Submitting Coins for Grading Directly vs. Through a Dealer
NJCoin
Posts: 2,026 ✭✭✭✭✭
Is there typically any advantage (such as it being less expensive) to making a PCGS grading submission through a dealer rather than through the Collectors Club, other than obviously not having to pay a membership fee? I'm thinking of submitting a sealed box of five 25th Anniversary ASE sets for grading, but am kind of choking on the $1,000-$1,500 fee to get tombstone or Mercanti slabs. I figure dealers must receive some sort of discount based on the volumes they submit (it would only seem fair to charge someone submitting hundreds or thousands of coins per year a better rate than someone submitting 25 coins once), and am wondering if they ever pass any of it (assuming it exists) to their customers. If so, that could be a significant reason to go through a dealer. If not, what other reasons might there be to use a dealer as opposed to making a direct submission?
Thanks for any insight as I continue to educate myself with respect to the process.
Thanks for any insight as I continue to educate myself with respect to the process.
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I suggest you join up, get the coupon for free submissions and become a part of the grading process.
"Interest rates, the price of money, are the most important market. And, perversely, they’re the market that’s most manipulated by the Fed." - Doug Casey
Save on shipping IF they are sending a submission in that you can tag along with, and if they pro-rate the shipping fee with you.
To add to those, you save on the yearly fees and the dealer may help save you money by pre-screening some of the coins that a person may submit (usually better for classic coins than just mint flipping coins).
Now, look at the detrimental side, particularly on new flipping items from the mint....
* Most folks are honest (dealers or not) but not all are. How can you guarantee the coins you get back were yours? How can you guarantee you won't wonder that and cause problems with the dealer?
* Modern items sometimes need flipped immediately. Extra time may be involved depending on how organized and quick the dealer is. Some are, some aren't.
I'm sure there are other pros and cons, but I see the above as pretty big ones to think about.
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<< <i>Better rates IF they pass that along to you...they don't have to.
Save on shipping IF they are sending a submission in that you can tag along with, and if they pro-rate the shipping fee with you.
To add to those, you save on the yearly fees and the dealer may help save you money by pre-screening some of the coins that a person may submit (usually better for classic coins than just mint flipping coins).
Now, look at the detrimental side, particularly on new flipping items from the mint....
* Most folks are honest (dealers or not) but not all are. How can you guarantee the coins you get back were yours? How can you guarantee you won't wonder that and cause problems with the dealer?
* Modern items sometimes need flipped immediately. Extra time may be involved depending on how organized and quick the dealer is. Some are, some aren't.
I'm sure there are other pros and cons, but I see the above as pretty big ones to think about. >>
If you fill out the paperwork with the dealer present and you both agree that your coins are line items 1-5 or 1-25 on the submission form [depending on how you want them numbered] then there should be no doubt about which coins were yours when they come back. If I submit 5 sets along with yours, my line items might be 6-10 or 26-50. Since neither of us can inspect our coins we take our chances. Of course if you leave it totally up to the discretion of the dealer then you will always have that element of doubt about whether or not he cherry picked you, but you should get 25 coins back with specific cert numbers or runs of numbers.
I've submitted to NGC FOR A 5 to 20 dollar a year membership, and to ICG, ANACS & CACG for no membership charges. The closest coin dealer to me is about 45 minutes away in light traffic. I would have to reconsider submitting if I had to go through a dealer. I have never sent a coin to have it stickered and that may require a dealer.
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Advantages for a moderns only submission was very fast and simple job to do at home online. If you’re going to see a dealer anyway maybe worth it, but if not home was easy enough.
The rest of the process for non modern coins is convoluted and inefficient.
Yeah. This is a 12 year old necro bump, and I got my answer the hard way when I started calling around.
In the specific case I was asking about, our hosts charged a HUGE premium to retail submitters wanting Mercanti hand signed slabs. It was something like $50 per slab including First Strike, when dealers were paying half that much.
No dealer was willing to let me have it at their price in order to establish a relationship, or to even meet me in the middle. It thus became apparent that the pricing was designed to drive business to the dealers by making it cost prohibitive for retail to submit themselves ($250 per set, with no guarantee what would come back, on top of the cost of the set itself).
Or for the dealer to simply have room to mark up the cost of the submission by 100%. No reason to go through a dealer to merely save the cost of a membership, and maybe some shipping, if I was going to be paying $1,250 to have 5 sets graded either way.
I gave up after a few calls, and submitted 5 sets ATS, at $16 per coin, Early Release included. Because back then NGC did not charge a premium for the attribution, even for retail submitters, although that soon changed. $80 per set vs. $250. Times 5. Total no-brainer.
As a consolation prize, since I did want Mercanti signed labels, I bought 2 69 sets at a very reasonable price.
Post mortem -- for whatever reason, stored in the exact same location, side by side, the PCGS slabs developed spotting while the NGC ones did not. At least I did not pay up for 70s, since both TPGs backed away from guarantees on 70s after post slabbing spotting became a widespread problem right around that time.
Yup. I've come a long way in the past 12 years. Nowadays, unless I need to get something in fast for a First Strike attribution, I hold whatever I have until I hit a major show.
That eliminates any issues with non-moderns, since they are there to help with anything that might arise, it saves one-way shipping, and eliminates any risk of loss in getting the coins to them. My one foray into seeking to benefit from dealer pricing went nowhere. As a result, I never submitted through a dealer, and now never will.
Even though this resurfaced from 2012, the thoughts here are beneficial to me. My struggle with submitting is I assumed I could submit as easily as moderns all in one bulk submission. I was recently trying to submit one coin for reconsideration, five for cross over, and several for grading by following one digital linear process. Impossible apparently. Called some friends and they laughed. “Um yeah you’ll need to print out multiple forms.” No thanks.
I did consider show submission but:
1) I haven’t historically wanted to carry a bunch of extra coins although this may be simpler that printing forms and learning hieroglyphics.
2) I don’t know show submission process but are the representatives and coins protected with security when leaving the show? Armored car? Are they mailed?
I find that show submissions are definitely the way to go. No one bothers you bringing coins INTO a show, since the thieves are basically casing the joint looking for people to hassle on the way out. So I have never worried about security going in.
Security leaving is the TPG's problem, and they have it down to a science with armored carriers, FedEx, whatever, depending on where the show is, etc. No issues at all. They all move lots of volume back to their respective mother ships.
Depending on the show, you might or might not have the option to have the grading done on site, for a pretty large additional fee, in which case you'll be able to take your submission home with you, either in a few hours or a few days.
I have never done that, in which case the fees are exactly the same as sending coins in. Other than you don't pay shipping to place the coins in their hands.
If you submit at a show, do you still have to be a member?
Yes. The only difference is you don't have to worry about shipping to them, they are there to answer questions and help fill out the forms, and, if offered, you can get on site grading.
They'll sell you the membership right there if you don't have one, and, as was mentioned previously, some services like ICG and ANACS don't require memberships. But otherwise, no, submitting at a show is not a workaround to a membership requirement.
Yep- this makes sense, as otherwise no one would bother becoming a member and just do show subs.
As to earlier inquiries about subbing through a member dealer- we stopped being one earlier on once memberships became a thing; we got virtually no requests after that anyway... and the very few that did were simply too cheap to pay up for a membership (despite it essentially paying for itself with free subs- never understood that logic, but...). They wanted us to do it at cost, natch... and despite claims of banking goodwill/becoming regular customers etc. if we did so, we usually didn't see them again- until it was time to sub again, that is. I guess we were supposed to do it just because. Oh well. Daily whine over.
RIP Mom- 1932-2012
I get it. I didn't really understand at first, but I get it. Not wanting to provide a service at cost in the hope of generating good will is any business' prerogative.
OTOH, there is no reason for a customer to put a dealer between themself and the grading service just to save a nominal membership fee. Which is why that business disappeared on you.
Everyone doesn't always need to be paid for every single thing they do. "Usually didn't see them again" is fine. The idea is to hopefully at least see someone again. Being unwilling to make that investment, with no guarantee of a return, is, as I said, anyone's prerogative, but it's not how I built my (non-coin) business.
As I said before, being new off the street, no one had any interest in doing me a favor at cost. It was fine. I went elsewhere, engaged in a little self-service, and, 12 years later, no one gained or lost a red cent doing business with me.
Handle grading submissions for customers or don't. Your call. But trying to turn them into a profit center is a losing proposition nowadays. As you discovered.
Not wanting to be bothered doing them at cost in the hope of generating business leads is another matter entirely that depends on the nature of your clientele, how busy your business is in the first place, etc. If you are busy and making tons of money, no reason to bother. If you have a retail location where you spend the majority of your time staring at the wall and posting here, there is no reason not to do something at cost, in hope of maybe generating even a tiny bit of good will, even if it ends up never resulting in anything for you.
As I said, 12 years ago, no one wanted to anything to do with me unless I was willing to throw them $125 per 5 coin set ($625 in total, on top of the $625 they were going to pay PCGS, probably plus shipping) to fill out a form for me, have FedEx pick up a package, and give me a call when it came back. Nothing in the middle, because doing things for new customers at anything other than list price wasn't a thing.
I passed, and never looked back. It's all good. Apparently no one I reached out to needed me or my possible future business. And it turns out I didn't need them either.
Thx for confirming that you still have to be a member in order to submit at a show. I had assumed that was the case, but I was confused because some seemed to suggest that submitting at a show was an alternative to submitting through a local dealer. If they submit at a show then they need to be a member, and if they're a member they wouldn't need to go through a dealer. 😵💫
You might want to reread my post. We did it at cost when we did do it, and still got little to no extra biz out of it. But it was all essentially moot once memberships became a thing anyway, because most collectors saw that the membership basically paid for itself and went that route.
Edit to add: It's not about "always getting paid for every single thing"... it's about doing work and taking risk with little to no upside.
RIP Mom- 1932-2012
Agree. People forget that handling other people's coins carries risk.
Yep. If something goes bad, who gets the phone call or visit first? Hint...it ain't FedEx.
RIP Mom- 1932-2012
I've always preferred to submit to TPGs myself, and almost always do. It allows you to be in control of everything on your side of things as much as possible.
Of course. That might be why they don't want to get involved at all. Once they are accepting the risk, it then becomes at what price? In my example from 12 years ago, the price was $625. Not $0, in the hope of developing future business. Not $312.50. Not anything in between.
So, they took on no risk, and never received any reward. The coins were sent to NGC, graded, and returned without incident, and the dealers in question never had an opportunity to make anything at all from that submission, from any other submission, or from doing any other business with me. All at absolutely zero risk to them.
Great business model. Again, it was my mistake. I thought there was a lot of room between $625 and $0 to make a deal. I was wrong.
Any protestations about "handling other people's coins carrying risk" aside, I am fairly certain that uninsured losses from coins going to and from a grading service are exceedingly rare. If dealers mishandled customer submissions, and endured loss claims as a result, that would be on them, and is probably a reason to not handle customer submissions at any price, rather than being perfectly willing to do it, but only at a 100% markup .
It seems as though it is now moot, as retail memberships, and dealers being generally unwilling to handle customer submissions without compensation, has killed the submission through dealer business. They don't add value if they will not do it less expensively than the customer can do it themself. And they don't want to do that, because, "risk," so there is no longer a business to speak of.
TPGs and the carriers accept all the risk, and now capture all the revenue. The dealer business now is selling the slabs. Not handling customer submissions.
It's all good. After that one time 12 years ago, I never again asked any dealer about handling any submission for me. I already pay for insurance to cover my risk. Don't need to also pay a dealer to cover the risk they might add to my transaction, allowing them to capture a margin between what a TPG would charge them and what I would be charged for the exact same submission. I can fill out a form and go to UPS, FedEx or the post office myself.
Yup. I didn't know anything when I started the thread 12 years ago. Other than I wanted the special slabs, didn't want to pay $50 for each of 25 of them, and thought I was entitled to a discount.
I was wrong. The minimum for a discount was something like 200 coins, which I didn't have. When I learned what the dealer price was, I thought for sure there was room for them to make some money and for me to get a deal.
Again, I was wrong. So I took my business ATS, and got a much better deal than anything I could have possibly gotten from a dealer with the PCGS slabs. In fact, below dealer pricing for the PCGS slabs, albeit without a Mercanti signature. Which was a unique novelty at the time, but later became so common that it's not really worth anything now anyway.
But, that was then and this is now. Mercanti went ATS, and pricing pretty much converged. Can you imagine being asked to pay $50 per coin today, with a 5 coin minimum, for any modern issue?
And for a "new customer", the problem> @NJCoin said:
There's not zero risk. If the package goes missing, the dealer is stuck with insurance claims etc. What if the insurance claim is denied or the anount lowered? If the newbie submitter is simply unhappy with the results, they might create a ruckus themselves. What if they think the coins were switched out? There are numerous ways it could go wrong. The alleged promise of future business alone may not justify the aggravation.
Personally, i am far more likely to do such favors for people i know rather than fishing for business that might never materialize. With people I know, there is less chance that they are unreasonable if things go wrong.
TOTALLY get it. Not blaming anyone, other than myself. My expectations were too high. They were reset almost immediately, and I proceeded accordingly.
I did not resurrect this 12 year old thread, and I did not complain about my lot in life at the time. I thought there was a deal to be had. There was not, and I immediately moved on.
And, there was no promise of future business. I just thought that would be inferred if things went well and a relationship was established.
In my actual day job, I do favors for people all the time. Usually for nothing other than a thank you in return. But, every once in a while, something lucrative later manifests.
I don't do anything with any expectation of anything in return. People who do so are inevitably disappointed. But not making any effort to develop business will also inevitably result in less business being developed. YMMV.
I'm not a coin dealer, but we all have risk in everything we do. It goes with the territory of whatever business we happen to be in. Again, I totally respect not wanting to get involved with a newbie. OTOH, that limits future prospects as existing customers age.
All correct, but I suppose if there is a dealer at the show with whom one has a relationship, the dealer might be willing to join you In submitting at the show using his membership since as noted above the paperwork can be assisted with by the entity to whom one is submitting the coins for grading, leaving the dealer with little or no work required.
I prefer submitting myself. I have complete control of my coin and I’m not dependent on another person or party.
Sure. But, in my experience, that's not the way it works in practice. In practice, dealers are not going to march up to a TPG booth with a customer in tow, and deny the TPG a membership sale right in front of them.
And, as @jmlanzaf pointed out, the dealer still has risk through being attached to the transaction until the slab is safely back in the customer's hands. The bottom line is that the business has changed over the past decade or so.
Once upon a time, retail memberships either weren't a thing at all, or were more limited and more expensive. Dealers were a popular way for retail to get coins graded, and dealers used it as a profit center, marking up their cost to the retail price charged by the TPGs.
Over time, the TPGs decided to capture this business for themselves. The cost of a retail membership came down significantly, to effectively zero for customers willing to give them as few as 4-8 coins per year to grade, due to grading vouchers provided with various levels of membership. As a result, a dealer taking a retail customer to a TPG booth at a coin show to help the customer avoid the cost of a TPG membership really is no a thing in 2024.
Color me somewhat unconvinced that you're not still at least a wee bit miffed about what happened 12 years ago.
Seems to me you feel on some level that someone who doesn't always want to do someone a favor gratis or negotiate a fee is somehow a bad businessman. I do favors all the time without expectation of something in return but by the same token my time also has value and when warranted I charge for it. Were I the other guy in your scenario, and had been asking a fee, it obviously wouldn't have been anywhere near that high as the task didn't warrant the fee level... but had I set a fee it likely wouldn't have been negotiable, as I would have set it based on my assessment of time spent on the task. I obviously wasn't there but based on what you were quoted perhaps the guy was telling you without telling you that he didn't want to mess with it for whatever reason. Who knows?
RIP Mom- 1932-2012
Whatever. Not really my job to convince you.
I'd just point out that it's a 12 year old thread with a very clear audit trail. I only made one post about it 12 years ago, never complained about the outcome, and got on with my life.
Now, 12 years later, I'm only recapping what happened after someone else resurrected the thread. And, after going back and looking at my OP, it appears that I had the numbers wrong, and they were even more egregious.
It seems as though there were 2 flavors of slab offered -- one for $40 each, or $200 for a set of 5, and the one with the Mercanti signature for $60 each, or $300 for the set of 5. Times 5 sets that I was looking to get slabbed.
Not miffed at all. As I said, I got them slabbed ATS for $400 for all 25, plus shipping back and forth.
Not only not miffed, but totally dodged a bullet. I bought 2 PCGS 69 sets because I wanted the Mercanti signature. Almost all 10 coins developed spotting. None of the 25 NGC coins did.
Don't know why, not casting blame. Never complained, no longer care. But it turns out that I not only saved $1100, but I also probably saved 25 coins from spotting. About half of which turned out to be 70s. I'm good.
And, as I said, I learned a little about how that piece of the business worked. Dealers want to get paid, even for exerting very little effort, and are leery of newbies. Duly noted. As I said, my expectations were too high, and I adjusted.
You can think what you want, based on how opinionated I am now about certain things, but I never tried to tell a dealer how to run their business. Not then, not now.
I asked a few questions, got answers I didn't like, and moved on. No reason to be miffed, because I saved a lot of money and made out fine.
For the record, one dealer flat out did say they didn't want to handle it. Everyone else was quite eager to handle it, but only at full price.
The issue wasn't so much risk because I was a newbie. It was more that they owed me nothing as a newbie, the price was the price, and they were in business to get paid. Not to do favors for strangers, or to even split the difference on a $1500 transaction with $750 of markup for them.
PCGS gave them a discount to allow them to make money. Not to have them rebate the difference back to the public. Got it and moved on. Not my place to tell anyone how to do business.
Not the way I would do business, which is why my expectations were too high in the first place. But, then again, I'm not a coin dealer. As I said, I lived and I learned.
Not sure why you would infer that I simply had to be at least a little miffed. Absolutely no reason to be, under the circumstances. And nothing in my post history regarding this, then or now, to indicate otherwise.
But, again, think whatever you want. Not my job to convince you, and my life is exactly the same no matter what you think.
@NJCoin
I think all your points are well made and I agree with you. I’d never run a business like the decisions that were made twelve years ago…. clearly greedy back then but as we know markets are efficient and business end up self correcting or not making it.
The coin dealer Harry Labstein used to offer a discounted PCGS-NGC rate but not anymore? Does any dealer offer a discounted rate currently
https://hlrc.com/pages/grading-services
Thank you for saying that. And, you are correct. The TPGs finally realized there was no reason to put dealers between themselves and their retail customers, allowing dealers to capture the margin between dealer and retail grading fees.
So they made it very easy and very inexpensive for retail to become members, and the dealer submission business for retail, other than auction houses sending raw coins in for grading prior to listing them, is pretty much a thing of the past.
I was only looking for a deal at the time because I had a specific use case, with a very high fee that I thought left room for everyone to be happy. Dealers were just not conditioned to offering deals, particularly to new customers, so my effort went nowhere.
No one knew it at the time, but the business was soon to move away from the dealers. No one has ever again offered a $60 retail slab for a modern. And, as I said in another thread, NGC recently offered me the same $8 per coin bulk modern price they offer any modern bulk submitter (I'm sure the REALLY Big Boys pay even less) if I had 100 Morgan and/or Peace Dollars to give them last year. With no charge for anything not grading 70 if I didn't want them slabbed.
So yeah, whatever else has happened to the business, dealers marking up TPG submissions for customers isn't really a thing anymore. Either they offer it as a service for customers at or near their dealer cost, or customers don't go through them.
Not that I am aware of. But, as I said, I asked once, 12 years ago, was shut down, by everyone I approached, and never asked again.
The link you posted represents retail pricing. It's so easy and cheap to just become a member that I can't imagine why anyone would want to go through HLRC at the same price, just because their system is supposedly "efficient and accurate."
So is mine. I bubble wrap my coins, stick them in a recycled Amazon box, seal the box up and bring it to the post office. Whenever I want. Or, as I said before, if I can wait, I wait for a major show and physically hand them to a TPG to avoid the risk of loss and cost associated with shipping. I now have relationships with most of them.