A Dated but Interesting Experiment

bosox

I see questions here occasionally about variations between grading services regarding Canadian coins. Back in 2004 many of us had the same questions. Rick Simpson, a Canadian dealer and nice guy, conducted an experiment and wrote about the results. I remember it, because I contributed the 1881-H cent. That cent now resides in a PCGS MS-64RB holder. I thought his old write up might interest some. Of course, times change but, if you have an old holder, it may give you some insight.

http://www.canadiancoin.com/coin_articles.asp?name=documents/archive/coin_grading_test_rick.txt

syl

Back in 2004, ICCS was pretty tough on most coins and, I felt, undergraded. Then grade creep started with them and they became pretty liberal on most denominations. Now they have tightened the reins again. If you can find coins in old ICCS holders from the late 90's through the early/mid 2000's, then it will probably upgrade now. Because it was the ICCS owner's personal collecting niche, he was always hardest on 5 cent silvers.

YQQ

in 2012 I wanted to find out myself if ICCS would grade consistantly.
sent 1 Canadian Queen Victoria 5 cent piece to ICCS. It came back as MS 62
cut it out a few weeks later and sent it raw together with a few others. this time it came back as MS 60.
did the same 2 time over again within the next few months, but actually had 2 different friends send the coins.
the 5 cent graded MS 60 and AU 58.
Then I sent it together with 3 others of the same year again, all raw and different grades. The subject coin came back as a MS63
Talk about consistantcy in grading... or shall we say high paid opinions?
Finally, I decided to send it a few months later to CCCS in Quebec and have it placed in a Hard slab. Their hard slab looks good IMO. it came back as a 62 which I hoped for to start with.
was it worth the experiment? Am not sure. But I learned to buy what I like and not what someone else wants me to like because it is graded and certified by "such & such" TPG.

bosox

The last few years ICCS has been all over the map on grades. Very little consistency IMO.

tonedSilver

Very interesting experiment, thanks for sharing. Has this helped in identifying problem coins or coins that are overgraded?

bosox

At the time, it gave us a little understanding about what the TPG's were looking for and how grading between the services varied. Who was strict, who was not so strict. Who was consistent and who was not so consistent. Of course, the performances of TPG's vary over time and are different now then they were when we did that experiment.

Given how TPG's standards change with time, I have found the only reliable way to identify over-graded coins is to become proficient at grading yourself.