PCI

Franklin

PCI, one of the lowest rated(poor) grading services in the industry seems to have done a complete turn around. I assume that most people on this forum send their coins to PCGS or NGC, however it seems that PCI has suddenly become much more stringent. I sent a bunch of coins to them that were correctly graded according to ANA standards. This is the second time this month that I have noticed a drastic change in their grading. I think they will lose most of their customers if they start to grade on par with PCGS or NGC. Why would anyone want to use their service if they could obtain the same grade at PCGS or NGC. PCGS or NGC certified coins would be worth multiple times more than coins from PCI. Has anyone else ever used PCI recently and noticed this drastic change? Thanks.

cdwegner

Once a company has a bad reputation and poorly graded coins on the market, how can they change??? It seems impossible.

Myqqy

My guess would be that folks around these parts would have little motivation to test PCI's current grading prowess. There's no faith in their standards, and no financial incentive to have high quality coins in holders that are routinely shunned by buyers.

Bubblehead

If anyone here has tried to find a PCGS 1971-S Roosevelt, in PR69DC
at a reasonable price, you'll know why I recently, out of desperation,
bid on, and won, two of them, in PCI slabs. They arrived, and I am flabbergasted! They look very good. I believe they have a more than 50/50 chance at a cross. Of course, I will send them in raw, tho.
Oh, and I paid $7.99 each.....

boz

Goooood luck

JohnZ

Trying to build trust among serious numismatists?

I don't know if this report is true, but what other reason could a lower tier TPG have for becoming better?

GAT

There's an odor here that seems to be coming from the sewer.

ccex

<< <i>Once a company has a bad reputation and poorly graded coins on the market, how can they change??? It seems impossible. >>



There have been several PCIs. Some of the best bargains in slabbed coins are in early PCI green-label slabs, from when they employed competent graders and were at least as tough as ANACS, if not NGC or PCGS. Like ANACS, PCI would slab problem coins (if authentic)in slabs with a red border. When PCI changed ownership 2 or 3 years ago, they soon changed their slabs from a green to a gold border and loosened grading standards considerably. You can see different generations of PCI slabs thanks to K6AZ.

About 2 years ago, many former Accugrade dealers started peddling the new PCI gold label slabs, since ACGs grading was by then well known, and PCI still had an aura of respectability from their early days. Word soon got out about PCI's liberal grading and "close enough is good enough" authentication. I have considered PCI recently to be just another regular advertiser in Coin World, along with ACG, New Mistrust, and Ken Pines Coast to Coast Cons [typo unintentional, but I'll keep it!].

About a year ago there was a lengthy thread on RCC when a specialist in 1856 Flying Eagle cents spotted a counterfeit in a PCI gold-label slab and PCI management would not refund the buyer.

Six months ago, I bought a raw key date EF Barber Dime on eBay from someone who told me later that he was a PCI grader in late 2002. He didn't last long, since he got tired of both submitters and management telling him frequently that most proof coins from 1990 and later were 69 with about 20% of them grading 70. He advertised that Barber Dime as EF-40 but said that PCI submitters would have requested an AU-50 grade, and that his former employer would not have protested the submitter's requested grade.

I hope that PCI realizes their reputation has been egested and flushed down the crapper recently. If their management has recently decided to grade carefully again, more power to them.

It is not impossible for PCI to improve their reputation. If the current management is serious about garnering respectability, they need to 1) Grade similar to PCGS, 2) Authenticate and list varieities similar to ANACS, 3) Keep their relatively inexpensive slabbing fees, 3) Make another change in the font, serial numbers, and the colors on the labesl of their slabs so that gold-label PCI means "graded from a bottom-feeder company" 4) Hire knowledgeable authenticators and reject counterfeits, 5) Demonstrate that their currently graded coins have a decent crossover rate at PCGS or NGC.
6) Offer a better guarantee against a counterfeit coin ending up in a PCI slab.

No condition is permanent, and I wish PCI the best of luck, in case these recent reports of tighter grading are true.

Gonfunko

I have noticed improvement to some degree. Recently, my father submitted several Lincolns to test them out, and nearly every single one of them came back red labeled cleaned. They weren't obviously cleaned, (As in polished-with-a-pencil-eraser) and did in fact look quite original in many cases. 2 or 3 even came out of ANACS holders, and although ANACS isn't always right, that many was surprising! The numerical grade of many of the ANACS ones came down 2 or 3 points as well. One even went from an ANACS MS-62 RB to a PCI Cleaned MS-60 Brown! Maybe they are starting to get their act together.

FatMan

Not a fan of PCI. However, with that said I did mention in my GNA show report that I was surprised that I did not see a large quantity of questionable AT Morgans in PCI slabs. In fact most of what I saw seemed market acceptable. Although I doubt a grading company can redeem itself when thousands of improperly graded coins already rest in thier slabs, I do applaud them if they are really giving it a shot.

TheLiberator

Well I just cracked out a gold label washington quarter that was in a pci 65 that came back ngc 64. On the other hand, I sent in a seated liberty dollar dollar from one of their original photo holders marked vf 35 and it came back ngc xf 40! Seems like golks are right baout their early grading vs today.