Ask Me Anything Session with Brett Charville January 1, 2019 10:00 AM PST - 12:30 PM PST
Attention all CU Forum Members!
Kick off your new year with the new PCGS President, Brett Charville, during a live Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on January 1, 2019, from 10:00 AM PST until 12:30 PM PST. During this AMA session questions will be answered in the order they are received at the discretion of Brett and the moderator.
General Guidelines:
All appropriate and well-intentioned questions are welcome during his AMA session, however, not all questions will be answered. Due to the limited amount of time for the session, Brett and the moderator will be selecting questions that seem to be the most popular or would provide the most valuable information to our community.
Only questions and Brett’s responses will be allowed during the AMA period, all other posts on the AMA thread will be deleted. Comments and non-question related posts will not be allowed while the AMA session is live after the session is over the thread will be left open temporarily to allow discussion. This is important to keep the thread clean and easy to navigate. Failure to follow these guidelines will result in a temporary loss of posting privileges.
Sarcastic or otherwise inappropriate questions or comments will lead to a deletion of the offending post and a temporary ban for the forum member who made the post until the AMA session has ended. There will be no warnings. Depending on the degree of severity, bans for inappropriate behavior during the event may be permanent.
This thread will remain closed until the start of the AMA event.
Heather Boyd
PCGS Senior Director of Marketing
Comments
Good morning everyone and welcome to our live AMA session with PCGS President Brett Charville. Here are a few reminders for how this will work:
Only posts asking questions will be allowed
Questions can be personal about Brett or the company
Be civil!
Please only ask one question per post.
Heather Boyd
PCGS Senior Director of Marketing
Good first question! Currently there are no plans to offer any type of PQ designation service at PCGS.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Hey Aspie, lots of good questions here, don't think I can give full specifics on each one so let me try to give some general info on Variety attribution.
In talking with over 300 submitters over the last three weeks (including you!) I have gotten a lot of feedback on variety attribution. It’s something I’m already taking a hard and immediate look at and working on ways to improve it. From changing our entire process internally, to having more/different graders look at the variety attributions we’re exploring every possible avenue to improve this service.
We’re also already exploring the possibility of including a wider range of varieties to be notated as well as a prescreen service.
Lots in the works here!
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Yes! Some great visual and navigation improvements coming in the immediate future and then taking a harder look at adding more meaningful content in 2019. The goal is without a doubt to have it be a one-stop shop reference tool for all things numismatic.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Regarding holders shape / size / counterfeiting
My goal with our next generation of slab is to make a huge leap forward rather than small incremental changes.
This is a big undertaking on our part that is already in the works, it will not be an overnight process as I’d really like to do it so well that the new slabs effectively put “PCGS slab counterfeiting to bed”
What makes this process extra-difficult is all the of the requests from various sources about the shape of the holders themselves. Personally, I’d much rather PCGS have a holder that foremost fights the battle against counterfeiting, but that may come at the expense of the next holder not fitting perfectly in our existing 20 coin boxes or we may lose the ability to stack slabs with other generation holders.
Lots of moving parts here, but counterfeit reduction and then overall aesthetics take precedence.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Yes.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Hey!
Gold: Cal $2.5
Silver: 1792 half disme
Colonial: Higley Value Me As You Please
Commem: Connecticut - Love the tree design
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Great question. PL/DMPL expansion is something I'll be taking a look at in 2019, but no promises whatsoever, I'll simply be taking a hard look at it. There's more moving parts here than many people realize in terms of establishing grading standards, updating/reformatting the CU retail price guide, and adding thousands of new PCGS spec numbers.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
thanks for question! No immediate plans for ancient grading, but it's on the list of things for us to take a hard look at in 2019.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Great thought Andy, adding to the list of things to take a look at.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
No plans to setup a special table or anything of that nature. If anyone feels that their coin would qualify for buyback via the PCGS Guarantee I’d recommend they submit the coins through the office as they normally would. I’m confident that we have the strongest guarantee program in the business.
One other thing I can say here: Our turnaround time for processing coins submitted via PCGS Guarantee will improve greatly going forward. I like to keep a clean desk.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Hey John good question, but no plans on this in the immediate future. It's a great concept and we love the idea of making things easier and more cost effective for our submitters but we have found that faster turn around times trump holding orders to ship them together. Extremely difficult logistically to have it both ways.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
1a on my to-do list is improving customer service and the entire outward facing customer experience at PCGS.
This starts up front with having the President of PCGS be more accessible and having more customer interaction such as this Q&A
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Cleaning up images on CoinFacts is high on the to-do list. I’ve heard loud and clear (and seen for myself) that there’s some stale images on there as well as some images that are miscategorized. As far as pop reports, we do our best to keep pops accurate but invariably due to resubmissions these numbers will sometimes inflate over time. This has been an issue at all grading services for decades now and I’m not sure of an immediate way to correct it.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
GREAT question. You are welcome to submit high grade bulk coins in flips. I have identified that improving our guidelines for submissions like these need improving and we are working on it.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Yes, it's one of many techs being looked at in terms of holder improvements.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Great question! Really exciting plans in the works, just need a little more time before we reveal.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
We already have these in Asia, where there is more demand for them. https://www.pcgsasia.com/article/pcgs-launches-multi-coin-holder?l=en
I'm admittedly unsure what our stateside offerings on these are. (My first actual real day of work is tomorrow after all ). Great question, added to the list of things to take a look at.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
We are working on improving the process where collectors/submitters can submit meaningful feedback to the CU retail price guide and CoinFacts.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Approx 200 coins and approx $1m. Individual claims and the value per claim will always vary from year to year. These numbers were higher than usual in 2018 as we cleaned up a backlog of Guarantee submissions.
No
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
We have PCGS graders as instructors at ANA Summer Seminar every year. Previously when I was a dealer I taught grading at coin camp with multiple PCGS graders and they always did a fantastic job. it's tough logistically to let our graders out of the grading room too much, but improving our visibility and footprint at shows is part of a long-term plan we're developing.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
I think in light of how many thousands of coins we cover we already do a pretty darn good job, especially relative to other price guides currently in the market. You'll always be able to find specific examples of where we need to improve pricing, but that goes for any price guide. That being said, continuous improvement and consistency on pricing is something we're ALWAYS going to be looking to improve. General info on how we determine our pricing is already laid out in the Rare Coin Market Report magazine we publish every other month.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Great question, and it's an area I haven't gotten to look at yet. Will add to the list of things to explore. thanks!
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
It's a great concept, and I believe something that has been discussed previously, but I think unfortunately it would create too much confusion about the authenticity of said holders. I'm not saying it can't be done, but probably not high on the list when it comes to holder improvements at the moment.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Yes
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
I haven't had time to take a look at that issue yet but I'd be happy to review.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
We'll see, I was honestly hoping for a lot more questions about my dog Pablo. He's a good boy and he just did pretty well on our 34 hour drive to California.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Here’s my general thoughts on grading standards:
PCGS has their own established grading standards.
NGC has their own established grading standards
CAC has their own established grading standards.
The ANA has their own established grading standards.
Every person on the boards has their own personal established grading standards.
Thankfully for all of us, when it comes down to it, most all of these grading standards are quite similar and I know PCGS' grading standards have remained very consistent over time. But naturally, we all come here to discuss the often minute differences that have cropped up over time regarding grading standards.
PCGS has the most market accepted grading standards in the world, it’s what has allowed PCGS to be the undisputed market leader in third party authentication for decades.
That being said, we can ALWAYS look for ways to improve consistency, and we will. I have a strong grading background and look forward to working directly with our grading team to find process improvements in the grading room on both turnover and consistency. We have the best grading team and most consistent standards, but we can ALWAYS improve. Continuous improvement is the name of the game while I’m at PCGS, and we’ll be relentless in our pursuit of improvement across the board.
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Great idea but unfortunately it's very difficult to give too much time frame guidance when I'm just getting started. In talking to over 300 submitters and customers over the last few weeks, with many more calls to still be made, we're overflowing with great ideas. And that's an exciting thing!
My undoubted first priority is to improve customer service and the overall customer experience when interacting with PCGS. While there's dozens of things in the works beyond that, I'm hesitant to give a time table at this time.
This concludes our AMA. Thanks for everyone who participated! Looking forward to seeing many of you at the FUN show!
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Brett Charville --- I work at PCGS
Welcome, Pablo! Pablo is my dog's name, too
Check out my current listings: https://ebay.com/sch/khunt/m.html?_ipg=200&_sop=12&_rdc=1
Thank you to everyone who participated in this event! We hope that you found it both fun and informative. Happy New Years to you all, here’s to an amazing 2019 for PCGS.
Heather Boyd
PCGS Senior Director of Marketing