't recall her being asked whether they use two different grading methods for the two different slab types. That probably would have been a good question for her.
z
I wonder why they used photoslabs for their exhibits? They are seldom encountered nowadays. And since most of them were produced almost twenty years ago it brings up the possibility that grading standards have changed in the meantime. And we know that even the mighty PCGS has had changing standards over the years. It would seem to me that their argument about misgrading would be stronger if they had used small sized slabs that would not (for most people) be as readily datable by time period.
<< <i>deals with Bob Johnson from Censtles, wherein coins were misgraded on the low side, accepted as payment for services, then reslabbed in higher grades >>
HMM...I wonder if that's why Centsles has switched over to NTC as his garbage slabber of choice, and left ACG behind? Could it be that he saw this coming?
Russ, NCNE
GSAGUY
Thanks for the follow-up Griffin6.
KZA6 and Mark. I'm sure you guys went as volunteers and so I have a handshake and "job well done" for you too.
The fact that there is allegedly a completely different method of grading going on here begs the question, "then why do you insert numbers between the strike/luster designation that correspond so very closely to the sheldon "ms" scale that is utilized by every other professional grading service that has ever existed?"
To me, it begs the question, "if there is a completely different method, then 1) why are you flying the ANA flag but more importantly 2) what is your beef; if there is no comparison between the standards, which I suppose she was trying to allude to, then how can they present themselves as a "competitor" in third party grading; obviously, if their method is so different, they cant be provided the same service. I mean, what is their definition of grading a coin? Putting a meaningless number on it, and then daring anyone to say it's meaningless?
Her presentation on served to confuse me.
I will not be surprised if a series of class action suits may be in the offering by individuals that have losses attributed to misinformed purchase of ACG slabbed coins. This wil ultimately have an impact on the survival of some companies in the certifying business.
All that said much of the problem lies on our (collectors and dealers) shouders. For financial and emotional reasons, we want our coins to be upgraded. Grade inflation is desired for "my" but not "your" coins. Efforts to tighten up on grading ( see threads on PCGS LB grades) are met with strong criticism. I imagine the new PCGS plan to increase the # of graders may decrease the variance in grades but I am not sure about this.
tradedollarnut FOR PRESIDENT, tradedollarnut FOR PRESIDENT, tradedollarnut FOR PRESIDENT
2002. He testified as to various "shady transactions" (his words) that he witnessed while in their employ. These included silver
eagles pulled from rolls and marked on slabs as being from millenium sets, deals with Bob Johnson from Censtles, wherein coins
were misgraded on the low side, accepted as payment for services, then reslabbed in higher grades, and coins marked as from the
Binion collection when in fact they were not, among other such dealings."
There it is folks:the death knell. I would be disappointed if the ANA permits ACG or Ms. Hagar to remain a member of the ANA. They
should be expelled unless John Callendrella can be discredited.
adrian