Question on changes in certified grades

bbfirebird

I'm kind of new to collecting, so forgive me if this is a dumb question...

I was reading Q. David Bowers' book, Guide to Collecting and Investing in Rare Coins, and there was something interesting that I noticed. I was reading about the history of a certain 1804 Silver Dollar, I believe it was called the "Smith specimen" or something like that. In the late 80's, early 90's, it was certified by PCGS as EF45. Then in the late 90's, it was recertified (again by PCGS) as AU58.

I realize that grading is subjective, and that PCGS was known to be "stingier" in grading in the early years. However, I thought this was more in the mint state categories (a 1987 MS63 might be an MS65 now, etc). But going from an EF45 to an AU58 seems like quite a jump to me. Do TPGs sort of "go easy" on extremely rare coins? I would find it hard to imagine, say, a 1964 Washington Quarter going from an EF45 slab to an AU58 slab.

Second question, if they do grade easier on famous/rare coins, do you think that undermines the entire system?

I don't mean this as a knock against PCGS or any other TPG, I'm just curious (like I said, I'm new to the game).

eCoinquest

It seems that the excessively rare coins tend to go "slab hopping" very often between the grading services as each one wants the publicity and recognition for slabbing that rare coin. This leads to each service raising the grade by a point or more as to tempt the owner to switch services. This is just my opinion but it is what appears to be happening.
This could be the case for the coin you are referring to. Another possibility is it was extremely undergraded in the first place.

scottgardener

Some of the bias might be the sheer astonishment of the grader. Imagine if you sat down at your desk to go through some hundred coins to grade for the morning, and as you reach for one, you see it's, say, a Liberty "V" nickel. You read the date, and it's 1913. And, with a pretty exhaustive close analysis, it's authentic. While you're grading it, there must be a certain feeling of heebee-jeebees, at once getting to hold a multi-million dollar coin, the awe of meeting it in person and getting to be part of the coin's history. As you cautiously set it down, someone's pocket change slips onto the floor with a "chink!" followed by a spinning roll, and the next thing you remember involves an EMT and a paramedic. One may be used to downgrading, choosing MS63 over MS64 on coins worth thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars in difference, but in this case, the grade either could represent a million dollar difference, or possibly no impact at all, because of the sheer nature of these numismatic rock stars. None-the-less, the grading bias in an effort to court bragging rights in your population report is pretty plausible as well.

Stooge

Here are a couple of things that I know or heard.

Over the years, NGC and PCGS have actually "Learned" how to grade these coins over the years. They don't get to see them that often and they learn to grade them over time. I don't buy it that much but there you go. Also I think PCGS has seen just about every coin that is out there and I don't believe that there now is a single coin that makes a grader go WOW.

I heard that the last coin to really get David Hall's heart pounding was the 1794 Silver dollar, known as the Contoursi(sp) specimen. This coin is documented as the first silver dollar struck by the U.S. Mint.

Later, Paul.