Is it an AU58 or an MS63+, and how would you value it?
JohnnyCache
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These images are of the same coin.
While the value of gold has increased between the time of the two auctions I feel its not relative to the hammer price at the close of either auction.
How this coin was valued by the bidders was clearly based on the respective grades of each holder.
I feel the images of the coin at both auction houses were of equal quality and adequate to assess the coin.
Was it under graded? Is it now over graded?
In my assessment, I am more in line with PCGS in seeing it more as an AU58.
However, I've never seen it in hand and therefore its only reasonable and understandable that, in hand, perhaps I'd agree that it has a shot at AU58+ or perhaps even MS62, but as it stands with what the images show AU58 is not out of line IMO.
I would love to hear peoples thoughts on this coin, how do you grade it and what are your thoughts on what it brought for the final hammer price in either one or both of the auctions.
Please post some thoughts, I'm going to be hunkered down for several days due to weather and want something to discuss.
Comments
I think that’s the reason the AU58 grade gets so much attention. It’s really an uncirculated coin with a little more “handling” or “cabinet fiction” than usual. Grading it sometimes just boils down to grace. How were the graders feeling about it at the moment. That’s not to say either one is wrong, just that their perspective on any given day might lean one way or another.
The AU58 is the gray area of coin collecting, and where some people are able to make a killing with resubmissions.
Also, I’ve noticed with my pillars, NGC tends to be easier on them.
I'm BACK!!! Used to be Billet7 on the old forum.
I agree @SimonW with the points you make about the AU58 grade.
It is those things that you mention that sometimes brings about the potential for an upgrade.
There has been, and there remains to be, a certain amount of back and forth, that I've witnessed myself, between AU58 and MS62 grades on any given day, with the right coin and, as you say, how the graders may be feeling about that particular coin, in that particular moment, but MS63+, IMO, is another animal altogether.
Nice coin in any grade.
I agree Abuelo, hence why I was watching it.
Do you have any further thoughts with respect to either grade? or the current hammer price?
There are no right or wrong answers, my intent here is just to share thoughts and have a friendly discussion. I thought this could be interesting.
I remember bidding on this NGC MS61 pillar 8R and losing it. As much as I liked the semi-PL look, what held me back was that it used to be in a PCGS AU58 holder and it sold for just under $40k only 2 years before in that holder. I couldn't bring myself to pay that much of a premium for an overgraded coin.
August 2020:
https://coins.ha.com/itm/mexico/mexico-philip-v-milled-8-reales-1732-mo-f-ms61-ngc-/a/3085-30252.s
April 2018:
https://coins.ha.com/itm/mexico/mexico-philip-v-pillar-8-reales-1732-mo-f-au58-pcgs-/a/3064-31347.s
It's hard to tell without it being in-hand. But MS61 seems a more appropriate grade given the marks and hairlines. But I realize NGC really likes luster. I have seen so many NGC MS coins with marks/wear but a ton of luster.
In fact, I am going to go out on a limb here and say this coin is nowhere near MS66 (which makes it the finest known by 3 points). I saw it in-hand and I really didn't like it, though I did bid on it to a point but didn't win it. It has a weak strike, but that seems to have little weight at NGC.
https://coins.ha.com/itm/mexico/mexico-maximilian-silver-small-letters-pattern-peso-1866-mo-ms66-ngc-/a/3094-30085.s
That end of the pool is way too deep for me to play in, however, I can imagine, if I were able to do so, I would find it difficult to pay up for that coin if I didn't feel it was worthy of its new grade.
The 4 escudos above probably wouldn't have prompted me to create this thread if the coin had simply crossed with a bump to MS62.
At MS63+ I just expect a lot more out of the coin.
I have several coins that were once in a lower graded holders, but in all those cases the grade differential was only one or two increments and I was still comfortable that the coin was still solid for the new grade.
As an example this coin was previously an AU55 now AU58, but I think the grade fits.
I don't have an image of this coin in its prior holder but here it is now.
Here is another example:
Purchased from CRO
So to be clear its not about just an upgrade but rather if that upgrade is within reason.
*Forgot to mention that the Slab Views of the coin in the OP are linked to the respective auction houses if someone wanted to check them out directly for themselves.
I really love this discussion and will be following this! And I really love that 4 Reales from 1761. Great color.
I have had some upgrades from crossing between PCGS and NGC, going both ways.
Also woah ... with this below!
Reading this, it was interesting to see your perspective on the luster comment for that specific case. That is cool ... personally, I thought PCGS was all about that luster from my Hong Kong collector and dealer friends and how NGC was technical and focusing on strike and stuff?
Love this thread! Love the examples!
Yeah @JohnnyCache , that 1761-Mo 4R is a good companion for your 1761-Mo 2R. Well done!
But I prefer the 1809-So 8E as a 55.
@anthonythecoinman I was looking for you at NYINC. No such luck. Waiting to see your newps!
To tell the truth I was under the same impression as you Anthony, I've always associated PCGS with putting more weight on luster and perhaps the corresponding eye appeal that luster brings along with it. While I looked at NGC grading, as you say, being more technical, meaning does the coin check the required boxes without necessarily taking a step back and grading from a more wholistic, eye appealing, approach. I'm sure I'm not describing it correctly suffice to say if I had been asked who values luster and eye appeal more, beyond just the technicals, I would have thought PCGS first.
I can respect that and I would love it just as much as a 55.
Having submitted thousands of coins to TPGs in the past 20 odd years, I’ve become quite convinced that if you took the top 10 graders in the world and made them take the Pepsi Challenge of each others’ grades, the 58-63 range would create the most chaos.
Even more so with the growth and popularization of the 58+ grade, which is the grail of the Everyman Collector and in many US series will go for more than a 62 or 63.
Last year I submitted 47 coins that I’d accumulated in a Dansco 7070 album over about 10 years. They were nice and included several crack outs. That order had 3 58+ grades come from it. One had been cracked from an Anacs 62 holder, one from a PC 58 holder (white label), and one from an NGC 55 fatty. I thought all 3 were really strong 58s. Catching the “+” designations was just getting the right grader on the right day.
The difference between a 58 (or 58+) and 62/63 is often razor thin these days and boils down to the person behind the loupe. I see coins with obvious rub on the high points, which should automatically make it AU to me, in 63 holders all the time. These are usually coins with strong luster and a little flashiness left.
I’d want to see OPs coin in hand to have a better sense of luster before offering up a real grade opinion…….but thats a great “fence line” example that I could easily see getting a 58, 58+, 62, or 63 based on those pics.
Nice coin!
I tend to agree with what your saying, though in my much more limited experience, I haven't seen the ebb and flow of the graders mixed thoughts on coins in this range, such as this one, extend into the MS63 range as frequently as they do with say MS62 grades. For sure there are lots of coins going back and forth in the 58~62~58 range during any crossings.
Also in this case though, let’s not forget, we have not just a 63 but the + designation given, essentially indicating it is almost a 64 or at the very least indicating a top 63 candidate. Did PCGS possibly grade this coin and others like it too hard, I don't know, only the graders know what the thinking was behind the grade provided. We also can't rule out that if the coin was graded today it might be viewed differently.
I appreciate your thoughts on this very much, thanks for taking the time to share them!
@JohnnyCache I was so enthusiastic about discussing your topic that I completely missed that your coin was actually a 63+
My bad!
While the point I was trying to make remains, I’d also see 63+s as being outside that radius of 58/+/62/63 that so many coins fall in and could be assigned on any any given day.
I haven’t handled a ton of 63+s to be perfectly honest. I tend to view that grade as the graders way of saying gem luster with too many hits/contact marks to justify 64. That wouldn’t necessarily seem to be the case with your coin, although it’s tough to really get a sense of the clarity of the fields through HAs pics.
Plus graded coins seem to do well in the market, regardless of exactly how or why the designation lands on the holder.
In both sets of pictures, the obverse fields look pretty uniformly scuffed up. To me, that should be enough to preclude any type of MS63 designation, let alone with a +.
You know, I am a bit sceptical of grading (no, I am not that cynical). Clearly at some point in time someone thought it was 58 and at another time, 63 based on a subjective opinion by a grader (that may or not like bust coinage or might not be an expert on colonial Colombian coins). My feeling is that when IA comes to play this will happen less and less. It is nearly impossible for me to know if there is rubbing on high points just looking at the picture, but I have seen coins in 58 jumping like this based on that very fact (people disagreeing on the condition of the high points). Coins in 58 are peculiar as not uncommonly are more attractive than 60 or 61. That said, people are used to give a price to 58 and a higher one at 63. Likely the coin sold fairly based on the number. As helpful as grades are, this is an area in which can hurt a seller as the coin could be very attractive for the grade or even undergraded, and the seller gets hurt because the market says 58 is 100 dollars...
I very much agree with what you've said here with regard to really nice 58's not bringing as strong a price as I think they should, particularly in the space I'm most familiar with, that being Spanish Colonial.
Its so much harder than most might realize to put an attractive set together, it's actually quite challenging. On the U.S. side, the 58 grade hits different, due to the everyman registry as mentioned in MEJ7070's post. Abuelo thanks for posting your thoughts, I appreciate it.
Here’s one for you, @Abuelo. Not sure if you already knew this. (Sorry to highjack the thread.)
I bought this as a (really nice) 58.
https://coins.ha.com/itm/mexico/mexico-philip-v-4-reales-1732-mo-au58-ngc-/a/3048-31077.s
And sold it as a 61.
https://auctions.stacksbowers.com/lots/view/3-XUL44/mexico-4-reales-1732-mo-mexico-city-mint-philip-v-ngc-ms-61
I think 58s are opportunities.
I really don't get it. Isn't this more proof that grading is the Emperor's New Clothes?
There's nothing wrong with the idea of grading but when people pay eight times more for the exact same coin just because of the number on the slab, it's nonsense. There's barely any difference between grade descriptions but when even the experts can't tell the difference between 20 scale points (accounting for pluses and stars) it just proves what a fallacy it all is.
In that light, why would you care what at TPG says, let alone enough to vastly overpay for a coin for which you can't honestly tell the grade? (And no, you can't tell the difference, no matter how much you think you can).
Talking about AU58 as an opportunity just underlines the nonsense. That's a coin as an investment (shudder) based on the poor assessment of two 'experts'. If that's what grading is for, being wildly inaccurate at the detail needed, coins are very bad investments. You can make money but only by tricking someone into overpaying.
Perhaps that's just me. I don't understand the obsession with perfection anyway. If we collect coins as pieces of history, it's quite bizarre to demand only those coins that no-one in history ever touched.
Just my 2c here based on my own personal experiences……..
I don’t think Abuelo is making his “investment” based on the graders assessment as much as on his own.
The “opportunity” is in being able to recognize the coins in 58 holders that, if submitted say 10 times, would grade MS at least 5. Obviously there needs to be a worthwhile price bump involved between the 2 grade levels. Doesn’t have to be 58s, either. There are numerous US issues where 45s and 15s are popular targets for upgrade.
Understanding the “game” and that yes, grading is subjective and wavering even for the best numismatic eyes on the planet, is a big part of the opportunity.
Finally, I think that resubmitting a coin for upgrade and then auctioning it off through Stacks is approximately 20 million light years away from “tricking someone into overpaying.”
There are a few takeaways...
The coin is more important than the holder. I like the 1761 4R and the 1809 8Esc and with both coins, the grade opinion is secondary. Maybe the images of both are captured in the most favorable light, but it looks as if there is a reason to be optimistic.
It is best to see a coin in hand as photography can often capture the coin in the most favorable light which may not be the most accurate in terms of offering a grade opinion or even to determine if it meets your expectations.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Jesus. Timing was impeccable, as well. Congrats.
This is what's so bizarre. Everyone's so deep in the grading bubble they think grades have meaning - and value. It's the exact same coin. The experts at the TPGs can't tell the difference between AU58 and MS63+ or any of the 20 grades in between. So there is no difference. None. No difference at all. The grades are worthless fiction.
Yet there are people who won't spend $2,000 one week but will drop $14,000 the next on the exact same coin because it has a different label. Or $27,000 vs $240,000. 20 million light years? It's very much tricking people into overpaying, through confirmation bias provided by the TPG. It's never worth $14,000 if even the experts can't tell it from a $1,800 coin.
I don't blame people for cashing in, good luck to you, but it's not exactly honest. The people most screwed over are probably the original sellers, who trusted the TPG's opinion in the first place.
The coins I collect are not American and even if slabbed (because it's so unusual) the prices generally reflect type rarity and eye-appeal (i.e. what you can actually see), not grade. Prices increase steadily up to the nicest examples but never enough to buy a car, let alone a house. When no-one's pretending they can separate AU58 and MS63+ there are a lot more coins at the higher end to choose from, so prices don't go so crazy.
I’ve had a coin go from 63 to 63+, 64, 64+, 65. I thought it was a great 64 chance 65.
I had another coin grade AU55 3 times at PCGS and then I sent to NGC and it graded 63+.
I suppose it’s how you see the coin and not necessarily what’s on the label.
Latin American Collection
Would you be able to share the AU55 to 63+ coin? I think it would prove interesting.
Yes. 20 million light years.
Not exactly honest to regrade a coin and consign it to Stacks? You are literally letting the participants decide the price! No one is forcing anybody to bid on a Stacks auction. Seems a bit silly to insinuate that in a free market economy, selling something for more than you bought it for is somehow nefarious. That’s the vibe I’m getting here. The grade on a coin label is not supposed to be akin to the warranty on your home. It’s an experts opinion. Nothing more. Anyone that disagrees with that option is free to get another one anytime they want.
Any collectibles market is, at its core, about subjectivity. Anyone who doesn’t realize that, or can’t handle it, probably isn’t well suited to participation.
A grade opinion captures that opinion at the time of submission. A grade opinion can change over time based on several factors. I am not always convinced that the initial opinion is always the best opinion. Grading is subjective and not a math problem. Collectors need to contemplate expectations at several levels. It is far more important to develop a reasonable framework as to the qualities of the surviving population of the coins within the scope of your interest. I would rather have a coin that I see as quality for the type and grade instead of a top pop that fails to capture what I see as important.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
This whole conversation is the reason CAC has proven useful, and why I think CACG doesn't provide the same thing. CAC puts the coin in front of more experts. The more experts that view it and agree, the more likely the grade is accurate.
CACG doesn't get fourth party agreement like a NCG or PCGS coins with CAC gets. (You'd get the same thing with something like Rick Snow "Eagle Eye" confirmation.) It's legit, it's graded accurately.
CAC for world coins isn't a thing though...
I'm BACK!!! Used to be Billet7 on the old forum.
I remember both sales but for some reason thought the $240K was the Norweb MS-64+.
The price difference is nuts but then, I thought $27600 was far too low in the first sale too. I just wasn't going to try to buy it since I want to retire one day. It's not a coin I would ever want to sell.
Wow.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.