ET visits PCGS and NGC.......or........extra-technical grading with Mint State coins.
keets
Posts: 25,351 ✭✭✭✭✭
I've always thought of a technical grade as judging a coin strictly on it's merits and absent anything else which might influence the final number we see on an insert. I'm a realist, though, so I understand that line of thinking to be a fantasy for the most part. To that end it ocurred to me the other day at work that each of the major grading services tend to be influenced to a certain degree by one or more aspects of a coin, what I internalize as Market Grading(I may be right/wrong with this line of thinking, but remember, it's my thread so I get to start out with my definitions. You get to tell me I'm right or wrong and why.
) Speaking solely of PCGS and NGC I've noticed two things:
---doesn't it seem that PCGS is more influenced by cartwheel luster on a brilliant coin or strong underlying luster on a moderately toned coin??
---doesn't it seem like NGC is more willing to grade a toned coin and grade it higher??
What would ET say if he visited each grading room and would he feel compelled to "phone home" from one or both?? I can just imagine that finger flashing in Sarasota as he sees all the colored little disks!!! But I can also see him getting excited in Newport Beach because he thinks the MotherShip is about to land!!! What a dilemma, brilliance or color, color or brilliance..................and grades. Sometimes I think the last bastion of purely technical grading recently gave up the ghost and headed south, literally, arriving in Dallas in the last couple of months. ANACS, so despised by many and caught in the middle of a slab re-design campaign that hasn't really gone well, seemed to me to be a rather staunch adherent to ANA standards of grading. They have more coins which don't really overwhelm but they tend to be "right" for where they are.
Could it be that as a whole we've been convinced that PCGS really knows how to grade and the also-rans sometimes get it right, so we always judge by the PCGS flagship standard?? Very confusing, too confusing for me sometimes. Of course there's always good 'ol ACG who managed to set their own mark and graded to their own personalized standard(at least they admitted it, right??) Full disclosure has to count for something. So who's right in the end and who really knows how to grade are the questions I want answered. Please help.
Al H.
) Speaking solely of PCGS and NGC I've noticed two things:---doesn't it seem that PCGS is more influenced by cartwheel luster on a brilliant coin or strong underlying luster on a moderately toned coin??
---doesn't it seem like NGC is more willing to grade a toned coin and grade it higher??
What would ET say if he visited each grading room and would he feel compelled to "phone home" from one or both?? I can just imagine that finger flashing in Sarasota as he sees all the colored little disks!!! But I can also see him getting excited in Newport Beach because he thinks the MotherShip is about to land!!! What a dilemma, brilliance or color, color or brilliance..................and grades. Sometimes I think the last bastion of purely technical grading recently gave up the ghost and headed south, literally, arriving in Dallas in the last couple of months. ANACS, so despised by many and caught in the middle of a slab re-design campaign that hasn't really gone well, seemed to me to be a rather staunch adherent to ANA standards of grading. They have more coins which don't really overwhelm but they tend to be "right" for where they are.
Could it be that as a whole we've been convinced that PCGS really knows how to grade and the also-rans sometimes get it right, so we always judge by the PCGS flagship standard?? Very confusing, too confusing for me sometimes. Of course there's always good 'ol ACG who managed to set their own mark and graded to their own personalized standard(at least they admitted it, right??) Full disclosure has to count for something. So who's right in the end and who really knows how to grade are the questions I want answered. Please help.
Al H.
0
Comments
Check out my current listings: https://ebay.com/sch/khunt/m.html?_ipg=200&_sop=12&_rdc=1