What may be a serious Booster shot for World coins

NumbersUsacom

Did everyone watch the Don Willis video on the pcgs site or is this old news to most.

TwoKopeiki

Haven't seen it yet and currently at work - is this about expanding into Asia?

NumbersUsacom

Yes, and an update on the Paris branch success; coins comming in from surounding euro countries picking up quickly

FilthyBroke

Yeah, that video just doesn't instill much confidence in me that they have a full grasp on the world coin market.

Has anyone here submitted through the Paris office? How was your experience? I'm curious how their grading and attributions measure up to expectations.

SYRACUSIAN

<< <i>Yeah, that video just doesn't instill much confidence in me that they have a full grasp on the world coin market.

Has anyone here submitted through the Paris office? How was your experience? I'm curious how their grading and attributions measure up to expectations. >>




I have, several times. I find the Paris office grading very expensive (starting from 25 that increased to 35 euros for economy since 1/1/12 ,all included, and upwards for more expensive Tiers), and extremely inconsistent. For the first 6-8 months, the Paris office was flying in the graders from Newport Beach for a monthly weeklong grading return trip to Paris. I think that the very long flying hours followed by immediate endless hours of grading, in order to grade everything submitted until they leave, made for super turnaround times (2-3 weeks regardless of the Tier), but also very inconsistent grading, that resulted in some serious changes in the pop reports of the Euro countries.

They also flew in the TrueView photographer once, because a local photographer that they had hired wasn't ready to take TrueView quality shots. You will not find his images of the coins that he shot, if you look them up by certification number, because PCGS refuses to upload them and rightly so.

At some point, around fall 2011, PCGS Paris hired 3 European graders and only flew in the finalizer, but I'm not sure how this worked out either, especially if recently they decided to fly in the US graders again. For whoever wants to work to PCGS, ANA's grading, advanced grading, counterfeit detection ,a few other ANA courses and an in house speedy seminar are essential. Participation with relative success to the World Grading Series would have to be a high point in someone's CV. The organization part isn't that great either yet, simply because PCGS wasn't willing to invest big from the start in human resources in their new office. By now, they should have enough data of the volume that they will be handling to adjust a few anomalies.

Overall IMO, it's a good alternative for 4 and 5 figure coins, whose owners don't want them to make the Transatlantic trip. Otherwise, the pricing of their services is totally incoherent with Europe's credit and cash flow problem and they won't be getting competition from NGC who opened an office in Geneva, Switzerland, and hence will not be benefiting from the EU treaties. They will however face competition from traditional submitters such as myself who will always prefer to submit my coins directly to the US, because consistent grading and reasonable pricing are much more important to me than turnaround times.

FilthyBroke

Syracusian - thanks for your response. I agree completely with you that consistency and accuracy is the most important thing here, not turnaround. I just don't hear great things coming from their venture into world coins yet. I hope they can pull it together and settle in. It's a huge undertaking, one that they need to enter strongly and with determination.

That video just doesn't instill confidence in me that they're entering the world coin market as established and experienced.

MrEureka

I just don't hear great things coming from their venture into world coins yet.

I don't get it. Didn't PCGS start grading world coins something like 20 years ago?

coinkat

At least twenty years and so did NGC and as well as ANACs

7Jaguars

I support PCGS and generally like them, though must say after recently viewing a large run of rare Victoria-George VI copper through gold Brit coins felt IMO that the grading was quite inconsistent with a range, again IMO, of 1-2 points and sometimes a bit more in the unc./proof grades with occ loss of detail refinement in varieties, etc.
My own experience is somewhat reflective of that as well.

Perhaps the increase in demand will increase quality as one might suspect....

As an example, I looked at the matte proof 1951 half crown posted on these boards some while ago and graded by the hosts as "61" - no way that it is less than a "64". What makes this more relevant is that Goldberg is soon to have a matte set for this year up with some of the mattes [I understand] graded up to 66 - I wonder how they compare side to side and if the halfcrown would be in appearance 5 points better?


Another importance is that at least with the Brits is that they already dislike slabs, so accuracy and reproducibility are and will be crucial.