Which TPG companies are blind to the submitter?

ccex

Tonight I read a long thread about a PCGS 65 Morgan submitted twice by a collector only to be returned in the same grade. Some posters in that thread explained its eventual PCGS 67 grade by guessing that the same coin was submitted by a dealer with an inside connection to PCGS, or submitted to someone with enough knowledge about PCGS so that it would be graded when a more generous team of graders was on duty.

Last month, I purchased a few coins from a favorite dealer in Tennessee. One was a CC Seated Quarter in a new PCI slab. The dealer explained that he purchased it from a local collector who submitted it to PCI. If the same coin had been submitted by a dealer well known to PCI who requested a higher grade, it would have graded higher, according to my dealer/friend.

My dealer/friend also believes that, recently, SEGS can be just as bad as PCI with "gimme grades" from certain submitters.

An eBay seller who sold me some better grade circulated Barbers told me that he was a PCI grader for only two months. He got tired of submitters telling him that an average coin from a post-1985 proof set was PR-69 and that theirs were better than average, so they should get a 70.

Most of us here have read about ACG taking a few extra dollars from the submitter to ensure a particular grade. ACG is not the only service to give the customer the grades they want.

Is there a third party grading service who will grade similarly for their biggest submitters or owners as for an anonymous collector sending in two or three coins? I have submitted only to ANACS, so I can't compare TPGs with personal experience. Perhaps someone else here can.

Bear

All things are a game.

traderdave

I submit coins to good old ANACS to, but I think that the system set up by ICG is the best. They have their grading kind of farmed out at a seperate place and then sent over to the office where your info is held for encapsulation. They also teach grading at ANA courses held once a year in Colorado and the lead graders came from the earlier days of PCGS. Thats the good part. They are desperate to be recognzed as a top of the line, conservative grading Co. and they are doing the same thing as PCGS did to get there-- offering to buy back any coins proven to be overgraded. In order to do that they of course must tend to undergrade--to be safe-- at your expense, of course. They have recently been accepted to sell product encapsulated by ICG with Teletrade, and their coins get higher prices than the uncertain PCGS, but they are undergraded to do that, of course. I believe they are also driving the harsher grading for copper coins this year.
That's my opinion. The old game thrives, doesn't it?

Bear

Its the nature of the beast. All TPG Companies

are deaf, dumb and BLIND.

ccex

<< <i>Its the nature of the beast. All TPG Companies

are deaf, dumb and BLIND. >>



Yes, but some are dumber than others, or more deaf to questions unless the submitter pays an additional fee.

Cratylus

Based on my personal conversations with dealers and my own opinions to help explain away the numerous overgraded coins that reside in slabs, I think the propensity to give better grades to favored submitters goes on almost everywhere. I am not a fan of slabs by any means, but if I did want my coins to be given EQUAL consideration for a fair and accurate grade, I have to agree with TraderDave and say that I would choose ICG. Sorry, PCGS.

mintluster

ICG