I'm confused about grades assigned to coins for sale in Numismatic News
Klif50
Posts: 804 ✭✭✭✭
I've been sitting and looking at the ads for a while. I see grades on coins of VF but notes of light corrasion and rim nicks. I don't believe that the grading companies will put a grade on coins with those issues. Also, I see PCGS grades and then I see a lot of coins listed as MS61, MS62 and better which haven't been "blessed" by the grading companies, but there is no guarantee that the coins will actually receive a grade from the grading companies with these grades. Also adds for rolls of coins where they will all be BU. In the olden days of the 70s if you got a "BU" roll out of a publication you were almost guaranteed to receive mostly sliders or even super sliders, or maybe AU coins at the best.
Several companies advertise with the PCGS grades, and NGC grades and I'm good with that. I'm not good with someone filling pages with problem coins that are given grades with notes of issues from other companies.
No pictures and no offers to send pictures. I know that full page ads are not cheap. Do sellers up the grades to increase the profit margin? Will they take the coin back if you send it in for grading? Nope since many say, not returnable if removed from original holder.
It just seems like a disservice for a magazine with the reputation of NN and their long standing good reputation, to be full of ads that are questionable at best.
Maybe things haven't really changed. I ordered coins through the mail in the 60s and 70s and when they said uncirculated, I believed it, until I took them to a coin shop and were told "slider" or "AU" or maybe even polished XF but one shop and then another and another. Maybe the need to make more money is reason for putting grades that would normally come from PCGS or NGC or ANACS on an ungraded coin.
Comments
MS61, MS62, etc. are opinions of a coin's grade. PCGS/NGC/ANACS do not own these descriptors, anyone can use them.
edited to add... And as far as guarantees go, there are none that assure you that a PCGS MS61 coin will get an MS61 grade at NGC.
That is a true statement, but at least the grading companies have a pretty good reputation behind their grades, I don't know anything about the reputations behind the companies advertising in NN with a very few exceptions.
Grades, even from a third-party grader, are only opinions. Everyone is allowed to have one. I think you are expecting too much precision.
Big cajones for those buying raw coins without pictures based on “descriptions” from a publication
That doesn't mean that others don't know the reputation of such companies. These are very traditional ads. Before grading companies, these were what ALL the ads looked like.
I have no problem with it. But, as always, caveat emptor.
I actually trust any company that says "VF with corrosion" - they aren't trying to hide anything.
And "not returnable if removed from the original holder" means that it IS returnable if in the original holder. How would the seller know it is the same coin if it was removed?
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Fortunately, not on EBay -- they have a policy that those numerical grades are limited to legit slabbed coins (and of course the occasional Chinese fake).