Coin Populations after crossover or upgrades?
denali12
Posts: 101 ✭
I was just wondering what happens to the population reports?..Does PCGS and NGC reduce the population on cross-overs? Or is there now just more being reported in the current population? Who has the responsibility to adjust the reports for a competitor?to lower for one and raise for another?
Same question on upgrades? does pcgs take the coin out of the lower inventory population.
Also seen many say they will just "crack out" the coin and submit raw- doesn't that also again improperly "inflate" the population numbers? So that many coins actually populations, especially i'd guess in 64-66 grades are much lower? As people try and get higher grades from a lower coin... and because 'cracked out" the old holder still counts in the Population numbers, which does affect a price of the Coin
thanks for any imput
Comments
There's no doubt that crack-outs inflate the numbers, particularly for the higher grades, as folks try for that one-grade win-the-lottery boost. The inflation's been going on for years.
People could (and some do) submit the old inserts for population adjustments (I've heard of some folks turning in hundreds at a time), but I've had the impression that people aren't as conscientious about that as they used to be. PCGS used to pay a $.50 per insert bounty; don't know if they still do.
Here's a warning parable for coin collectors...
When you do a crossover, the grading company that you submit to should return any inserts. It is up to the collector to take action from there.
If the big grading companies really wanted to have more accurate numbers they could offer more than .50/insert which I'm sure could entice more people to return them...but they don't.
If you send it to the same company and the grade changes, they adjust the population report.
As ShadyDave said, if you send it to another company what you do with the returned labels is up to you.
NGC give you 50c account credit as an incentive to return them so they can adjust the population report. AFAIK they're the only one - the other just adjust reports if you return the labels.
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
I did a recent crossover of some NGC coins to PCGS.
Nothing was returned from the old holders for the ones that crossed.
A couple even had CAC beans.
I have no idea if PCGS reports the data back to NGC or CAC.
thanks! that is interesting that pcgs paid a bonus, so as to be accurate- do you have any "guessestimate" to the percentage of inflation in the Pop's?
thanks
How many people do you think are returning the cracked slabs to the original TPG?
Interesting- so even the tpg's are not really keeping a close eye on accurate POP's..does any of the dealers here have a "guess-estimate" to how off in percentage these pop's are on popular coins?
My guess would be virtually zero. Why advertise the fact that you are playing the crack-out game? The grading services know people do it, of course, but becoming known as a crack-out artist could be conterproductive to your cause.
Hmmm, I might call PCGS customer service today to see if this is standard operating procedure. I was under the assumption that PCGS would return labels, but you know what they say about assuming.
I see no information on our hosts site indicating my assumption is correct though. I have 9 coin submitted for the crossover special still "in process", so I'll figure out sooner or later regardless.
Not sure understand? what is the 'cause"?.. is cracking out coins frowned upon? what is the downside?
The grading services don't like to be second guessed in general. They want collectors to believe that their opinions are almost always correct and authoritative. Large numbers of well publicized crack-outs with upgrades can shake that opinion. How can the grade change? Are the grading standards changing? Are the grades built on quicksand? This was the way things were in "the bad old days" when dealers bought coins using one grade and sold them using a high one.
It's the reason way PCGS was not pleased with CAC at first. But when it became obvious that CAC was here to stay, they accepted the situation.
Many collectors here know that experts can different on grades for good reasons. Many collectors in the "general populaton" or investors don't know that, and the big bullion related coin dealers don't want to market their goods with that kind of uncertainty hanging over the market. For them "the stated grade is the final word."
Ok.. that makes sense, thanks for the explanation.
found 2 interesting articles on this:
http://www.carsoncitycoinclub.com/pdf/Price_and_Rarity_of_Selected_GSA.pdf
and
http://www.usgoldexpert.com/articles/the-10-greatest-myths-of-slabbed-coins/
MYTH NO. 3: Population and census reports tell you
exactly how many coins are available.
For a number of years, PCGS and NGC have been issuing
periodic population and census reports detailing how many
coins of each date, mint and type they have certified in each
of the various grades–and these can be extremely useful to
buyers and sellers. By no means, however, should these be
considered precise reflections of how many different coins
are actually available.
The problem is, these reports contain no consistent corrective
mechanism to account for resubmissions–cases where the same
coin is submitted over and over in hopes that it will receive
a higher grade the second, third, fourth or 50th time around.
A given coin might have been graded dozens of times because
the submitter thought it might be given the next-higher grade
and thus command a much higher price. In such a situation,
the population and census reports can be extremely
misleading.
Take the case of a coin worth $1,000 in Mint State-64
and $10,000 in Mint State-65. If it’s a very high-end MS-64
piece, its owner might crack it out of its holder multiple
times and keep resubmitting it, trying to get it upgraded to
65 and thus increase its market value $9,000. The population
and census reports do not correct for this irregularity
I have a small pile of inserts just hanging out. Most of which are NGC for some reason
One of these days I might send them back...
I crossed a PCGS to NGC (I know) and NGC sent the PCGS insert back with the coin in the new NGC holder.
it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide
Are too many coins being cracked and crossed? School of thought says no.
So seems the numbers are inflated.. has anyone done or have an estimate of the percentages inflated? 5%? 20%?.. anyone?
I used to be religious about returning labels, even Anacs and Icg, though their customer service people were like what's this? but I don't crack out many these days. I wonder why on crossovers they don't automatically send the surplus insert back to alternate the grading service.
When PCGS introduced PCGS Secure in 2010, I remember thinking that the technology offered some promise for this inflated population business. It was introduced as a line of defense against altered coins, but because they charge extra for it, it hasn't had much of an impact that I can tell.
I acknowledge--without knowing--that the technology involved may make the procedure prohibitively expensive for PCGS to provide free photo recognition for every coin that crosses it's desk. But if they did, it would potentially solve the population inflation caused by repeated resubmissions, as well as -- incidentally -- grade inflation.
Of course, that would also mean that resubmission fees would evaporate overnight....
Here's a warning parable for coin collectors...
The amount of resubmissions, crackouts, crossovers has impacted the population reports to the extent that they can no longer be used for even a general guideline. Cheers, RickO
But, as many use the POP reports for pricing coins, doesn't that by extension mean many of these prices way off?
Denali, it's hard to guesstimate as it would be one number for a common where there's $50 difference between a 64 and a 65, and a completely different number (like 50x) for a grade rarity with a big jump between two grades.
Good point- i'm just a numbers person so do like to have some verifiable numbers to back up ideas and thoughts
The estimates of the rarity of the certain items have long been those that were put together by numismatic researchers and collectors. This goes back to Dr. Sheldon's first early cent die variety guide, "Early American Cents," published in the late 1940s and probably before that.
It is unfortunate that the population reports have be going off the rails, but it had to happen. The crossovers and crack-outs have inflated the numbers, and there really no way to fix it unless people did exhaustive searches of site like the Heritage archives. Even that is limited, however, because other sites, like Stack's have lost or don't offer their information to Internet users.
I spoke with PCGS Customer Service today (Stephanie, who was very helpful) and she indicated that their policy is to send ALL inserts back to the owner when a slab is cracked during a crossover.
@10000lakes your situation seems out of the ordinary according to what CS stated. If you wanted the inserts back, you might want to call PCGS [(800) 447-8848 Option #2] to get an answer as to what happened.