A public retraction regarding MS70/PR70 coins.
solid
Posts: 2,975
In this thread, entitled "PR-70DCAM's. Are you paying for MACHONESS?",
I made the following comment:
In a blind test, I don't think anyone alive could consistently pick out
the MS70/PR70 amongst a similar group of nine handpicked 69's.
Nobody responded directly to the comment, nor have I received any
PM's regarding it, but yet it has bugged me for some reason.
So, I'd like to change my official position to the following:
As with any specialty in this business, those people who deal with these
coins day in and day out become very adept at what they do. I'm guessing
that a number of talented people could indeed consistantly pick out a lone
PCGS MS70/PR70 hidden amongst a similar group of nine handpicked 69's.
On the other hand, I'm thinking that it is tremendously more difficult for
those individuals to select the same MS70/PR70 quality coins from raw
proof/mint sets AND get PCGS to agree with their assessment and slab
them as such.
Thanks for reading - I feel better now!
Ken
I made the following comment:
In a blind test, I don't think anyone alive could consistently pick out
the MS70/PR70 amongst a similar group of nine handpicked 69's.
Nobody responded directly to the comment, nor have I received any
PM's regarding it, but yet it has bugged me for some reason.
So, I'd like to change my official position to the following:
As with any specialty in this business, those people who deal with these
coins day in and day out become very adept at what they do. I'm guessing
that a number of talented people could indeed consistantly pick out a lone
PCGS MS70/PR70 hidden amongst a similar group of nine handpicked 69's.
On the other hand, I'm thinking that it is tremendously more difficult for
those individuals to select the same MS70/PR70 quality coins from raw
proof/mint sets AND get PCGS to agree with their assessment and slab
them as such.
Thanks for reading - I feel better now!
Ken
0
Comments
I once thought the same as you -- until I bought several PCGS PR70DCAMs and then I thought differently. While the difference is not great, it is there. Though I'm not sure it warrants a huge price increase, some higher pop PCGS PR70 are now more affordable. A PR69 for $25 and a PR70 for $400+ is too great a difference in price to without a big difference in quality. But when the price of a PR70 drops to $125-$150 I think it is a decent value, especially if you are "playing the registry game."
Otherwise I would still chose a PR69+ for my sets and save the $ for other coins.
I think that even the best graders would have a hard time submitting 10 coins cherrypicked from hundreds of sets to receive more than 1 or 2 PR70DCAMs.
The grading gods would have to be smiling to do any better than that.
TPN
between most groups of coins only one grade apart. But a group of PR-70's will average
one grade higher than a group of PR-69's.
If there were any MS-70's in mint sets there would, no doubt, be a much easier job of diff-
erentiating them from MS-69's because the range of quality in MS examples is far wider.
The services do market grade and it is the market which defines the width and level of the
grades. Professionals are far more adept at spotting these differences than the average
market participant. For a coin to grade very high it must exhibit among the finest attributes
across all of the grading parameters for the date. To grade MS or PR-70 it must be near per-
fect in all the parameters.