So how far are TPG POP numbers really off?
safari_dude
Posts: 296 ✭✭✭✭
We keep hearing about coins being melted (especially $20 common gold pieces in the lower grades) and some coins being sent in multiple times in hopes of a better grade, and then crossed over to another TPG service for another crack at a possible upgrade. So I was wondering how far off some of the PCGS/NGC populations are for the more elusive/rarer coins due to the multiple submissions, and reholdering of the same coins? Do you think it would make big value differences in many of these coins if the true pops were actually known? Is there even a way to know the true POPs?
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This won't make any difference. These are actually bullion coins at current spot prices.
It's my opinion that this is generally overstated, either that or a lot more people like to waste their money on grading fees when most of them can't grade to TPG standards. There is also the risk of a downgrade and more so now with "+" grading, but that's usually never mentioned. It isn't cost free, and it's not risk free either as seems to be a common perception.
I accept accounts where someone specifically knows it happened and agree it's more likely/happens on more expensive coins particularly with a high enough price variance between grades. I still don't believe it's as prevalent as seems to be common perception.
I also believe there is a misperception that most everyone is motivated to grade whatever coinage someone has in mind when this isn't necessarily true. Yes, it will presumably happen when sold, but not necessarily prior to sale.
I'd have to dig it up and not sure I can find it, but there is a Coin Week article where Jeff Garrett at minimum made the inference that the coins you're inferring had mostly been identified. In the comments section, Harvey Stack directly contradicted him. Neither oner provided specifics. So, though we can't know for certain, I consider Stack to be someone "in the know" whose opinion should be considered.
.> @safari_dude said:
Depends upon the coin and the difference.
No. For most coinage, no one or not enough collectors really care and it's not practical. I'm aware of it on the highest profile US (and less frequently non-US) coinage, but not otherwise.
Too general a question. Some pops are off by 1%, others are off by 70%.
Would it affect the value? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!
When you're bidding on a coin, do you look up the population and calculate the value from that number? People determine value based on prior sales. You tell me that a pop 5 coin is really a pop 2, I'm still going to base my offer based on the last sale.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
The melting of common date, common grade, generic double eagles should not affect any pop-top candidates or data. However, I have personal experience in some of the classic pop-top US coinage areas where coins were submitted over and over and over again in the hope of getting the coin to "pop" to the next grade and, therefore, increase in value tremendously.
One such coin was a better date, mid-nineteenth century gold in gem grade (that is about all the detail I will give on the issue, but I know exactly what coin I am writing about). I think the pop-top at PCGS was two or three coins, including this one, and I recall having it cracked out at the table at a show and submitted for show grading with PCGS more than a dozen times and perhaps upward of two dozen times. The coin always came back as the same pop-top grade and was always cracked out again and resubmitted. The fees for in-show grading are not trivial and sometimes the coin was submitted multiple times at the same show. After about two years the coin was sold at its consistent pop-top grade, the TPG was never given the old certs back to correct the population report and the coin sold at the level that the other one or two coins at the same grade had sold previously. The PCGS population report is off to this day and will remain inaccurate since all the old certs were discarded.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
@TomB gave the perfect example of what I was going to comment (albeit even I’m shocked to hear of a single coin getting submitted that often!).
I think in general, the more lucrative it is to get an upgrade, the more likely the coin has been resubmitted, and likely overstated in the pop reports. Without a big price spread, there’s little incentive to submit a coin for upgrading. For the typical collector coins, the pops are probably pretty accurate (though these also likely have raw coins in albums that have never been graded). For the big coins in the deeper end of the pool, more likely overstated, BUT as others have eluded to, the auction records and appearances are easier to trace, so the actual scarcity is more known by those pursuing them.
When I got into the hobby, there was a pop of 2 Buffalo Nickels in 1938d MS68.
Today the pop is 80+.
Gradeflation and the crackout game has made population numbers an afterthought for my needs.
Probably less an issue in scarce VAM's or die marriage dependent series.
BST: KindaNewish (3/21/21), WQuarterFreddie (3/30/21), Meltdown (4/6/21), DBSTrader2 (5/5/21) AKA- unclemonkey on Blow Out
And more coins coming out of hidden collections and raw coins being submitted. Virtually ANY pop census from 1990 (when the TPGs were only a few years old) would show an increase 35 years later, some for legit reasons, others less so.