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Effect of service level, price, on grading results
logger7
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Has anyone seen a variation in grading results based on the level selected? I have heard for years that you get a better result if you spend more money, which is doubtful based on a company's reputation. On the other hand if I were a company that was paid more for a service I would do my best to give the customer better service in whatever way that would translate.
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I don't think this is a reality
Latin American Collection
Any evidence of this that may be presented here in an attempt to support or refute the idea that service level affects grade will be purely anecdotal. It would take far more than a coin or two in a few scattered submissions to demonstrate any correlation there.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
One of my best upgrades was early on when I submitted through the ANA. However on direct submissions later, attempts to crossover high value non P/N coins at walkthrough levels were never successful. Ultimately it would depend on the finalizer?
Crossover vs. raw submission is a different comparison. Graders will never give the benefit of the doubt if the coin is in any way obscured by the current holder. This is well known, and pretty much a policy that TPGs advise their customers of.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Trying to figure this out........So, a batch of two hundred packages arrives on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. etc etc/ Each package has an average of 5 coins. That's 5,000 coins this week. They get sorted and sent to grading. A little elf (yes it's the season) follows each coin and when it's time to get graded he taps the grader on the shoulder and says "hey bud, this guy is 5 star" and then the elf follows the coin to the next grader and does the same "hey fella, be good this guy is one of our best", then on to the finalizer and the elf whispers in his ear "go along with the other two, good guy here".
Yep, since the graders have but mere seconds to determine grade they certainly need elves to help out since they have no idea who submitted the coins. This is doable for sure.
Oh, and happy new year all!!
bob
Or you have a run of 50 coins that are same type, i.e. BU gold. Actually I think grading tries to give at least one or two encouraging results on submissions. I see far too many on the shared orders page that wasted their money. Maybe one is more likely to get a plus on the higher tier? If there is guilt by association there is also associational positive effects, i.e. gemmy coins tend to give the impression the submitter knows what they're doing.
From word of mouth, I have heard that it is worth spending the money on a higher tier for coins that aren't just run of the mill U.S. coins because submitting into a higher tier should yield more senior and experienced graders who would have experience in all of the different areas a TPG would certify, thus you wouldn't have to submit a coin a few times in a lower tier trying to get it into the holder it "should" be in.
Andrew Blinkiewicz-Heritage
The 10 highest value coins in my registry were submitted under the following submission types:
Registry Free
Economy
Modern
Registry Free
Economy
Modern
Economy
Economy
Economy
Economy
That being said, it looks like the Registry submission may have received preference, but that's not the case IMHO, those two coins were just received in the last month and I don't doubt they would have received the same grades under the Economy tier, as they are simply great coins.
In addition, the highest value coins that I've had graded and sold (thus no longer in my registry set) were submitted under the Modern and Economy tiers as well.
Your results may vary.
I think the more expensive tiers are used more when a dealer got the coin on a rip.
That elf helps in other ways to.
Or the little bit of guilt the dealer has (at least in the beginning) is assuaged by a big charitable gift to one of the numismatic Santas.
This should answer your question. Over the years, a few of the horses told me the same thing. You can also bet that many significant coins from major collections going to auction are "seen" by the owners of the TPGS.
My understanding is that coins come to the grading room in trays which have the individual coins numbered but the tier that any given coin was submitted under is anonymous. Trays can be a mix of a number of tiers. The coins owner is expected to also be anonymous but history says that Graders who are engaged in the hobby may well know who owns a specific rare coin.
I prefer to believe that a random coin is graded based upon it's own merits except walk through's. I think those are handled by more experienced Graders and those Graders may be provided additional information by whoever is "walking the coin through" the process. A bit of human nature might play a role at this level.
Since the whole process is pretty much cloak and dagger the facts can lie anywhere. Prior comments by PCGS (NGC) that shed light on this topic probable are accurate 99.9% of the time.
Based on my experience, no.
"Seu cabra da peste,
"Sou Mangueira......."
Show grading is different than in-shop grading. Different fees. Different graders. Many would claim different results.
No, I can't prove it.
The secret to getting good grades is submitting good coins.
Anyone know how the concierge appointments stack up to the routine submissions?
I suspect that the "n" is so small that a meaningful comparison would be tough....
Sometimes you're getting a better grader at higher price service levels....
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Service level doesn't matter.
Sometimes the graders get it wrong - and sometimes they agree with the submitter.
The more expensive service levels are usually used for more expensive coins. Since PCGS guarantees the grade, I imagine these more expensive coins receive more scrutiny and are graded slightly more conservatively. I doubt there's a formal written PCGS policy but it's human nature to be more cautious and hence more conservative when grading very expensive coins.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
This reminds me of a tin foil hat convention of conspiracy theorists....
Cheers, RickO
Or ... Sometimes the submitter gets it wrong - and sometimes they agree with the grader?
Then again, grading is never "wrong" as it's a subjective opinion, not a statement of objective fact.
There is a blustery dealer (and former ANA Governor) who was sharing with me how smart he is about submissions. He claims that he "stages" all of his submissions because he "knows the secret." He places a few nice coins right before he puts a weaker coin. He "knows" the nicer coins put the grader in a "good mood" and then (of course) they grade his weaker coin at a higher grade. He is one of my favorite numismatic comedians.
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
That is assuming the coins are graded in sequence; let's say you have a group of $5 Indians that are liner coins; you set the submission up so that the coins that are high end 62, 63, 64 are seen with solid but lower end for those grades. The graders get confused and may bump some up. Higher tiers may translate to tougher grading too, the top graders are more accurate and know where all the lines are on grade better.
And then another dealer that "knows the secret" will say that you put a lesser coin before the nice one to make the nice one stand out more and a get a higher grade.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
The value of the coin usually determines the grading tier. Generally speaking, the more experienced graders will be part of the show grading team and the "Express" and "Walk Through" office tiers. I don't believe the the service tier has a huge effect on the final grade. There are some coins which an experienced grader has more knowledge with, and may grade differently than a less experienced grader. For example, a coin with RAISED die polishing can be mistaken for hairlines, which would receive a lower grade than it really should. Also, some series or specific dates may have strike issues which can sometimes be interpreted as wear. The most experienced graders will recognize these differences. As mentioned here many times, grading is subjective and will always (in my opinion) have SOME variance as long as we have human graders. I have submitted thousands of coins over the last 30 years, using every tier offered and including just about every series in the Red Book (in grades from AG to MS/PR 70), and can honestly
say the tier used has no material effect on the final grade. I believe (as said by Wondercoin many times as well as others), that the way you "set up" your invoices is one of the most important factors in maximizing grades. I also believe, as said by Foodude, "the secret to getting good grades is submitting good coins."