When is gradeflation good?
shorecoll
Posts: 5,447 ✭✭✭✭✭
When you open a box of EF coins you put away years ago and realize they are now magically (likely) AU.
No pics, although I am working on getting set up for that.
ANA-LM, NBS, EAC
2
Comments
NEVER! It has ruined the hobby.
If it's any consolation Captain, they're all raw so I can take them to a show and get offered VF money for them.
For the hobby never! For the dealer when they deposit the profits.
Only when selling to the public
Never! Look, suppose that you had a 20-year old thermometer and today you notice that a brand-new one, from the same manufacturer, reads several degrees higher when checked against a thermometer traced to a National Bureau of Standards standard. What would you think? Would that be OK?
Gradeflation is just a pernicious game. If a seller doesn't like the price associated with a grade today, it is never a good idea up the grade to make it easier to find a buyer who accepts your price. Prices should fluctuate, not grades. This, in my opinion, is a fundamental problem with market grading---it is based on a dash of circular reasoning thrown into technical grading considerations.
Now we are left with a mess, a situation in which collectors have understandably become quite cynical regarding grades on inserts. What happens to decent coins that happen to be entombed in slabs with 'optimistic' grades? How many sellers want to sell them for prices more in line with realistic, non-inflated grades?
One unfortunate consequence of gradeflation is that many novice, or otherwise unsophisticated, collectors will discover that they are financially buried in many of their coins because potential buyers notice the grade problems. This is a good way to cause people to leave the hobby.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
It’s good if or when you want coin values to drop.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Another thing I Never worry about.
Oh, the advantages of major error coinage
When your coins are in old holders and you are ready to sell.
It sure makes it hard to track relative values over time. We can't compare apples to apples, even with a hold time as short as 5 or 10 years.
Cac?
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
Is there gradeflation when there’s never really been an objective and repeatable measure for grading?
When you're selling.
I agree with never.......
Never is actually the correct answer. However, the reality is it's when you're selling to an inexperienced public.
I have never heard of anyone sending a coin back because they thought the grade was too high.
Cheers
Bob
>
BINGO you hit the nail on the head!
Sad but true
Grades back in the day the were too stict. imho
Hey Homie! Watch out for those Rattlers and NGC No Line Fatties!!
Perhaps you may either be a recent collector or just uninformed. At one time in the past, when the standard for Mint State required NO TRACE OF WEAR, there was a very precise grading system in use at a grading service - especially for circulated coins. What made this possible was that ALL of the variables like eye appeal, strike, market conditions, and value were removed and had no effect on the coin's technical grade.
This grading was not suitable for the commercial coin market. One problem that caused major dealers to "squeal like little pigs"
happened very often when the coins they sold/auctioned as MS-65's were graded AU-58! Additionally, there was no point sending a coin in more than once because the grade did not change!
Almost anyone can be taught to grade a coin - its actual condition of preservation. For example, I'm conceited enough to claim I can positively and correctly evaluate the condition of any coin from any country or era. However, placing a value on one (its commercial grade) must be learned with the experience that comes from major time in the trenches and study. So, I'm intelligent enough to know that I can't grade with the best of them and NEVER will be able to!
When you have a lot of older graded slabs or you are a grading service (taking in the deluge of such material for regrading).
You can bet your butt they were.
It is not good for a lowball collector
Lafayette Grading Set
I was collecting a set of business strike Liberty Nickels in MS 66. Grading was very stable in this series for a good 15 years. A six either had even satin luster on both obverse and reverse with clean surfaces, or attractive cartwheel luster with a few minor contact marks. Typically, one on the V on the reverse, possibly a light contact mark on Miss Liberty's cheek or brow and / or in the field on the obverse. Pops remained fairly steady during this time.
This changed around 2014. Gradeflation took place, prices tanked, and pops soared. It was almost impossible to make a business strike MS 67 pre 2015. The problem is, that despite gradeflation, it's still almost impossible to make a business strike MS 67. Price drops were made worse by a discovery of a roll of 12 S and 1885 or 1886 coins in Unc.
A good example of the problem this has created is look at the 12 S in this grade. You'll see an incredible range of quality for coins of this grade, as well as in their prices. When I saw this happening, I stopped collecting series.
Gradeflation is the result of having no standards. Without defined, repeatable standards, the grades have limited value. To use a sports analogy (and I am not a fan of ball sports)....If there were no goal posts/lines, then a touchdown could be anywhere....Plus, as @Insider2 noted, variables such as the unmeasurable, opinionated, eye appeal, should never, ever, be part of a grade. Cheers, RickO
@ricko
I have been screaming this from the tops of mountains for years! Leave eye appeal out of grading. That's an issue to be worked out between the buyer and the seller. The technical grade is the true grade.
GRADER: Well, technically it's a 63. But it looks nice so I'll give it a 64 or 65.
That's just plain wrong.
Cheers
Bob
The problem is not that grades 'back in the day' were too strict relative to today. The problem is a lack of constancy. No one should trust grades for the simple reason that there are no standards set in stone. Instead of letting market forces determine prices, using grades as guidelines, we have acquiesced to a system in which market forces (perceived values) help to influence grades. However, grades are then used to help determine prices, so the reasoning is (in part) circular. I am in complete agreement with RickO.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
@Outhaul....Bob, we are among the few - but I have noticed slowly growing - collectors that are pushing this issue....We can only hope that reason and logic eventually prevail. Cheers, RickO
RickO,
Reason and logic do not mix well with anything that involves lust.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
Grade is an opinion. The opinion increases as the grade get closer to the next grade up. Can't have a set standard for something with no exact definition. The 3rd party grading services eventually added the grade qualifiers ei FH, FBL, FSB, PL, DMPL, ect. which helped tighten the grading standards a little. You could say grade qualifiers are all different types of eye appeal.
Curious if folks agree. The 1st step in gradeflation was conceding allowances for weakly struck dates...a great example would be 26-D Buffalo Nickels.
Top level eye appeal can add a grading point and can forgive a lot grading wise.
@fivecents "Top level eye appeal can add a grading point and can forgive a lot grading wise."
And it should not... eye appeal is subjective, not objective....there can be no standard for that. Cheers, RickO
AGREE, AGREE, AGREE, AGREE, AGREE, AGREE, AGREE, AGREE, AGREE, AGREE, AGREE, AGREE!
I sure wish I had photographed my ... MS64 ..... 1871 dollar when it was in the rattler.
then
then
Sails lost a lot of wind on that one.
I think it redefines or refines the grading standard to date by date.
Horseshoes and hand grenades. Close is not acceptable, to the purist , in any form. Accuracy is paramount to factuality. Let's admit this.
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
IMO, coin grading started this slow evolution into the game of "throwing darts at a moving target" soon after the professional coin dealers took over the job. However, it is not all bad. Today, buying TPGS coins has made collecting a lot safer for the majority of collectors. Since It is what it is, learn to play the game as NOTING IS GOING TO CHANGE things back.
One factor to gradeflation is the 1,000 times a liner coin is resubmitted. The coin might move from owner to owner. Every owner resubmitting the coin multi times until finally it upgrades.
Strike too! They are not supposed to market grade. Grades should be relative to the state of the coin as it left the dies.
The Sheldon scale and basic guidelines, like the old ANA Standards were fine. Remember when we used to have BU, Choice BU and Gem BU. Was not a lot of room to split hairs. Original TPG grading didn't have MS64, much less all of the other intermediate grades. Then you add pluses to the lix and EVERYTHING is close to a line to cross. It either already is on the upper side or it will be tried, as long as the step up makes sense relative to the grading fees. Then you throw on a CAC bean. I miss Mikey with his "paralyzed by plastic" thing.