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New adventure, soliciting ideas for a research project.
DHeath
Posts: 8,472 ✭✭✭
The good folks at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNC University, ironic huh?) have been good enough to admit me to the doctoral program in Information Systems and Operations Management starting this fall with support. I have a few months to be 50% distracted before I begin my new endeavor. I've been toying with the notion of a TPG related research paper. I've got SAS Enterprise Miner and SPSS loaded on the laptop, CITI certification to use the department's servers to host a survey instrument, and a few interesting ideas. I'm thinking it would be fun to examine use of the TPGs contrasting Social Exchange Theory, Diffusion of Innovation theory, and perhaps the Theory of Planned Behavior. It would also be interesting to compare use of PCGS, NGC, and ANACS within those models.
Any ideas (or theoretical frameworks I haven't considered) that you believe might be worth understanding?
Any ideas (or theoretical frameworks I haven't considered) that you believe might be worth understanding?
Developing theory is what we are meant to do as academic researchers
and it sets us apart from practitioners and consultants. Gregor
and it sets us apart from practitioners and consultants. Gregor
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Innovation diffusion seeks to explain the rate at which people adopt new technology. It is an old and well established theory upon which a good deal of research is based. If one could determine where collectors were in the process with regard to adoption of TPG services, could one for example posit what percentage of collectible coins had never been submitted?
and it sets us apart from practitioners and consultants. Gregor
and it sets us apart from practitioners and consultants. Gregor
One thing I always thought would be interesting would be to look at the relationship between pop-tops populations and the pops of the next lower grade, comparing how big the disparity is compared to the price difference. Let's say a coin where the price difference isn't that great has a pop of 150 in 67 and 900 in 66, and none higher than a 67. The value of a 67 is $500 and a 66 is worth $200. That's a 6x difference in pops with a 2.5x difference in value. Another coin has a pop of 20 in 68 and 800 in 67, with none higher than a 68. The value of a 68 is $1500 and a 67 is worth $300. Now you have a 40x difference in pops and a 5x difference in value. Is there any way of using statistical analysis to infer the number of resubmissions in certain cases? If it was possible to conclude how many were resubmissions, could you estimate how many actual coins exist in the grade one lower than the top? And would it be possible to identify if certain coins were undervalued because the estimated number of resubmissions are clouding the pop reports?
I have thought that in many cases, the distribution of grades should be similar across dates/mints within a series (excluding coins only available in mint sets, for one example). So if there is an abnormally large number of coins in grade (top grade - 1) compared to the number in the top grade, then maybe some high-powered analysis could estimate how many of those coins were likely to be resubmissions attempting to get the top grade, and by looking at that compared to values it might point out where some coins are undervalued.
Just some musings for a Sunday afternoon.
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
<< <i>wha??
Innovation diffusion seeks to explain the rate at which people adopt new technology. It is an old and well established theory upon which a good deal of research is based. If one could determine where collectors were in the process with regard to adoption of TPG services, could one for example posit what percentage of collectible coins had never been submitted?
Oh, OK. Now I remember. I studied this stuff in college and I've forgotten every bit of it.
So to answer the question, yeah, it could be interesting. Fun, no, interesting yes.