PCGS's Gaurantee

TAClough

Dear Mr. David Hall,

There is a thread on the Registry Forum, "Who Should Pay". Within this thread, it is being suggested that there is a Mechanical Error Exception to the Gaurantee of PCGS. I would like to get your opinion, so to say "from the horses mouth" about the gaurantee of PCGS. Would you please state what the PCGS Gaurantee is? And commit on the following hypothetical scenerio:

1. I bought a 1966 Kennedy graded MS- 66 by PCGS from you (Wondercoin) for $250.
2. Six months later, I happen to go to a coin show and a few dealers look at the coin and tell me that it is a SMS (SMS is not on the label).
3. I go over to the PCGS booth, and they comfirm that it is a SMS.
4. After I get home, I contact you (Wondercoin) about the discrepancy, and you tell me that you would like to help but your company has a policy on returns must be before 15 days.

Am I stuck with these coin, (a $25 coin in a $250 holder) and has PCGS no liability here?

I have used the following example when expaining my veiw point and understand, would you please tell me where I'm wrong:



<< <i>What is the point of getting or buying a coin certified by PCGS? When I buy a PCGS coin, yes I’m buying the coin first, but I’m also buying the plastic (or better said, I’m buying the guarantee that comes with the plastic). I’ve heard / read too many war stories of someone buying a raw coin and then later finding out that the coin was altered, cleaned, a counterfeit, whizzed, or artificially toned. A lot of people don’t have a neighborhood coin store, and the closest store could be several hundred miles away. Today with mail order and the internet, it is easier and not uncommon to be on the east coast and buy a coin on the west coast then going to the nearest coin store. The reason, I thought PCGS got started was so a person could buy a coin sight unseen and have an assurance that the coin was guaranteed to being genuine, properly graded and was exactly what the label was purporting it to be (I understand that grading the condition of the coin is not an exact science. But if I bought a coin certified by PCGS sight unseen and it was purporting to be a 1998-S Kennedy SMS in MS69 on the label, and when I received the coin in the mail it had the label mentioned but it was a PR69DCAM – I would be pissed. If the seller refused to take the coin back, not only would I stop doing all business with that person but I would expect PCGS to honor its guarantee and make me whole). >>



Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Timothy A. Clough

homerunhall

Hi Timothy,

The PCGS covers our grading mistakes. It sounds as if the coin you bought was a mistake on our part. Send the coin to me and we'll take care of it.

The grading guarantee doesn't cover obvious clerical (mechanical) errors. So for example, if the coin was an 1857 Flying Eagle, but the holfer said 1856, that's an obvious mechanical error. Our grading guarantee doesn't cover that and in fact we feel anyone that would sell an obviously dated 1857 Flying Eagle as an 1856 Flying Eagle is committing fraud.

Thanks,

David