Roadrunner, I think you're off base here. JA flips everything for like 3%...he doesn't mark anything up because of higher demand - he's a market making middle man and that's it
stman applauds.
Please... Save The Stories, Just Answer My Questions, And Tell Me How Much!!!!!
@tradedollarnut said:
Roadrunner, I think you're off base here. JA flips everything for like 3%...he doesn't mark anything up because of higher demand - he's a market making middle man and that's it
So you're saying he's a dealer's dealer only? No contact with buying or selling to the public? Or if he's dealing with collectors he gives them the same 97% deal too?
So taking the CBH example, you're saying JA will buy for $8,000 and sell for $8,240. And in the event of say such a stickered coin having very obvious upgrade potential, he will just flip that for 3% too? Or would he send it along to an insider who will handle the resubmissions and split any upgrade profits? OK, let's say JA is perfectly altruistic in all this and gives away all those bennies without any quid pro quo. That could be true. You know his business model better than any of us. Does JA work on 3% for gold stickers too?
But, the above most certainly does not apply to all the CAC inventorying dealers out there (ie Legend for ex). Since that's where the vast majority of commission and trading profits are earned on stickered coins, that's the real story. PCGS CAC doesn't typically trade for NGC CAC out among the regular bourse dealers. There are exceptions...maybe the very top 10-20% of NGC coins....working their way into PCGS holders at the same grade.
@coincommando said:
I came out of hiding because of threads like this.
Last I saw cac was paying the same for PCGS or NGC generics w/the bean. its plain in the open for everyone to see-go to coinplex and just look at the bidders and what they are bidding on. some people even bid for any cac bean either service on non generics.
see this know it all roadrunner:
8,100u(5)*C NJ01
that is the cac bid for ANY bean MS 65 bust half
CC, you just proved that he's underpaying for a PCGS MS65 CBH. And maybe overpaying for the NGC version. That's his choice. It would bother me though if he underpaid a collector with a gem PCGS MS65 CBH. Go try and find a nice PCGS MS65 stickered CBH. They are like hen's teeth. The market doesn't really care about an NGC MS65 CBH as the nice ones eventually end up in PCGS MS65 holders and the other 65's trade for PCGS 64 to 64+ money.
Please ensure you read my posts carefully rather than skim them. Numerous times I stated my arguments were for ONLY non-generics....contrary to what you stated in your first paragraph. It doesn't apply to generic choice/gem gold or common date Morgan dollars that usually trade sight-unseen in bulk. Got that, Know-it-all-Commando? Nice to see you out of hiding.
And if people bid "X" on any beaned coin regardless of holder, you can bet they are assuming the price for an NGC coin. If they get a PCGS coin instead, that's another 10% in their pocket. But, you knew that already, right?
If JA wholesales only, then it must include collectors too. I've been in his office in Far Hills, NJ when he was doing a large deal with another collector. Business is business, no matter where you find it. Wholesale is the new "retail."
@coincommando said:
roadrunner, if you really know as much as you say, then why are you not buying and selling w/the big dogs today? you know the market so well, you should be cleaning up. For $100.00 a month you can go bid on coinplex and buy and sell using all your wild theories. you always chime in about your past. life happens today
i buy and sell a few coins. i built a decent collection over time. i have learned to sit at a show behind tables and just watch.
Show me where I said it was easy to make money being a dealer? I don't think I did, not even once. You need to read more carefully. You'll make the easiest and safest money as a collector buying the Blue Chips in the best grade you can afford, during cyclical bottoms, and selling at cyclical tops (ie 1972-1980, 1982 to 1989, 1996 to 2008). Notice there's not anything since 2008. Where's the bottom? I don't know. I've been out since 2011. And the CAC love, + coins, NGC bias, is another part of the mix I don't like. I'm 62 years old. My eyes are not what they were in 1988 or even 2002-2008. It's a struggle to ferret out every hairline, rub, or luster break these days, especially through all that plastic. You can't bring back 25-35 year old eyes. I have trouble even focusing with a 5X glass as the image seems to constantly jump around. A lot of older dealers just rely on the holder and buy "eye appeal." You still need customers to sell to though. I've only done dealer to dealer so whatever I'm looking to sell I have to buy cheaper than them. Good luck with that when so many coins are going right to Heritage, S/B, and other big boyz.
I buy coins when I think they're dirt cheap and have great potential. I did that in 1975-1977, in 1982-1986, and again in 2002-2004. I'm not seeing a hard bottom or the next up cycle directly ahead. Look at the PCGS 3000 CU 30 yr chart from a Transactional Analysis perspective. It's not pretty. Yeah, it's heavily skewed by the summer 1989 Wall Street mania, but it's still a workable chart.
It was easy to find buyers back in 2003-2008. You could sell anything. It was a voracious market. That's not been the case since Jan 2009. Now you buy something, and it's worth less the following month. Unless you've built a very long term customer base similar to Legend, I don't know who you sell to today? Middlemen dealers have dropped like flies. Everybody wants to pay less than you paid, even dealer to dealer, lol. When the buyers start showing up in droves again for average coins, maybe I'll step back in. None of my confidant dealers are telling me you should come back now, it's all changed. They are still struggling, even with 35 yrs of experience. You can only go so far buying the top 5% and selling it for more. Even that's not fool proof.
If you have a $10,000,000 coin fund/collection you want to build, please call me. I'll find coins for you...lol. And I won't mark them up more than 5%. Look at many of the coins that Gene Gardner bought in the 2008-2015 time period with the help of an expert 40 yr coin dealer. He lost money or broke even on many of those coins. The market cycles weren't optimum. His best deals were bought in the 1995-2003 time frame. You think it's just a matter of going out and bidding on Coinplex or auctions and the riches fall into your lap? Ever hear of a thing called expenses? Understand all this?
A final thought on how easy it isn't being a dealer's dealer. Some of those guys I knocked heads with are no longer in the game. Some ran out of money. Some owed so much money to other dealers when the market went bust in 1990-1993 that they had to go to work for them to work off the debts. I don't see where any of those guys have come back to their former glory. And they undoubtedly are still skilled enough. And when you get into your 60's your tolerance for "risk" is likely far different than in your 20's to 50's. If you want to gamble your retirement money away, that's your choice. Gold and silver prices really helped to carry the coin market up from 2003-2008. It's far from certain when or if the next precious metal up cycle is going to occur. It could have already started....or maybe not. It's one thing when the coin itself basically helps dictate how it performs. Now that plastic, stickers, pluses, stars, stripes and shields are big players, it's a very unstable situation.
@tradedollarnut said:
Roadrunner, I think you're off base here. JA flips everything for like 3%...he doesn't mark anything up because of higher demand - he's a market making middle man and that's it
So you're saying he's a dealer's dealer only? No contact with buying or selling to the public? Or if he's dealing with collectors he gives them the same 97% deal too?
@tradedollarnut said:
Roadrunner, I think you're off base here. JA flips everything for like 3%...he doesn't mark anything up because of higher demand - he's a market making middle man and that's it
So you're saying he's a dealer's dealer only? No contact with buying or selling to the public? Or if he's dealing with collectors he gives them the same 97% deal too?
He doesn't sell to collectors.
CNut, don't you read? I posted earlier that he does sell to collector(s).
I was in the CAC office/boardroom when JA was doing a major deal with a prominent collector I know and who is also a well known forum member here (ie someone who has a very time consuming full time job in another field). Yes, he sells and buys from collectors. Seen it first hand. Ask JA since you seem to make a habit of "calling him up" and checking his bids. I don't think he would deny it. By the way, when was the last time you were in his office and talking to him?
I'll have to check into this notion of "running up other bidders" due to "frustration." Sounds like a pretty poor tactic, probably only used by newbies or wannabes or Stewart. You can do it once. But making a habit of it? Very risky if you get stuck with the coin at an inflated price. At least when Legend ran up the 1794 $ SP66 to $10 MILL, they were running themselves up.
As for gene gardner losing money-every stacks auction i went too in baltimore he was there paying ridiculous money. you make it sound like the market did him in? no! he was in competition and some times he plain old got run up by frustrated underbidders
without cac, our market would be in chaos. cac is helpful, not harmful. it creates the most confidence. obviously the grading services drove the line off a cliff. ngc really crashed and burned, the prices realized are proof. i think the concept of cac keeping both services the same value has failed. ja is simply trying to stick to his original vision and support his market. if you think he is taking advantage, ask your coin soc friends who get to buy the ngc coins from him.
CNut, at least I was in the game. And 95% of those skills still work today. Now show us your resume bud. Tell us the big deals and players you've competed against....not just trading slabbed plastic back and forth. I get constant PMs from the "new crowd" thanking me for enlightening them about the market. There will always be that 5% that you just can't get through to. Apparently, that's you. If you've ever bothered to read my posts in the CAC era, you will know that I've described the "new" and "complicated" process in all its details and glory. Don't know where you've been. You know little about Gene Gardner. His advisor was one of the best coin minds of the past 40 years, and still is. Gene wasn't bidding without any advice or another set of eyes. But you knew all that already, right?
And congrats to you for watching Gene Gardner at the Baltimore auctions...as if those auctions in a single city defined what he did for the past 20+ years...lol. Did you watch him at all the auctions in NY City? FUN? Long Beach? Central States? Dallas? over the past 15-20 years? When I was competing against him from 2002-2006 he won nearly every coin head to head. And for those that I thought he was "buried" in....he doubled and triple his money by 2015. The only coin I can recall beating him on was the James Stack/Jim Pryor 1855 half PCGS ogh MS65 back in 2002 for $14,500. That's now in the Pogue collection where they paid a whopping $54K for it back in 2011. The only reason I won it the 1st time around was that I saw the coin as an upgrade to MS66 while Gene's team did not. I upgraded that coin to MS66 in 2002 first time through as a regrade. Now a PCGS MS66 CAC. It was a fluke to beat them on that coin. Because most every other time they got an upgrade that I didn't see (such as the 2003 Queller raw 1857-s half that sold for MS65+ money and slabbed out as PCGS MS66. Gene paid $22K for it...sold it for around $55K-$65K in 2015. Most every really neat seated coin I've ever owned from 1986-2009, eventually ended up in Gene's collection. But you knew all that already.
You've got some kahunas for calling out Gene for "paying too much" at your Baltimore auctions. The guy built the greatest seated collection of all time by far. When the coins show up, you don't really have the option to pass on something unique. You just buy it. He might have had immense satisfaction of ownership regardless of price paid. Now that concept might be foreign to you (and me) but please don't disparage one of the greatest collectors of all time based on what he paid. Rather, look at what he built. And he did just fine over those 20 years. It just goes to show you that if you collect over a long enough period there will some ups and downs. For the post-2008 newbie flipper crowd, I suspect a "collection" is now something done over 3-5 years at most.
Tell me about the last time you "ran" someone up in a major US coin auction and how it worked out for you. Ever been on the receiving end of running someone up....and they turned around and dumped it in your lap? No, I don't think so. It happens though. You talk a game, but it's clear about your focus on CAC that you don't understand it. CAC only made the game more obvious for newbs like yourself. The game is mostly unchanged since the 1988-2008 era. Nothing new was created....just more smoke and mirrors. CAC has actually put the coin market into chaos. Been saying that for years. They made the newbies finally understand what's been going on from 1998-2008. We all knew that around here....maybe except for yourself. Are you a post-2008 CAC only newbie? Regardless of what John's original vision was.....the most important thing that has come from CAC is killing half the coin market in a very short period of time. CAC is the source of the chaos. CAC has been good to JA. It's been good to CAC-only dealers like Legend. When you finally figure all that out, let us all know. I've sent PCGS coins to CAC as they add value....not so clear for NGC coins though. CAC is doing a worthy thing imo....but don't kid yourself that they didn't stick a knife in the coin market while doing so. In the past 8+ years, no one has figured out how to close that wound.
This is now the longest running bear market in coins (Sept 2008 - Feb 2017) that I've ever lived through. The 1990-1996 bear market was brutally long and hard to live through. And now this one has eclipsed it in length...with CAC onboard the ENTIRE time. Funny, how that it is. Couldn't they rescue it if they are the best thing ever? Can you see any correlation Mr CC? Do you think it's coincidence? Why hasn't CAC been able to rescue the bulk of the coin market after the 2008 crash? What it has done is elevate PCGS CAC coins to a status they really didn't deserve....while demoting everything else unfairly. But you knew all that right? Just from reading your views of the market, it is clear to me that you don't understand the big picture. If I were buying US coins today I'd stick to circ/raw classic coins with some scarcity and true collector demand that don't rely on slabs and stickers.
"....the most important thing that has come from CAC is killing half the coin market in a very short period of time."
Tough words, and I'm not sure that I would agree. CAC certainly has been an enormously useful (possibly life-saving in some cases) marketing tool for members of the CAC consortium. Looking at the evolution of the coin market during the last few decades, something like CAC (and plus grades) was bound to happen. It's all about lessening buyer resistance to paying up for better quality. Whatever doesn't fit into the 'better quality' box, however, will circle the toilet once the designation becomes accepted by buyers as well as sellers.
What really bothers me is that many of the C and B coins are respectable, even eye appealing, for their grades. People would look at them differently if they were bumped down a grade. This game is quite distasteful.
Member: EAC, NBS, C4, CWTS, ANA
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
@Sonorandesertrat said:
"....the most important thing that has come from CAC is killing half the coin market in a very short period of time."
Tough words, and I'm not sure that I would agree. CAC certainly had been an enormously useful (possibly life-saving in some cases) marketing tool for members of the CAC consortium. Looking at the evolution of the coin market during the last few decades, something like CAC (and plus grades) was bound to happen. It's all about lessening buyer resistance to paying up for better quality. Whatever doesn't fit into the 'better quality' box, however, will circle the toilet once the designation becomes accepted by buyers as well as sellers.
What really bothers me is that many of the C and B coins are respectable, even eye appealing, for their grades. People would look at them differently if they were bumped down a grade. This game is quite distasteful.
I probably should have said "the most significant thing" from CAC, at least from a market impact perspective. That was an asteroid hit. There's no doubt CAC sped up the process, maybe by several years or more. It seems more than coincidence that NGC bias jumped off the charts within the first 3 months of CAC starting up. I did a lot with gem NGC type coins at that time so I saw the effects in November 2008 and then again at FUN in Jan 2009 and Balty in March 2009. It was a huge change..and not just because the coin market crashed following the big gold price drop of 2008 (-34%).
I surely agree with you on how the B and C coins have lost much respectability, even when they are generally ok and appealing. Yes, the game has become "distasteful" as fewer and fewer coins each year are considered worthy. It's still the same basic game and rules of 1998-2008 though. At least back then you could sell an "honest" C coin for a 10-20% discount from a B. That's hardly true any more other than in generics. I don't think that B and C coins should be dropped down a grade if they really make minimum standards for their grade. Something has to be a 65.0 or a 65.2. They all can't be 65.5 to 65.8.
Why couldn't JA have shown up in 1998, 2002, or even 2004 in an up-trending market? He was certainly needed then. We all knew grading had shifted dramatically, especially at "particular" TPG's. CAC basically showed up as the bear market began in Nov 2008. The worst timing possible to tell the uninformed coin populace that in their opinion the grading system had "issues"
Definitely yes to CAC creating another level of dealers working only in PCGS-CAC coins. The best game in town...at least for now. Those guys were tossed a lifeline for sure while most other dealers had to try and swim with an anchor attached.
I happen to agree that in the last year of two of his life that Gene often overpaid for the coins that he wanted. Seen some of those crazy numbers that choice material brought when the Pogues, Simpson and Gardner were duking it out? I think at that point, acquiring the coin was far more important than the price paid.
I agree. Gene probably wanted those coins. A Newman or John J. Ford collection comes around once in a lifetime. How else could you explain the $329,000 for the Newman 1840-0 nd MS67 25c brought when Gene added it to his set? Pretty mind-boggling...and irreplaceable. It brought $199K when Gene sold it....and that still sounds like a LOT of money for a non-rare date, type coin MS seated quarter. I wrote about those Newman to Gardner coins back in 2015 as they were auctioned off in 2015? Team Gene beat me up ragged at major auctions 10-15 yrs ago. Who am I to criticize his Newman and other recent purchases?
"... I don't think that B and C coins should be dropped down a grade if they really make minimum standards for their grade. ..."
What 'standards' are we talking about? This is one of the principal problems with the market. Standards keep shifting, CAC standards for gold are widely praised, but for early coppers???
Grading is simply an imperfect means to setting a starting point for a price. If people won't chase C coins at grade X, might they change their minds if the basal grade were knocked to (X-1)? In effect, this is just a lowering of the starting price.
"Why couldn't JA have shown up in 1998, 2002, or even 2004 in an up-trending market? CAC basically showed up as the bear market began. The worst timing possible to tell the uninformed coin populace that the grading system in their opinion, had "issues"."
No real dealer incentive to do this in a bull market---even monkeys pushing slabs can make money then.
Member: EAC, NBS, C4, CWTS, ANA
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
@Sonorandesertrat said: >
_"Why couldn't JA have shown up in 1998, 2002, or even 2004 in an up-trending market? CAC basically showed up as the bear market began. The worst timing possible to tell the uninformed coin populace that the grading system in their opinion, had "issues"."
No real dealer incentive to do this in a bull market---even monkeys pushing slabs can make money then.
I was asking a rhetorical question. But....if he was really concerned about the flux in grading back then, he would have started CAC much earlier. I was concerned in 2004. And then tossed in the towel on any lower end coins I owned in 2006. Sold them all. Discussions around here were raging in 2004-2006 about slipping grading standards and how to negotiate it. I didn't want to be holding "C" level coins when the balloon finally burst.
I'm certainly not talking about CAC "standards" since we don't even know what they are. And if CAC is rejecting 85-95% of all gem gold sent to them, that's not a standard at all, at least nothing the market can really use. I think the PCGS and NGC B and C coin standards are defined well enough where they are consistent 65-75% of the time. That's the best we got. It's probably not going to get any better, or worse under the current system. Dropping down B and C coins a grade will cause more havoc than CAC ever did or could. The price spread between 65A and 65C coins as those C's are dropped to 64B will be enormous....yet the actual "quality" spread will still be rather small between them. How can that work? Now what happens to all the legacy 64B coins? They will all have to be dropped to 63's. And so on.
I don't see standards really shifting all that much....but many more new layers being added on to cause more confusion, as if we need a + sign on our higher end 65A coins.
Laura ranted often enough about grade inflation and coin doctoring in the early to mid 2000's. Finally, JA had seen enough and decided to form CAC. It took several years, but I can assure you that the seeds of CAC were planted in the early part of the decade
@stman said:
......I see big dealers and big collectors that think the world of "John" and that's fine but why not in an NGC holder?
.........and it started with a question.
Now you know the rest of the story.
Yes, learned some, expected some of what's been written. No One, shot me down on my question because" John" evidently is keeping his word from the start. I wouldn't have the nerve to state he's just telling us this. Someone still kicking and screaming and spinning out of control. Well, if the same statements are there as they get edited almost every time. With their own rules or again the doomsday scenario. IMO, just a simple ego issue. The goal posts always change by this individual.
Please... Save The Stories, Just Answer My Questions, And Tell Me How Much!!!!!
@coincommando said:
to say cac killed half the market is wrong as can be. there never should have been a need for cac. maybe that is the real reason half the market got killed.
cac has probably saved more people from tragedy then the creation of slabs themselves.
I'd say there are FAR more total losses from CAC's rearrangement of market values than there ever was money made/saved by those buying CAC only coins. Not even close. Consider there are potentially 30 MILL PCGS/TPG slabs out there with $30 BILL in value...assuming an average 2X resubmission rate over the years. Figure the entire NGC market took an extra 10% haircut ($1.5 BILL), factor in another $0.9 BILL for unstickered PCGS coins that have dropped 10% in value because of no sticker ($15 BILL x 60% CAC miss rate x 10%). That's $2.4 BILL total. No doubt Legend and others have made tens of millions more dollars from CAC than if there had never been a CAC. But that's small potatoes and not even a factor.
How many "bad" purchases were saved by those people buying CAC only? Potentially a negligible amount really. You had little risk buying PCGS unstickered coins since 2009 as long as you paid the proper margin under stickered prices. The market still fully supports PCGS coins of all types. And most everyone has shunned NGC unstickered coins since 2009...unless steeply discounted. I would guess maybe $50-$500 MILL in value was saved by those who bought CAC only since 2009 who otherwise were unskilled enough to not fall into a trap of buying and paying solid for the grade money for over-valued slabbed coins.
CAC (2008-2017) has saved the consumer more money than the TPG's have from 1986-2017? Are you nuts CC? Do you even know what you're stating? If this is the kind of expertise you're going to bring to the forum, I suggest you step back for a few months or years, until you get your feet wet in this market.
CAC has stated they have stickered $275 MILL In total value. The TPG's around $70 BILLION. That ratio, even adjusted for 2-1 resubmissions is 127 to 1....or 0.007874%. Imagine if none of that $35-$70 BILL in coins were ever slabbed and were sold raw, willy nilly to collectors at inflated grades and prices, just like in the 1980's before the Federal Trade Commission threatened to step in and "regulate" the dealers: AT'd, cleaned, lasered, frosted, tooled, fakes, etc. Kindly, rethink your absurd statement and try again. Where do you come up with this stuff? Now you're up to 16 posts, nearly all of it in this one thread. Just the number of doctored and altered coins that the TPG's have kept out of the market in 30 yrs would make CAC's $275 MILL seem puny. For everyone's sake around here, including your own, please think before you post.
Next question is....which alt ID are you? Welcome back though if it applies. I don't think even a total newbie to numismatics could be this clueless about how our market functions.
"cac has probably saved more people from tragedy then the creation of slabs themselves."
Not even close! I am fairly certain that CAC has benefited its dealer consortium far more than the typical consumer.
Before slabs (ANACS, etc.) existed, the marketplace was flooded with whizzed, polished, etc. coins that were represented as nice coins. The TPGs have largely run these types of altered coins out of the marketplace.
One other important point: Before the TPGs and their graded holders appeared, it was quite common (almost the norm, as I recall) 40+ years ago for a dealer to undergrade a raw coin when buying, and then turn around and represent the same coin as having a higher grade to a potential buyer. This type of chiseling is much less common today. Of course, the problems that people worry about here are more subtle in many cases too, such as expertly done alterations or coins that appear under- or overgraded by a point.
Member: EAC, NBS, C4, CWTS, ANA
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
@Sonorandesertrat said:
"cac has probably saved more people from tragedy then the creation of slabs themselves."
Not even close! I am fairly certain that CAC has benefited its dealer consortium far more than the typical consumer.
Before slabs (ANACS, etc.) existed, the marketplace was flooded with whizzed, polished, etc. coins that were represented as nice coins. The TPGs have largely run these types of altered coins out of the marketplace.
That's a candidate for Post Of The Year by CC.
CoinCommando glosses over the point that the TPG's remove 99% of the major problem coins from the market before JA even gets a chance to "review" them as to whether they are ok for the grade assigned. I like those odds. Maybe it should be the other way around. CAC can assign a grade/authenticity to each raw coin submitted, then send them to PCGS for final review by 3-4 graders as to whether they agree or not. If they agree...the coin gets slabbed with CAC's initial assignment. CAC is really nothing more than another dealer in the market who looks at slabbed coins they might buy down the road. EagleEye was doing this successfully on Indian/FE Cents long before CAC. There might be some others I've forgotten about.
I still like what CAC does and we continue to need them. That doesn't mean I can't form an opinion as to what their presence has meant to our markets, including positives and negatives. I don't drink any one brand of KoolAid. Though in my youth I was partial to High C and Hawaiian Punch. Couldn't stand Tang even if the Astronauts did.
CoinCommando are you still here? You posted FAKE news ....CAC now claims nearly $500 MILL in value purchased. My bad for going from memory and posting $275 rather than $475....which was the number just 1-2 weeks ago. In fact if you check my posts over the past couple of months, I have posted that $475 figure a number of times. How does that compare to $70 BILL or $35 BILL at the TPG's? CAC purchases or beans, it doesn't make a bit of difference in the analysis.
Does any of it change your bogus statement about CAC having saved more $$ from bad coins that in all the history of the TPG's? Of course not. Not only are you not in the ball park, you aren't even in the same county. Your "post of the year" above is the most FAKE news anyone could ever come up with....straight from the Commando's arse. Why not comment on that supposed fact... refuted by others as well.
So rather than a 127-1 ratio, the real TPG to CAC "savior" ratio is 70-1. Does it change the order of magnitude of Commando's Flub? No. That was and still is EPIC failure. CAC would have had to bean/purchase on the order of $10-$30 BILL in value to be on the same order as TPG's. They are a couple of decades from that point. CC is still spouting plenty of horse poopie by trying to deflect away from his baseless argument.
We're still waiting on the proof that CAC has saved collectors more money in bad coins that the TPG's. Please post your numbers and assumptions to back that up. Support your own statement....IF you can.
CAC was created out of concern that market prices for solid-for-the-grade and premium-quality coins were being held down by the sales prices of below average quality coins for their grades, including coins that just barely make the grade. CAC’s ultimate mission is to recognize and liberate solid-for-the-grade and premium-quality rare coins from such price restraints.
Mission statement from their website. There's nothing in there about pushing down the values of C and D quality coins. Only liberating the B and A's which if it occurred in isolation would have been ideal. But, "good things" always have unintended consequences. Liberation for A's and B's.....disparagement for the C's and D's. What is generally not talked about is that a lack of a bean is "assumed" to be a negative until proven otherwise. That's a strange factor when CAC has maybe seen only 5-10% of all slabbed coins. The other 90% get a bad rap automatically, until proven otherwise. It's not a plus for market pricing on non-A/B coins and all non-PCGS coins. Another unintended consequence....and far from liberating. I think what is more true is that A and B coins have held value, while C and D coins have been pushed down. Gold stickers have surely increased values. I see nothing but upside in that especially since it helps ensures the few nicer older holder coins survive as is.
I love to collect bust quarters raw. I could care less if they are PCGS, NGC, ANACS, ICG, CAC or raw. CAC has not changed my collecting, buying or selling habits in the past 10 years at all. The only difference I see now from 40 years ago is that all the coins in auctions are graded and some are CAC but it still does not change what I am looking for.
Honestly, I think it is way more fun to find an unattributed bust quarter variety with original surfaces RAW than buying a graded CAC bust quarter. It just takes all the fun out of it for me if someone already found the treasure before I did.
When I go to a coin show, I am looking for the dealers whose cases are full of raw coins, not the ones full of graded or CAC coins. I guess I just look at this hobby from a different perspective than many of the big hitters. Anyone who has been on this forum for a while who likes bust material knows how coin22lover has found some amazingly rare bust coins raw in the past 5 years. I find this way more impressive than someone with deep pockets who is chasing plastic and stickers who builds the number 1 registry set.
One of these days I am going to find an 1829 curled base 2 bust dime raw in the wild and it is going to be way more exciting than buying one in plastic with a green sticker
So, I take it you can't support your claim about CAC saving the market more money that the TPG's? Please contribute something positive to this discussion rather disagreeing with everything I say because you have no opinion of your own....at least nothing you have been able to substantiate so far. Come up with an original thought rather than a critique. You must have something rattling around in your head.
_Today is very dangerous and intricate market? _ Another Post Of The Year candidate....and no doubt coming from someone who wasn't even alive in 1986. Are you serious again? That statement is pure garbage. You wouldn't know "intricate" or "dangerous" if it hit you straight between the eyes. All of the problems of today were occurring LONG before CAC....I commented on that in TDN's post this week. Did you even read that? Understand any of it?
The most dangerous markets to me of the past 40 years were during summer 1979-April 1980, 1984-1986, and then
1989-1993. 2008-2016 has been a cakewalk where you can only lose up to 50% by buying many slabbed coins. That number was up to 90% back in the raw days....100% if you bought a fake. Danger? The rare coin market lost 65-75% across the board from 1980-1982. That was danger. Some coins are now 10% of their 1989 market peaks, especially things like gem classic commems. Has that happened since 2008? Nope. Would CAC back then have prevented that? Nope. So how could today be dangerous in comparison? You have no idea what "danger" is. But you can experience some of it by cracking out all your coins and putting them up in a local auction. Let me know how you do. That's danger. You'd probably lose at least 50-75% of their current wholesale value.
Trading raw coins and buying at auction in the 1970's and 1980's before PCGS was the proverbial Wild Wild West and 3X to 10X worse than the extent of problems we see today. 90% of collectors got fleeced. That was the norm. 90% of dealers selling raw coins couldn't be trusted to deliver fair value....either they didn't know how or they were ripping you with intent. Every time you open your mouth, erroneous statements come out. I'd rather see us return to a no slab - no CAC world as I could do just fine like that....as I did from 1974-1987. How would you do 100% on your own today in a raw world with no rules? Not very well if you were buying coins worth $500 each.
That's a link from 2008 with Maurice Rosen interviewing JA about CAC and other things. Note that MR says that the market today (2008) is in better shape than the pre-slab days. That's a pretty commonly accepted fact. Are you saying MR is wrong? Another "old guy" that is out of touch with your post-CAC world? I competed at major auctions from 1974 to 2004 buying raw coins....not those with the "safety" of slabs and stickers. It's not even comparable. You are 100% on your own to authenticate, avoid problem coins, and then get the grade right to right grade, and even whether and ABC coin for that grade. You see buying a stickered PCGS coin as fraught with danger compared to 1985? Really? I mean, really? Quit kidding around here. No one could be that out of touch.
Here's a quote from that interview. JA states that 80% of classic coins will sticker. This is June 2008 when they have 8 months under their belt. If this is true, and since JA said it, it must be, then we don't even need CAC. You, Mr. Coin Commando don't need CAC because they can only save you from 20% of the coins in any particular grade. PCGS, your trusted local or national dealer or auction rep can steer you away from those other 20%. At the Nov 2007 CoinFest show 85% of coins stickered per JA....all or most of those were supposedly by collectors getting free submissions. If collectors are batting they don't need any dealers.....the dealers should be asking them for help. Please discuss Mr. CC since you are fixated on facts in print. And please do note that by JA saying 80% of the non-modern or vintage slabs would sticker in June 2008....sort of contradicts his own reason for forming CAC in the first place. TPG's getting 80% of the coins right is not a problem....that's a huge victory. So why the need for a CAC if the sharper collectors got 85% right? The inference is that the good coins are in collectors hands, and most of the C and D coins resided in typical dealer's bourse cases. That's how I read it.
**MR: Of all the vintage (non-modern) coins that exist in PCGS and NGC holders today, what percentage would you say would qualify for the CAC green label?
JA: I would say it’s a high percentage, upwards of 80% or so. We unveiled our service at a Connecticut show last fall. We offered free submissions to the public. Some 500-600 coins were brought to us of which about 85% were labeled. On the other hand, if you were to go through a typical dealer’s showcase on the bourse floor of a show, it could be less than half that rate. So far, that’s been our experience based on current submissions.**
Who, Maurice for believing him or JA for saying it? Or CoinCommando? Or all 3 of them?
I'm with HCHCoin with the notion of collecting nice bust coins raw (or seated/barber) where the TPG's influences are much less of a factor. Though they still do influence raw coins since their value is based on what they will slab out as.
@coincommando said:
.... today is a very dangerous and intricate market.
I just wanted to see this one more time by itself to enjoy. Mmm, mmm good. Just like Campbell's soup. And I can't stop posting because I want to see what CoinCommando can come up with next. It's incredible "one-off" stuff. Who knows when the well might go dry?
And do tell us how the market is "intricate?" You don't know how to show up at a show with $50 to buy or coin? Or to bring a coin to a show and sell it? What's "intricate?" How does "intricate" affect CoinCommando's collecting pursuits? How is "intricate" today any different from "intricate" in 1985? Time-consuming is not "intricate."
If I were buying US coins today I'd stick to circ/raw classic coins with some scarcity and true collector demand that don't rely on slabs and stickers.
If I were buying US coins today I'd stick to circ/raw classic coins with some scarcity and true collector demand that don't rely on slabs and stickers.
It was worth reading this whole thread and especially this one post, to get to the end and read that last line,
especially coming from you RR! ;applause:
@hchcoin said:
I love to collect bust quarters raw. I could care less if they are PCGS, NGC, ANACS, ICG, CAC or raw. CAC has not changed my collecting, buying or selling habits in the past 10 years at all. The only difference I see now from 40 years ago is that all the coins in auctions are graded and some are CAC but it still does not change what I am looking for.
Honestly, I think it is way more fun to find an unattributed bust quarter variety with original surfaces RAW than buying a graded CAC bust quarter. It just takes all the fun out of it for me if someone already found the treasure before I did.
When I go to a coin show, I am looking for the dealers whose cases are full of raw coins, not the ones full of graded or CAC coins. I guess I just look at this hobby from a different perspective than many of the big hitters. Anyone who has been on this forum for a while who likes bust material knows how coin22lover has found some amazingly rare bust coins raw in the past 5 years. I find this way more impressive than someone with deep pockets who is chasing plastic and stickers who builds the number 1 registry set.
One of these days I am going to find an 1829 curled base 2 bust dime raw in the wild and it is going to be way more exciting than buying one in plastic with a green sticker
Agree with every word, But my white whale is the 1806 B-8!
If I were buying US coins today I'd stick to circ/raw classic coins with some scarcity and true collector demand that don't rely on slabs and stickers.
If I were buying US coins today I'd stick to circ/raw classic coins with some scarcity and true collector demand that don't rely on slabs and stickers.
It was worth reading this whole thread and especially this one post, to get to the end and read that last line,
especially coming from you RR! ;applause:
That was buried in there somewhere. Impressive that you found it. True 20-30 years ago, and truer today. I have no problem acknowledging the truth when it hits me between the eyes.
Honestly, I think it is way more fun to find an unattributed bust quarter variety with original surfaces RAW than buying a graded CAC bust quarter. It just takes all the fun out of it for me if someone already found the treasure before I did.
Agree with every word, But my white whale is the 1806 B-8!
It's plenty of fun to go to a show or auction and find a slabbed type coin that is under-graded or just way underpriced. I found an ogh-common variety 1795 VG8 half dollar that was under-graded. Paid $750 and sold it 12 months later for $1550 to Stanford Coin and Bullion. A Fine12 coin all day long. Stickers have little to do with this. I'd rather find an old holdered NGC Fatty gem type coin getting no respect...and turn it into something special. Lots of white whales still out there waiting to be discovered....or regraded.
Honestly, I think it is way more fun to find an unattributed bust quarter variety with original surfaces RAW than buying a graded CAC bust quarter. It just takes all the fun out of it for me if someone already found the treasure before I did.
Agree with every word, But my white whale is the 1806 B-8!
It's plenty of fun to go to a show or auction and find a slabbed type coin that is under-graded or just way underpriced. I found an ogh-common variety 1795 VG8 half dollar that was under-graded. Paid $750 and sold it 12 months later for $1550 to Stanford Coin and Bullion. A Fine12 coin all day long. Stickers have little to do with this. I'd rather find an old holdered NGC Fatty gem type coin getting no respect...and turn it into something special. Lots of white whales still out there waiting to be discovered....or regraded.
I can see the similarity and can see how that would be almost as fun
CoinCommanduh, who cares what the current bean rate is at CAC? Does it affect your participation in this "dangerous and intricate" market, lol? You're so full of it. And fwiw, you keep comparing my participation in the market as 2000 vs. 2017. I stated quite clearly I was active full time into 2010-2011. You can read and remember what I wrote, right? I still participated in shows from 2012-2013 as a collector. And a couple times each year I get updated from local dealers I've worked with for the past 20-35 years. So please inform me how much this market has changed from 2012 to 2017 that I would be shocked today. I will be attending a major regional show on March 26th where I will check in with some of my long time dealer buddies. They will give me the current scoop on the TPG's, CAC, and their last year's worth of submissions. I seriously doubt I will hear from them that anything has changed in the past couple years. Last year's visit was also "no change." But feel free to keep misquoting my posts.
As a matter of fact I welcomed TPG grading with open arms in December 1987 when I became a full time dealer and started doing all the major coin shows and auctions. There was now a profitable way to buy a raw coin, and immediately double up when it came back a higher grade from the TPG. And a place to sell it immediately. There was a constant source of gem coins at Stacks, B&M, Heritage and Goldberg auctions. It was hard to keep up. This was a great game and many dealers joined in. Even better, you could sift through the 20% of the coins that came back from dealer submissions that were under-graded. It was fairly consistent money, especially with the local dealers. As soon as you made the coins, you picked up the phone and sold them sight unseen to national dealers, or waited a couple of weeks until the next big show if you wanted stronger prices. A phone call and I'd have a dozen or so coins sold for $20K-$50K to one dealer. Go to any major show and JD of Charter Oak would buy every MS bust coin I had made the past 1-2 months. Negotiating prices was almost unnecessary. You knew the prices you'd get as soon as the coin was slabbed. Good times.
Too bad that gravy train fell apart by 1990 as buyers and liquidity dried up. I could never have made money like that selling only raw coins to other dealers for 5-15% markups....too much risk and varying opinions. The TPG slab negated that. The big score was the advent of the TPG's giving a coin a fixed grade....but you already knew that right? CC, briefly give us your experiences at the advent of the TPG era in 1987-1990....I gave you mine. Or are you just going to continue to whine away in this thread...and ask others to do your research for you? Pick up the darn phone and call JA if you want the official stated bean rate. It's likely not far from 40-45%...but you knew that already, didn't you? Since that rate varies WILDLY from series to series, metal to metal, and grade to grade. What "intricate" point do you intend to make? The average bean rate is about as useful as the average grade of all TPG coins ever graded. Is their "danger" lurking in the average bean rate that we need to know about? Are your orange undies getting a little too tight?
@coincommando said:
anyone know the real beaning % rate at CAC? That number will say it all about the puke being made today. roadrunner you probably had your panties in a bunch when 3 rd party grading happened. please spare me. sell your snake oil ideology elsewhere.
As RR estimated I would bet the overall bean rate (= stickers/submissions) is close to 50%. My personal rate is around 80/130, about 60%.
Did this start with PCGS/CAC vs NGC/CAC market values? Between the MS/PR Matte Lincoln and this thread I don't have time to read books!
One important aspect of this discussion concerns HOW coins are traded. Many change hands on a sight-unseen basis (think many dealer-dealer trades, or auctions having bidders who don't physically see what they are bidding on or fail to get trusted reps to do this for them). A key reason why CAC appeared on the scene concerned this very issue---dealers wanted to engage in a 'safer' form of sight-unseen trading.
Member: EAC, NBS, C4, CWTS, ANA
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
@coincommando said:
bad news for him, the market never stopped. maybe he was not as good as he thinks. here come s another 5 page blistering rant.
folks, yes there are huge price differences between pcgs, ngc and cac. the pros exploit them everyday. those differences are made by market acceptance-which is your votes for the product in the end. every coin is judged by its own merits any way.
Please show me where I ever stated the "coin market stopped." What a ludicrous "fake news" statement. Then show me where I said I stopped learning about the coin market and current trends after no longer being a full time dealer by 2010-2011. Seems to me I've been on the forum in discussions and analysis nearly every day over the past 6 years. In essence, you are defaming every collector here that isn't a full time dealer, and doesn't attend "your" big boy shows and auctions to strut their stuff. That seems to be your method of "proof." Your statement, not mine. Bad news bub. You seem to be a big fan of dealer "plumage" as well as plastic and stickers. To each his own.
I'm glad I know (from your quote above) that you can only learn and keep current in the coin hobby by attending big boyz events and placing "bets." Supposedly, you think one can't do it on the local or regional scene. You can't do it by reading, talking, and writing (ie research). You can't do it by reading Numismatic Reference Books, auction cats, etc. (now that would be news to Analyst, QDB, Breen, Scott Travers, Maurice Rosen, and other top researchers who have read hundreds or thousands of reference books besides publishing their own materials). You heard it hear from CC folks, you can't "learn" or keep up in this market without attending the ANA, Baltmore, Long Beach, or FUN shows and Platinum nights....LOL. My local dealer has been in coins full time since 1999...20-25 years as a collector prior to that. I don't think he's ventured out of the state to a "Big Boy" coin show more than a couple times since 1999...and just walking the floor if he does. Never went to a major coin auction or a Platinum night. He's just too busy in the store making money and servicing customers. Guess he's not a "player" by your rules. Thanks CoinCommando for your always instructive, keen insights.
CC states the obvious above about price differences. Possibly the only factual statement they've made in this entire thread. But as usual, it depends. For instance there are no significant PCGS/NGC price differences in generic coins like MS62-MS65 common Morgans, Saints, $20 Libs, etc. It's a very long list with millions of slabbed coins. And while coins "are judged on their own merits," they are also heavily judged on the plastic and grading labels they surround themselves with, along with other accessories such as stickers, + signs, stars, etc. It's not "intricate." And it's not complicated. It's just time-consuming.
Sorry, not going to let you live down the ridiculous comment that cac killed half the market. ever hear of gradeflation? ever hear of coins docs? accept the fact cac saved the market.
anyone want to bet if the comment will be 4 or 7 paragraphs?
You wanted 4 paragraphs.....you got 4. It's so easy to refute most everything CC comes out with.
Half the non-generic, choice/gem, slabbed coin market was torn apart in only 3 months from around Long Beach Sept 2008 to Jan FUN 2009. Choice/gem NGC type coins got hammered with additional 10-30% haircuts that weren't there before. In only 3 months no less. PCGS coins seemed immune from it. It was a blood bath focused on NGC coins, stickered ones included. I sat through the 2009 FUN auction for hours watching the carnage. I doubt CC even made that show or the March 2009 Balty show where the eventual carnage nearly reached its peak. There was NO time for gradeflation to occur in only 3 months. Understand that CC? The horses were already out of the barn. The gradeflation ran from 1997-2008. It was too late to do anything about fixing it when CAC showed up. That was 30-70 MILLION slabs out the door. Too big for a recall. What CAC did was speed up the body count and sent the market down faster. In essence, their timing and attempts to give A and B coins "more standing," killed the other half of the market (C, D, and F coins) in a very short time. I've stated this position clearly and have supported it with facts. Explain any other reason how ALL non-generic/ch-gem NGC type coins got killed in those 3 months. Did everyone just wake up one morning and decide NGC coins were worth a lot less? Why was NGC singled out? Why were unstickered PCGS coins barely affected yet even stickered NGC coins were?
Please show me where your supposed gradeflation occurred from Sept 2008-Jan 2009 that killed 1/2 the market all by itself...most of it non-PCGS stuff. That's bordering on another "Post of the Year." There also weren't more coin doctors showing up in those 3 months....lol. Now prove to us how CAC saved the market during those 3 months. FACT - CAC accelerated the entire post-2008 market crash. While they were not the ROOT cause (10-12 years of gradeflation was), they were the next major contributor to the distortions we've seen from 2009-2017. No good deed goes unpunished as they say. Sort of ironic since the founder of NGC actually fired the most critical salvo against them, even if unintentionally. And I'd bet JA never saw it coming that his stickered NGC coins would get beat bloody along with the non-stickered ones. It was literally Incredible that this occurred. Plastic trumped the coin itself for several years....even on worthy A/B coins. That had never happened from 1986-2008.
Sorry CC, I refuse to let you live down all the absurd statements you've made while refusing to provide even a sliver of data or logical thought to back anything up. I'd give an "A" for effort if you at least tried that. You have opinions, yet not a SINGLE life experience posted here to back anything up. Give us just one "experience" so we know you actually collect coins and aren't some potted plant....with an obsession for stickers. Did you really participate in the coin market from 1986-2009? Can you prove it? It doesn't seem you were even there by the naiive statements you constantly post. We can't have a "better" hobby with you running around spouting off this incorrect information. Some newbs might actually believe you that CAC saved us. No doubt though that CAC "saved" some dealers who now deal only on CAC coins. My goal here for the past 15 years has been to tell the newbies how it is. Then it's up to them how to play in the game. If I were wrong, I'd be getting inundated with PMs stating so....not receiving ones thanking me for opening up their eyes and giving it straight. I'm ok that you are too far gone to be reached. I can't save 'em all. I figure if I can save one person from a major buying/selling mistake....its all been worth it.
@coincommando said:
unless you can run around like that crazed billionaire and buy any old junk, being protected is important. I rank the order of protection CAC, PCGS, and maybe on a good day NGC can help too.
If CAC became the primary TPG, and PCGS and NGC were verifiers of the CAC slabs, would you rank them in the same order? I don't think so. It would then be PCGS, NGC, and CAC. The first guys do the heavy lifting and hardest work. 90% of the job. Doing the last 10% by giving another opinion is so much easier...and so much less risky.
Take a dozen slabbed coins to any top dealer (like Kenny Duncan or Brian Yutzy) and ask them to cherry pick out the best ones. It's like taking candy from a baby. The biggest risk is taken on by the slabber...not the opinions that follow. It's great that 5-10% of the coins in the market are identified with stickers. The real concern for our market are the 90% or more coins than aren't carrying a sticker. How has this saved (and not seriously injured) the larger 90% of the hobby?
roadrunner - I'd like to buy you a double bourbon on the rocks. Time to chill, keep the blood pressure low, and not let CC stir you up. You've made your points ably, no need to further abuse the deceased horse!
10-4 Catbert. But, I suspect another reply to rebut coming down the pike. Has anyone here ever met CC? I'd like to be sure I'm not debating the proverbial potted plant.
I ran across the above Evan Gale/APRC article concerning + signs and CAC back from the 2009-2010 era. The article was then updated in Oct 2013 as stickers became more numerous. Evan always had a good eye and certainly attending most shows over 20-30 years gives him some standing on which end is up. He states:
"Just as CAC has not solved any problems inherent in the grading of coins, neither will the addition of a "+" designation."
"I believe that third party grading has been invaluable to collectors. It has largely done away with the practice of unscrupulous dealers selling drastically over-graded coins for way too much money. Now, with a little bit of due diligence, the collector can buy and sell coins at a confidence level that is light-years ahead of the days of raw coins. PCGS and NGC do a great job weeding out counterfeits, artificially toned coins and problem coins."
Many collectors here share Evan's view of buying the coin, not the plastic or accessories. It's not a new car. Every coin is different. And can therefore could or should be priced differently. But this is only his opinion.
RR,
Some comments, and no disrespect to EG (I have purchased some VERY nice coins from him). But...like most dealers, he has had some funky coins for sale on occasion. He complained bitterly about CAC when the stickers began to appear on slabs, likely because this made his position as a dealer more difficult. With a 'little bit' of due diligence? Really? That's not how I approach a purchase.
If a foolproof method appeared to stop the crack-out game, as well as discontinue crossovers with minimum grades set by submitters, etc. (and other schemes that bias the grades awarded), then perhaps the market would become a bit more normal.
Member: EAC, NBS, C4, CWTS, ANA
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
Ah, "we'll meet" and "I promise" -- color me skeptical. How often does a potted plant get out and about, anyway? Who will pull the wagon it needs to ride in?
Comments
@tradedollarnut said:
stman applauds.
So you're saying he's a dealer's dealer only? No contact with buying or selling to the public? Or if he's dealing with collectors he gives them the same 97% deal too?
So taking the CBH example, you're saying JA will buy for $8,000 and sell for $8,240. And in the event of say such a stickered coin having very obvious upgrade potential, he will just flip that for 3% too? Or would he send it along to an insider who will handle the resubmissions and split any upgrade profits? OK, let's say JA is perfectly altruistic in all this and gives away all those bennies without any quid pro quo. That could be true. You know his business model better than any of us. Does JA work on 3% for gold stickers too?
But, the above most certainly does not apply to all the CAC inventorying dealers out there (ie Legend for ex). Since that's where the vast majority of commission and trading profits are earned on stickered coins, that's the real story. PCGS CAC doesn't typically trade for NGC CAC out among the regular bourse dealers. There are exceptions...maybe the very top 10-20% of NGC coins....working their way into PCGS holders at the same grade.
This thread, and comments within had nothing to do with what coins sell for later.
JA wholesales only. Doesn't retail. Anything he buys, he flips. I think it's 3%. Period
CC, you just proved that he's underpaying for a PCGS MS65 CBH. And maybe overpaying for the NGC version. That's his choice. It would bother me though if he underpaid a collector with a gem PCGS MS65 CBH. Go try and find a nice PCGS MS65 stickered CBH. They are like hen's teeth. The market doesn't really care about an NGC MS65 CBH as the nice ones eventually end up in PCGS MS65 holders and the other 65's trade for PCGS 64 to 64+ money.
Please ensure you read my posts carefully rather than skim them. Numerous times I stated my arguments were for ONLY non-generics....contrary to what you stated in your first paragraph. It doesn't apply to generic choice/gem gold or common date Morgan dollars that usually trade sight-unseen in bulk. Got that, Know-it-all-Commando? Nice to see you out of hiding.
And if people bid "X" on any beaned coin regardless of holder, you can bet they are assuming the price for an NGC coin. If they get a PCGS coin instead, that's another 10% in their pocket. But, you knew that already, right?
If JA wholesales only, then it must include collectors too. I've been in his office in Far Hills, NJ when he was doing a large deal with another collector. Business is business, no matter where you find it. Wholesale is the new "retail."
Show me where I said it was easy to make money being a dealer? I don't think I did, not even once. You need to read more carefully. You'll make the easiest and safest money as a collector buying the Blue Chips in the best grade you can afford, during cyclical bottoms, and selling at cyclical tops (ie 1972-1980, 1982 to 1989, 1996 to 2008). Notice there's not anything since 2008. Where's the bottom? I don't know. I've been out since 2011. And the CAC love, + coins, NGC bias, is another part of the mix I don't like. I'm 62 years old. My eyes are not what they were in 1988 or even 2002-2008. It's a struggle to ferret out every hairline, rub, or luster break these days, especially through all that plastic. You can't bring back 25-35 year old eyes. I have trouble even focusing with a 5X glass as the image seems to constantly jump around. A lot of older dealers just rely on the holder and buy "eye appeal." You still need customers to sell to though. I've only done dealer to dealer so whatever I'm looking to sell I have to buy cheaper than them. Good luck with that when so many coins are going right to Heritage, S/B, and other big boyz.
I buy coins when I think they're dirt cheap and have great potential. I did that in 1975-1977, in 1982-1986, and again in 2002-2004. I'm not seeing a hard bottom or the next up cycle directly ahead. Look at the PCGS 3000 CU 30 yr chart from a Transactional Analysis perspective. It's not pretty. Yeah, it's heavily skewed by the summer 1989 Wall Street mania, but it's still a workable chart.
It was easy to find buyers back in 2003-2008. You could sell anything. It was a voracious market. That's not been the case since Jan 2009. Now you buy something, and it's worth less the following month. Unless you've built a very long term customer base similar to Legend, I don't know who you sell to today? Middlemen dealers have dropped like flies. Everybody wants to pay less than you paid, even dealer to dealer, lol. When the buyers start showing up in droves again for average coins, maybe I'll step back in. None of my confidant dealers are telling me you should come back now, it's all changed. They are still struggling, even with 35 yrs of experience. You can only go so far buying the top 5% and selling it for more. Even that's not fool proof.
If you have a $10,000,000 coin fund/collection you want to build, please call me. I'll find coins for you...lol. And I won't mark them up more than 5%. Look at many of the coins that Gene Gardner bought in the 2008-2015 time period with the help of an expert 40 yr coin dealer. He lost money or broke even on many of those coins. The market cycles weren't optimum. His best deals were bought in the 1995-2003 time frame. You think it's just a matter of going out and bidding on Coinplex or auctions and the riches fall into your lap? Ever hear of a thing called expenses? Understand all this?
A final thought on how easy it isn't being a dealer's dealer. Some of those guys I knocked heads with are no longer in the game. Some ran out of money. Some owed so much money to other dealers when the market went bust in 1990-1993 that they had to go to work for them to work off the debts. I don't see where any of those guys have come back to their former glory. And they undoubtedly are still skilled enough. And when you get into your 60's your tolerance for "risk" is likely far different than in your 20's to 50's. If you want to gamble your retirement money away, that's your choice. Gold and silver prices really helped to carry the coin market up from 2003-2008. It's far from certain when or if the next precious metal up cycle is going to occur. It could have already started....or maybe not. It's one thing when the coin itself basically helps dictate how it performs. Now that plastic, stickers, pluses, stars, stripes and shields are big players, it's a very unstable situation.
He doesn't sell to collectors.
.........and it started with a question.
Now you know the rest of the story.
CNut, don't you read? I posted earlier that he does sell to collector(s).
I was in the CAC office/boardroom when JA was doing a major deal with a prominent collector I know and who is also a well known forum member here (ie someone who has a very time consuming full time job in another field). Yes, he sells and buys from collectors. Seen it first hand. Ask JA since you seem to make a habit of "calling him up" and checking his bids. I don't think he would deny it. By the way, when was the last time you were in his office and talking to him?
I'll have to check into this notion of "running up other bidders" due to "frustration." Sounds like a pretty poor tactic, probably only used by newbies or wannabes or Stewart. You can do it once. But making a habit of it? Very risky if you get stuck with the coin at an inflated price. At least when Legend ran up the 1794 $ SP66 to $10 MILL, they were running themselves up.
CNut, at least I was in the game. And 95% of those skills still work today. Now show us your resume bud. Tell us the big deals and players you've competed against....not just trading slabbed plastic back and forth. I get constant PMs from the "new crowd" thanking me for enlightening them about the market. There will always be that 5% that you just can't get through to. Apparently, that's you. If you've ever bothered to read my posts in the CAC era, you will know that I've described the "new" and "complicated" process in all its details and glory. Don't know where you've been. You know little about Gene Gardner. His advisor was one of the best coin minds of the past 40 years, and still is. Gene wasn't bidding without any advice or another set of eyes. But you knew all that already, right?
And congrats to you for watching Gene Gardner at the Baltimore auctions...as if those auctions in a single city defined what he did for the past 20+ years...lol. Did you watch him at all the auctions in NY City? FUN? Long Beach? Central States? Dallas? over the past 15-20 years? When I was competing against him from 2002-2006 he won nearly every coin head to head. And for those that I thought he was "buried" in....he doubled and triple his money by 2015. The only coin I can recall beating him on was the James Stack/Jim Pryor 1855 half PCGS ogh MS65 back in 2002 for $14,500. That's now in the Pogue collection where they paid a whopping $54K for it back in 2011. The only reason I won it the 1st time around was that I saw the coin as an upgrade to MS66 while Gene's team did not. I upgraded that coin to MS66 in 2002 first time through as a regrade. Now a PCGS MS66 CAC. It was a fluke to beat them on that coin. Because most every other time they got an upgrade that I didn't see (such as the 2003 Queller raw 1857-s half that sold for MS65+ money and slabbed out as PCGS MS66. Gene paid $22K for it...sold it for around $55K-$65K in 2015. Most every really neat seated coin I've ever owned from 1986-2009, eventually ended up in Gene's collection. But you knew all that already.
You've got some kahunas for calling out Gene for "paying too much" at your Baltimore auctions. The guy built the greatest seated collection of all time by far. When the coins show up, you don't really have the option to pass on something unique. You just buy it. He might have had immense satisfaction of ownership regardless of price paid. Now that concept might be foreign to you (and me) but please don't disparage one of the greatest collectors of all time based on what he paid. Rather, look at what he built. And he did just fine over those 20 years. It just goes to show you that if you collect over a long enough period there will some ups and downs. For the post-2008 newbie flipper crowd, I suspect a "collection" is now something done over 3-5 years at most.
Tell me about the last time you "ran" someone up in a major US coin auction and how it worked out for you. Ever been on the receiving end of running someone up....and they turned around and dumped it in your lap? No, I don't think so. It happens though. You talk a game, but it's clear about your focus on CAC that you don't understand it. CAC only made the game more obvious for newbs like yourself. The game is mostly unchanged since the 1988-2008 era. Nothing new was created....just more smoke and mirrors. CAC has actually put the coin market into chaos. Been saying that for years. They made the newbies finally understand what's been going on from 1998-2008. We all knew that around here....maybe except for yourself. Are you a post-2008 CAC only newbie? Regardless of what John's original vision was.....the most important thing that has come from CAC is killing half the coin market in a very short period of time. CAC is the source of the chaos. CAC has been good to JA. It's been good to CAC-only dealers like Legend. When you finally figure all that out, let us all know. I've sent PCGS coins to CAC as they add value....not so clear for NGC coins though. CAC is doing a worthy thing imo....but don't kid yourself that they didn't stick a knife in the coin market while doing so. In the past 8+ years, no one has figured out how to close that wound.
This is now the longest running bear market in coins (Sept 2008 - Feb 2017) that I've ever lived through. The 1990-1996 bear market was brutally long and hard to live through. And now this one has eclipsed it in length...with CAC onboard the ENTIRE time. Funny, how that it is. Couldn't they rescue it if they are the best thing ever? Can you see any correlation Mr CC? Do you think it's coincidence? Why hasn't CAC been able to rescue the bulk of the coin market after the 2008 crash? What it has done is elevate PCGS CAC coins to a status they really didn't deserve....while demoting everything else unfairly. But you knew all that right? Just from reading your views of the market, it is clear to me that you don't understand the big picture. If I were buying US coins today I'd stick to circ/raw classic coins with some scarcity and true collector demand that don't rely on slabs and stickers.
"....the most important thing that has come from CAC is killing half the coin market in a very short period of time."
Tough words, and I'm not sure that I would agree. CAC certainly has been an enormously useful (possibly life-saving in some cases) marketing tool for members of the CAC consortium. Looking at the evolution of the coin market during the last few decades, something like CAC (and plus grades) was bound to happen. It's all about lessening buyer resistance to paying up for better quality. Whatever doesn't fit into the 'better quality' box, however, will circle the toilet once the designation becomes accepted by buyers as well as sellers.
What really bothers me is that many of the C and B coins are respectable, even eye appealing, for their grades. People would look at them differently if they were bumped down a grade. This game is quite distasteful.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
I probably should have said "the most significant thing" from CAC, at least from a market impact perspective. That was an asteroid hit. There's no doubt CAC sped up the process, maybe by several years or more. It seems more than coincidence that NGC bias jumped off the charts within the first 3 months of CAC starting up. I did a lot with gem NGC type coins at that time so I saw the effects in November 2008 and then again at FUN in Jan 2009 and Balty in March 2009. It was a huge change..and not just because the coin market crashed following the big gold price drop of 2008 (-34%).
I surely agree with you on how the B and C coins have lost much respectability, even when they are generally ok and appealing. Yes, the game has become "distasteful" as fewer and fewer coins each year are considered worthy. It's still the same basic game and rules of 1998-2008 though. At least back then you could sell an "honest" C coin for a 10-20% discount from a B. That's hardly true any more other than in generics. I don't think that B and C coins should be dropped down a grade if they really make minimum standards for their grade. Something has to be a 65.0 or a 65.2. They all can't be 65.5 to 65.8.
Why couldn't JA have shown up in 1998, 2002, or even 2004 in an up-trending market? He was certainly needed then. We all knew grading had shifted dramatically, especially at "particular" TPG's. CAC basically showed up as the bear market began in Nov 2008. The worst timing possible to tell the uninformed coin populace that in their opinion the grading system had "issues"
Definitely yes to CAC creating another level of dealers working only in PCGS-CAC coins. The best game in town...at least for now. Those guys were tossed a lifeline for sure while most other dealers had to try and swim with an anchor attached.
I happen to agree that in the last year of two of his life that Gene often overpaid for the coins that he wanted. Seen some of those crazy numbers that choice material brought when the Pogues, Simpson and Gardner were duking it out? I think at that point, acquiring the coin was far more important than the price paid.
I agree. Gene probably wanted those coins. A Newman or John J. Ford collection comes around once in a lifetime. How else could you explain the $329,000 for the Newman 1840-0 nd MS67 25c brought when Gene added it to his set? Pretty mind-boggling...and irreplaceable. It brought $199K when Gene sold it....and that still sounds like a LOT of money for a non-rare date, type coin MS seated quarter. I wrote about those Newman to Gardner coins back in 2015 as they were auctioned off in 2015? Team Gene beat me up ragged at major auctions 10-15 yrs ago. Who am I to criticize his Newman and other recent purchases?
"... I don't think that B and C coins should be dropped down a grade if they really make minimum standards for their grade. ..."
What 'standards' are we talking about? This is one of the principal problems with the market. Standards keep shifting, CAC standards for gold are widely praised, but for early coppers???
Grading is simply an imperfect means to setting a starting point for a price. If people won't chase C coins at grade X, might they change their minds if the basal grade were knocked to (X-1)? In effect, this is just a lowering of the starting price.
"Why couldn't JA have shown up in 1998, 2002, or even 2004 in an up-trending market? CAC basically showed up as the bear market began. The worst timing possible to tell the uninformed coin populace that the grading system in their opinion, had "issues"."
No real dealer incentive to do this in a bull market---even monkeys pushing slabs can make money then.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
I was asking a rhetorical question. But....if he was really concerned about the flux in grading back then, he would have started CAC much earlier. I was concerned in 2004. And then tossed in the towel on any lower end coins I owned in 2006. Sold them all. Discussions around here were raging in 2004-2006 about slipping grading standards and how to negotiate it. I didn't want to be holding "C" level coins when the balloon finally burst.
I'm certainly not talking about CAC "standards" since we don't even know what they are. And if CAC is rejecting 85-95% of all gem gold sent to them, that's not a standard at all, at least nothing the market can really use. I think the PCGS and NGC B and C coin standards are defined well enough where they are consistent 65-75% of the time. That's the best we got. It's probably not going to get any better, or worse under the current system. Dropping down B and C coins a grade will cause more havoc than CAC ever did or could. The price spread between 65A and 65C coins as those C's are dropped to 64B will be enormous....yet the actual "quality" spread will still be rather small between them. How can that work? Now what happens to all the legacy 64B coins? They will all have to be dropped to 63's. And so on.
I don't see standards really shifting all that much....but many more new layers being added on to cause more confusion, as if we need a + sign on our higher end 65A coins.
Laura ranted often enough about grade inflation and coin doctoring in the early to mid 2000's. Finally, JA had seen enough and decided to form CAC. It took several years, but I can assure you that the seeds of CAC were planted in the early part of the decade
Yes, learned some, expected some of what's been written. No One, shot me down on my question because" John" evidently is keeping his word from the start. I wouldn't have the nerve to state he's just telling us this. Someone still kicking and screaming and spinning out of control. Well, if the same statements are there as they get edited almost every time. With their own rules or again the doomsday scenario. IMO, just a simple ego issue. The goal posts always change by this individual.
I'd say there are FAR more total losses from CAC's rearrangement of market values than there ever was money made/saved by those buying CAC only coins. Not even close. Consider there are potentially 30 MILL PCGS/TPG slabs out there with $30 BILL in value...assuming an average 2X resubmission rate over the years. Figure the entire NGC market took an extra 10% haircut ($1.5 BILL), factor in another $0.9 BILL for unstickered PCGS coins that have dropped 10% in value because of no sticker ($15 BILL x 60% CAC miss rate x 10%). That's $2.4 BILL total. No doubt Legend and others have made tens of millions more dollars from CAC than if there had never been a CAC. But that's small potatoes and not even a factor.
How many "bad" purchases were saved by those people buying CAC only? Potentially a negligible amount really. You had little risk buying PCGS unstickered coins since 2009 as long as you paid the proper margin under stickered prices. The market still fully supports PCGS coins of all types. And most everyone has shunned NGC unstickered coins since 2009...unless steeply discounted. I would guess maybe $50-$500 MILL in value was saved by those who bought CAC only since 2009 who otherwise were unskilled enough to not fall into a trap of buying and paying solid for the grade money for over-valued slabbed coins.
CAC (2008-2017) has saved the consumer more money than the TPG's have from 1986-2017? Are you nuts CC? Do you even know what you're stating? If this is the kind of expertise you're going to bring to the forum, I suggest you step back for a few months or years, until you get your feet wet in this market.
CAC has stated they have stickered $275 MILL In total value. The TPG's around $70 BILLION. That ratio, even adjusted for 2-1 resubmissions is 127 to 1....or 0.007874%. Imagine if none of that $35-$70 BILL in coins were ever slabbed and were sold raw, willy nilly to collectors at inflated grades and prices, just like in the 1980's before the Federal Trade Commission threatened to step in and "regulate" the dealers: AT'd, cleaned, lasered, frosted, tooled, fakes, etc. Kindly, rethink your absurd statement and try again. Where do you come up with this stuff? Now you're up to 16 posts, nearly all of it in this one thread. Just the number of doctored and altered coins that the TPG's have kept out of the market in 30 yrs would make CAC's $275 MILL seem puny. For everyone's sake around here, including your own, please think before you post.
Next question is....which alt ID are you? Welcome back though if it applies. I don't think even a total newbie to numismatics could be this clueless about how our market functions.
"cac has probably saved more people from tragedy then the creation of slabs themselves."
Not even close! I am fairly certain that CAC has benefited its dealer consortium far more than the typical consumer.
Before slabs (ANACS, etc.) existed, the marketplace was flooded with whizzed, polished, etc. coins that were represented as nice coins. The TPGs have largely run these types of altered coins out of the marketplace.
One other important point: Before the TPGs and their graded holders appeared, it was quite common (almost the norm, as I recall) 40+ years ago for a dealer to undergrade a raw coin when buying, and then turn around and represent the same coin as having a higher grade to a potential buyer. This type of chiseling is much less common today. Of course, the problems that people worry about here are more subtle in many cases too, such as expertly done alterations or coins that appear under- or overgraded by a point.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
Outstanding thread. Thanks for poking the hornet's nest, stman, as I've learned a lot!
That's a candidate for Post Of The Year by CC.
CoinCommando glosses over the point that the TPG's remove 99% of the major problem coins from the market before JA even gets a chance to "review" them as to whether they are ok for the grade assigned. I like those odds. Maybe it should be the other way around. CAC can assign a grade/authenticity to each raw coin submitted, then send them to PCGS for final review by 3-4 graders as to whether they agree or not. If they agree...the coin gets slabbed with CAC's initial assignment. CAC is really nothing more than another dealer in the market who looks at slabbed coins they might buy down the road. EagleEye was doing this successfully on Indian/FE Cents long before CAC. There might be some others I've forgotten about.
I still like what CAC does and we continue to need them. That doesn't mean I can't form an opinion as to what their presence has meant to our markets, including positives and negatives. I don't drink any one brand of KoolAid. Though in my youth I was partial to High C and Hawaiian Punch. Couldn't stand Tang even if the Astronauts did.
CoinCommando are you still here? You posted FAKE news ....CAC now claims nearly $500 MILL in value purchased. My bad for going from memory and posting $275 rather than $475....which was the number just 1-2 weeks ago. In fact if you check my posts over the past couple of months, I have posted that $475 figure a number of times. How does that compare to $70 BILL or $35 BILL at the TPG's? CAC purchases or beans, it doesn't make a bit of difference in the analysis.
Does any of it change your bogus statement about CAC having saved more $$ from bad coins that in all the history of the TPG's? Of course not. Not only are you not in the ball park, you aren't even in the same county. Your "post of the year" above is the most FAKE news anyone could ever come up with....straight from the Commando's arse. Why not comment on that supposed fact... refuted by others as well.
So rather than a 127-1 ratio, the real TPG to CAC "savior" ratio is 70-1. Does it change the order of magnitude of Commando's Flub? No. That was and still is EPIC failure. CAC would have had to bean/purchase on the order of $10-$30 BILL in value to be on the same order as TPG's. They are a couple of decades from that point. CC is still spouting plenty of horse poopie by trying to deflect away from his baseless argument.
We're still waiting on the proof that CAC has saved collectors more money in bad coins that the TPG's. Please post your numbers and assumptions to back that up. Support your own statement....IF you can.
Mission statement from their website. There's nothing in there about pushing down the values of C and D quality coins. Only liberating the B and A's which if it occurred in isolation would have been ideal. But, "good things" always have unintended consequences. Liberation for A's and B's.....disparagement for the C's and D's. What is generally not talked about is that a lack of a bean is "assumed" to be a negative until proven otherwise. That's a strange factor when CAC has maybe seen only 5-10% of all slabbed coins. The other 90% get a bad rap automatically, until proven otherwise. It's not a plus for market pricing on non-A/B coins and all non-PCGS coins. Another unintended consequence....and far from liberating. I think what is more true is that A and B coins have held value, while C and D coins have been pushed down. Gold stickers have surely increased values. I see nothing but upside in that especially since it helps ensures the few nicer older holder coins survive as is.
I love to collect bust quarters raw. I could care less if they are PCGS, NGC, ANACS, ICG, CAC or raw. CAC has not changed my collecting, buying or selling habits in the past 10 years at all. The only difference I see now from 40 years ago is that all the coins in auctions are graded and some are CAC but it still does not change what I am looking for.
Honestly, I think it is way more fun to find an unattributed bust quarter variety with original surfaces RAW than buying a graded CAC bust quarter. It just takes all the fun out of it for me if someone already found the treasure before I did.
When I go to a coin show, I am looking for the dealers whose cases are full of raw coins, not the ones full of graded or CAC coins. I guess I just look at this hobby from a different perspective than many of the big hitters. Anyone who has been on this forum for a while who likes bust material knows how coin22lover has found some amazingly rare bust coins raw in the past 5 years. I find this way more impressive than someone with deep pockets who is chasing plastic and stickers who builds the number 1 registry set.
One of these days I am going to find an 1829 curled base 2 bust dime raw in the wild and it is going to be way more exciting than buying one in plastic with a green sticker
So, I take it you can't support your claim about CAC saving the market more money that the TPG's? Please contribute something positive to this discussion rather disagreeing with everything I say because you have no opinion of your own....at least nothing you have been able to substantiate so far. Come up with an original thought rather than a critique. You must have something rattling around in your head.
_Today is very dangerous and intricate market? _ Another Post Of The Year candidate....and no doubt coming from someone who wasn't even alive in 1986. Are you serious again? That statement is pure garbage. You wouldn't know "intricate" or "dangerous" if it hit you straight between the eyes. All of the problems of today were occurring LONG before CAC....I commented on that in TDN's post this week. Did you even read that? Understand any of it?
The most dangerous markets to me of the past 40 years were during summer 1979-April 1980, 1984-1986, and then
1989-1993. 2008-2016 has been a cakewalk where you can only lose up to 50% by buying many slabbed coins. That number was up to 90% back in the raw days....100% if you bought a fake. Danger? The rare coin market lost 65-75% across the board from 1980-1982. That was danger. Some coins are now 10% of their 1989 market peaks, especially things like gem classic commems. Has that happened since 2008? Nope. Would CAC back then have prevented that? Nope. So how could today be dangerous in comparison? You have no idea what "danger" is. But you can experience some of it by cracking out all your coins and putting them up in a local auction. Let me know how you do. That's danger. You'd probably lose at least 50-75% of their current wholesale value.
Trading raw coins and buying at auction in the 1970's and 1980's before PCGS was the proverbial Wild Wild West and 3X to 10X worse than the extent of problems we see today. 90% of collectors got fleeced. That was the norm. 90% of dealers selling raw coins couldn't be trusted to deliver fair value....either they didn't know how or they were ripping you with intent. Every time you open your mouth, erroneous statements come out. I'd rather see us return to a no slab - no CAC world as I could do just fine like that....as I did from 1974-1987. How would you do 100% on your own today in a raw world with no rules? Not very well if you were buying coins worth $500 each.
http://www.caccoin.com/cac-in-the-news/an-interview-with-john-albanese-by-maurice-rosen/
That's a link from 2008 with Maurice Rosen interviewing JA about CAC and other things. Note that MR says that the market today (2008) is in better shape than the pre-slab days. That's a pretty commonly accepted fact. Are you saying MR is wrong? Another "old guy" that is out of touch with your post-CAC world? I competed at major auctions from 1974 to 2004 buying raw coins....not those with the "safety" of slabs and stickers. It's not even comparable. You are 100% on your own to authenticate, avoid problem coins, and then get the grade right to right grade, and even whether and ABC coin for that grade. You see buying a stickered PCGS coin as fraught with danger compared to 1985? Really? I mean, really? Quit kidding around here. No one could be that out of touch.
Here's a quote from that interview. JA states that 80% of classic coins will sticker. This is June 2008 when they have 8 months under their belt. If this is true, and since JA said it, it must be, then we don't even need CAC. You, Mr. Coin Commando don't need CAC because they can only save you from 20% of the coins in any particular grade. PCGS, your trusted local or national dealer or auction rep can steer you away from those other 20%. At the Nov 2007 CoinFest show 85% of coins stickered per JA....all or most of those were supposedly by collectors getting free submissions. If collectors are batting they don't need any dealers.....the dealers should be asking them for help. Please discuss Mr. CC since you are fixated on facts in print. And please do note that by JA saying 80% of the non-modern or vintage slabs would sticker in June 2008....sort of contradicts his own reason for forming CAC in the first place. TPG's getting 80% of the coins right is not a problem....that's a huge victory. So why the need for a CAC if the sharper collectors got 85% right? The inference is that the good coins are in collectors hands, and most of the C and D coins resided in typical dealer's bourse cases. That's how I read it.
**MR: Of all the vintage (non-modern) coins that exist in PCGS and NGC holders today, what percentage would you say would qualify for the CAC green label?
JA: I would say it’s a high percentage, upwards of 80% or so. We unveiled our service at a Connecticut show last fall. We offered free submissions to the public. Some 500-600 coins were brought to us of which about 85% were labeled. On the other hand, if you were to go through a typical dealer’s showcase on the bourse floor of a show, it could be less than half that rate. So far, that’s been our experience based on current submissions.**
He was naive
Who, Maurice for believing him or JA for saying it? Or CoinCommando? Or all 3 of them?
I'm with HCHCoin with the notion of collecting nice bust coins raw (or seated/barber) where the TPG's influences are much less of a factor. Though they still do influence raw coins since their value is based on what they will slab out as.
I just wanted to see this one more time by itself to enjoy. Mmm, mmm good. Just like Campbell's soup. And I can't stop posting because I want to see what CoinCommando can come up with next. It's incredible "one-off" stuff. Who knows when the well might go dry?
And do tell us how the market is "intricate?" You don't know how to show up at a show with $50 to buy or coin? Or to bring a coin to a show and sell it? What's "intricate?" How does "intricate" affect CoinCommando's collecting pursuits? How is "intricate" today any different from "intricate" in 1985? Time-consuming is not "intricate."
If I were buying US coins today I'd stick to circ/raw classic coins with some scarcity and true collector demand that don't rely on slabs and stickers.
It was worth reading this whole thread and especially this one post, to get to the end and read that last line,
especially coming from you RR! ;applause:
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
Agree with every word, But my white whale is the 1806 B-8!
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
That was buried in there somewhere. Impressive that you found it. True 20-30 years ago, and truer today. I have no problem acknowledging the truth when it hits me between the eyes.
Well, as I said, a terrific thread! Sorry nothing substantive to add -- other than I agree with collecting circ/raw classic coins.
It's plenty of fun to go to a show or auction and find a slabbed type coin that is under-graded or just way underpriced. I found an ogh-common variety 1795 VG8 half dollar that was under-graded. Paid $750 and sold it 12 months later for $1550 to Stanford Coin and Bullion. A Fine12 coin all day long. Stickers have little to do with this. I'd rather find an old holdered NGC Fatty gem type coin getting no respect...and turn it into something special. Lots of white whales still out there waiting to be discovered....or regraded.
I can see the similarity and can see how that would be almost as fun
CoinCommanduh, who cares what the current bean rate is at CAC? Does it affect your participation in this "dangerous and intricate" market, lol? You're so full of it. And fwiw, you keep comparing my participation in the market as 2000 vs. 2017. I stated quite clearly I was active full time into 2010-2011. You can read and remember what I wrote, right? I still participated in shows from 2012-2013 as a collector. And a couple times each year I get updated from local dealers I've worked with for the past 20-35 years. So please inform me how much this market has changed from 2012 to 2017 that I would be shocked today. I will be attending a major regional show on March 26th where I will check in with some of my long time dealer buddies. They will give me the current scoop on the TPG's, CAC, and their last year's worth of submissions. I seriously doubt I will hear from them that anything has changed in the past couple years. Last year's visit was also "no change." But feel free to keep misquoting my posts.
As a matter of fact I welcomed TPG grading with open arms in December 1987 when I became a full time dealer and started doing all the major coin shows and auctions. There was now a profitable way to buy a raw coin, and immediately double up when it came back a higher grade from the TPG. And a place to sell it immediately. There was a constant source of gem coins at Stacks, B&M, Heritage and Goldberg auctions. It was hard to keep up. This was a great game and many dealers joined in. Even better, you could sift through the 20% of the coins that came back from dealer submissions that were under-graded. It was fairly consistent money, especially with the local dealers. As soon as you made the coins, you picked up the phone and sold them sight unseen to national dealers, or waited a couple of weeks until the next big show if you wanted stronger prices. A phone call and I'd have a dozen or so coins sold for $20K-$50K to one dealer. Go to any major show and JD of Charter Oak would buy every MS bust coin I had made the past 1-2 months. Negotiating prices was almost unnecessary. You knew the prices you'd get as soon as the coin was slabbed. Good times.
Too bad that gravy train fell apart by 1990 as buyers and liquidity dried up. I could never have made money like that selling only raw coins to other dealers for 5-15% markups....too much risk and varying opinions. The TPG slab negated that. The big score was the advent of the TPG's giving a coin a fixed grade....but you already knew that right? CC, briefly give us your experiences at the advent of the TPG era in 1987-1990....I gave you mine. Or are you just going to continue to whine away in this thread...and ask others to do your research for you? Pick up the darn phone and call JA if you want the official stated bean rate. It's likely not far from 40-45%...but you knew that already, didn't you? Since that rate varies WILDLY from series to series, metal to metal, and grade to grade. What "intricate" point do you intend to make? The average bean rate is about as useful as the average grade of all TPG coins ever graded. Is their "danger" lurking in the average bean rate that we need to know about? Are your orange undies getting a little too tight?
As RR estimated I would bet the overall bean rate (= stickers/submissions) is close to 50%. My personal rate is around 80/130, about 60%.
Did this start with PCGS/CAC vs NGC/CAC market values? Between the MS/PR Matte Lincoln and this thread I don't have time to read books!
This is sure fun.
I agree with topstuf, but I really mean it!
One important aspect of this discussion concerns HOW coins are traded. Many change hands on a sight-unseen basis (think many dealer-dealer trades, or auctions having bidders who don't physically see what they are bidding on or fail to get trusted reps to do this for them). A key reason why CAC appeared on the scene concerned this very issue---dealers wanted to engage in a 'safer' form of sight-unseen trading.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
Please show me where I ever stated the "coin market stopped." What a ludicrous "fake news" statement. Then show me where I said I stopped learning about the coin market and current trends after no longer being a full time dealer by 2010-2011. Seems to me I've been on the forum in discussions and analysis nearly every day over the past 6 years. In essence, you are defaming every collector here that isn't a full time dealer, and doesn't attend "your" big boy shows and auctions to strut their stuff. That seems to be your method of "proof." Your statement, not mine. Bad news bub. You seem to be a big fan of dealer "plumage" as well as plastic and stickers. To each his own.
I'm glad I know (from your quote above) that you can only learn and keep current in the coin hobby by attending big boyz events and placing "bets." Supposedly, you think one can't do it on the local or regional scene. You can't do it by reading, talking, and writing (ie research). You can't do it by reading Numismatic Reference Books, auction cats, etc. (now that would be news to Analyst, QDB, Breen, Scott Travers, Maurice Rosen, and other top researchers who have read hundreds or thousands of reference books besides publishing their own materials). You heard it hear from CC folks, you can't "learn" or keep up in this market without attending the ANA, Baltmore, Long Beach, or FUN shows and Platinum nights....LOL. My local dealer has been in coins full time since 1999...20-25 years as a collector prior to that. I don't think he's ventured out of the state to a "Big Boy" coin show more than a couple times since 1999...and just walking the floor if he does. Never went to a major coin auction or a Platinum night. He's just too busy in the store making money and servicing customers. Guess he's not a "player" by your rules. Thanks CoinCommando for your always instructive, keen insights.
CC states the obvious above about price differences. Possibly the only factual statement they've made in this entire thread. But as usual, it depends. For instance there are no significant PCGS/NGC price differences in generic coins like MS62-MS65 common Morgans, Saints, $20 Libs, etc. It's a very long list with millions of slabbed coins. And while coins "are judged on their own merits," they are also heavily judged on the plastic and grading labels they surround themselves with, along with other accessories such as stickers, + signs, stars, etc. It's not "intricate." And it's not complicated. It's just time-consuming.
Yall still do 100 around here? I never have and it's my thread. This is big!
Edit.... missed it.
I do too.
NOW!
really.
I'm sanguine about it now. Made some decisions and now the issue is moot.
I> @coincommando said:
You wanted 4 paragraphs.....you got 4. It's so easy to refute most everything CC comes out with.
Half the non-generic, choice/gem, slabbed coin market was torn apart in only 3 months from around Long Beach Sept 2008 to Jan FUN 2009. Choice/gem NGC type coins got hammered with additional 10-30% haircuts that weren't there before. In only 3 months no less. PCGS coins seemed immune from it. It was a blood bath focused on NGC coins, stickered ones included. I sat through the 2009 FUN auction for hours watching the carnage. I doubt CC even made that show or the March 2009 Balty show where the eventual carnage nearly reached its peak. There was NO time for gradeflation to occur in only 3 months. Understand that CC? The horses were already out of the barn. The gradeflation ran from 1997-2008. It was too late to do anything about fixing it when CAC showed up. That was 30-70 MILLION slabs out the door. Too big for a recall. What CAC did was speed up the body count and sent the market down faster. In essence, their timing and attempts to give A and B coins "more standing," killed the other half of the market (C, D, and F coins) in a very short time. I've stated this position clearly and have supported it with facts. Explain any other reason how ALL non-generic/ch-gem NGC type coins got killed in those 3 months. Did everyone just wake up one morning and decide NGC coins were worth a lot less? Why was NGC singled out? Why were unstickered PCGS coins barely affected yet even stickered NGC coins were?
Please show me where your supposed gradeflation occurred from Sept 2008-Jan 2009 that killed 1/2 the market all by itself...most of it non-PCGS stuff. That's bordering on another "Post of the Year." There also weren't more coin doctors showing up in those 3 months....lol. Now prove to us how CAC saved the market during those 3 months. FACT - CAC accelerated the entire post-2008 market crash. While they were not the ROOT cause (10-12 years of gradeflation was), they were the next major contributor to the distortions we've seen from 2009-2017. No good deed goes unpunished as they say. Sort of ironic since the founder of NGC actually fired the most critical salvo against them, even if unintentionally. And I'd bet JA never saw it coming that his stickered NGC coins would get beat bloody along with the non-stickered ones. It was literally Incredible that this occurred. Plastic trumped the coin itself for several years....even on worthy A/B coins. That had never happened from 1986-2008.
Sorry CC, I refuse to let you live down all the absurd statements you've made while refusing to provide even a sliver of data or logical thought to back anything up. I'd give an "A" for effort if you at least tried that. You have opinions, yet not a SINGLE life experience posted here to back anything up. Give us just one "experience" so we know you actually collect coins and aren't some potted plant....with an obsession for stickers. Did you really participate in the coin market from 1986-2009? Can you prove it? It doesn't seem you were even there by the naiive statements you constantly post. We can't have a "better" hobby with you running around spouting off this incorrect information. Some newbs might actually believe you that CAC saved us. No doubt though that CAC "saved" some dealers who now deal only on CAC coins. My goal here for the past 15 years has been to tell the newbies how it is. Then it's up to them how to play in the game. If I were wrong, I'd be getting inundated with PMs stating so....not receiving ones thanking me for opening up their eyes and giving it straight. I'm ok that you are too far gone to be reached. I can't save 'em all. I figure if I can save one person from a major buying/selling mistake....its all been worth it.
If CAC became the primary TPG, and PCGS and NGC were verifiers of the CAC slabs, would you rank them in the same order? I don't think so. It would then be PCGS, NGC, and CAC. The first guys do the heavy lifting and hardest work. 90% of the job. Doing the last 10% by giving another opinion is so much easier...and so much less risky.
Take a dozen slabbed coins to any top dealer (like Kenny Duncan or Brian Yutzy) and ask them to cherry pick out the best ones. It's like taking candy from a baby. The biggest risk is taken on by the slabber...not the opinions that follow. It's great that 5-10% of the coins in the market are identified with stickers. The real concern for our market are the 90% or more coins than aren't carrying a sticker. How has this saved (and not seriously injured) the larger 90% of the hobby?
roadrunner - I'd like to buy you a double bourbon on the rocks. Time to chill, keep the blood pressure low, and not let CC stir you up. You've made your points ably, no need to further abuse the deceased horse!
10-4 Catbert. But, I suspect another reply to rebut coming down the pike.
Has anyone here ever met CC? I'd like to be sure I'm not debating the proverbial potted plant.
http://www.aprci.com/index.cfm/ID/3/AFewWords_SpecialDeals
I ran across the above Evan Gale/APRC article concerning + signs and CAC back from the 2009-2010 era. The article was then updated in Oct 2013 as stickers became more numerous. Evan always had a good eye and certainly attending most shows over 20-30 years gives him some standing on which end is up. He states:
"Just as CAC has not solved any problems inherent in the grading of coins, neither will the addition of a "+" designation."
"I believe that third party grading has been invaluable to collectors. It has largely done away with the practice of unscrupulous dealers selling drastically over-graded coins for way too much money. Now, with a little bit of due diligence, the collector can buy and sell coins at a confidence level that is light-years ahead of the days of raw coins. PCGS and NGC do a great job weeding out counterfeits, artificially toned coins and problem coins."
Many collectors here share Evan's view of buying the coin, not the plastic or accessories. It's not a new car. Every coin is different. And can therefore could or should be priced differently. But this is only his opinion.
RR,
Some comments, and no disrespect to EG (I have purchased some VERY nice coins from him). But...like most dealers, he has had some funky coins for sale on occasion. He complained bitterly about CAC when the stickers began to appear on slabs, likely because this made his position as a dealer more difficult. With a 'little bit' of due diligence? Really? That's not how I approach a purchase.
If a foolproof method appeared to stop the crack-out game, as well as discontinue crossovers with minimum grades set by submitters, etc. (and other schemes that bias the grades awarded), then perhaps the market would become a bit more normal.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
Glad to hear it. Stress not desirable and wonderful stuff to avoid.
Ah, "we'll meet" and "I promise" -- color me skeptical. How often does a potted plant get out and about, anyway? Who will pull the wagon it needs to ride in?