Has pcgs's standards on grading Lincoln Memorial Cents changed in the last year or two?
haletj
Posts: 2,192 ✭
in Q & A Forum
Are any of these coins correctly graded?
1960 small date Several ticks on the portrait.
1971-s Ticks right on the steps.
1973 poorly struck steps
1978-d marks on Lincoln's head
1981-d muted, tick on steps
1997 spot right obv field
Coins of this quality is not the minority of Lincoln Memorials graded ms67rd by pcgs, but the majority. I've also seen scans of some of the coins from one of the finest known collections, with some coins being no better, and each of the 4 (and only 4) pcgs ms67rd Lincolns I have personally bought in auction, have been no better (a 74-s with 4 ticks clearly visible in the field, a 78 and 80 that should have been no better than ms65, and an 82-d with large hits on each side). I have an impossible time trying to find ones on the market that I feel are correctly graded.
Only a miniscule number of new ms67rd Lincolns from the 1960's or mintmarked 1970's have been graded in the last year, and as it is only a handful of people submitting these, I know each time who "made" the coin. All the new ones I have to say are stunners, absolutely terrific coins. I aplaud pcgs for being consistent now, but what about all the other ones out there? Is pcgs doing anything about trying to take these off the market? Either these coins are overgraded, and people are paying a ton of money for common coins, or pcgs is now undergrading a lot of coins, which of course is not fair to those doing the hard work of finding these.
Thanks for the moment of your time!
Jaime
1960 small date Several ticks on the portrait.
1971-s Ticks right on the steps.
1973 poorly struck steps
1978-d marks on Lincoln's head
1981-d muted, tick on steps
1997 spot right obv field
Coins of this quality is not the minority of Lincoln Memorials graded ms67rd by pcgs, but the majority. I've also seen scans of some of the coins from one of the finest known collections, with some coins being no better, and each of the 4 (and only 4) pcgs ms67rd Lincolns I have personally bought in auction, have been no better (a 74-s with 4 ticks clearly visible in the field, a 78 and 80 that should have been no better than ms65, and an 82-d with large hits on each side). I have an impossible time trying to find ones on the market that I feel are correctly graded.
Only a miniscule number of new ms67rd Lincolns from the 1960's or mintmarked 1970's have been graded in the last year, and as it is only a handful of people submitting these, I know each time who "made" the coin. All the new ones I have to say are stunners, absolutely terrific coins. I aplaud pcgs for being consistent now, but what about all the other ones out there? Is pcgs doing anything about trying to take these off the market? Either these coins are overgraded, and people are paying a ton of money for common coins, or pcgs is now undergrading a lot of coins, which of course is not fair to those doing the hard work of finding these.
Thanks for the moment of your time!
Jaime
0
Comments
Jaime,
Impossible to grade a coin from a scan, so I really can't comment on your examples.
I do not believe PCGS has changed standards. However, I obviously haven't seen very many modern Lincolns that we've graded. If you have a coin that you think is over-graded, use our guarantee resubmission service and if there's a problem we'll take care of it on the basis of our grading guarantee.
Thanks,
David