Sit down before you read this... eBay's coin update was implemented by idiots
airplanenut
Posts: 22,679 ✭✭✭✭✭
I know, I know. The title was probably a shock, When has eBay ever been less than stellar? Well as I go through the new updates for listing specifics, I pulled up the list of options for grading companies:
Why is that interesting? Well here is their list of approved grading companies:
I'll admit I don't know about some of the international companies on the list, but the bottom 5 have long been forbidden on eBay unless the coins are being sold as raw and don't have a numeric grade in the listing.
This reminds me of one of the greatest lines from Home Alone 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO7MzYwG6LMJK Coin Photography - eBay Consignments | High Quality Photos | LOW Prices | 20% of Consignment Proceeds Go to Pancreatic Cancer Research
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Oh, and for good measure, they also got rid of PCGS & CAC and NGC & CAC, which have been available on the grading company drop-down for years.
Curious. What do you dislike about it? And what do you mean they got rid of PCGS in the drop-down? Your image at the top has it there.
Isa (she/her)
PCGS Marketing
eBay has a long-standing policy (which is still in effect) regarding which grading companies are acceptable. They now have a drop-down list with multiple grading companies their own policy doesn't allow.
They also used to have PCGS and PCGS & CAC (and the same for NGC). They got rid of the option for stickered coins.
Well, the good news is you can still sell a raw $1000 bill for $1000 ......
I am in agreement with the OP’s conclusion.
Smitten with DBLCs.
I wonder if this new policy was AI-generated...
Aww man! I think so got rid of my last Numistrust coin last summer. The grade was tooootally accurate and would have been great for eBay.
My understanding was that you could still list coins encapsulated from “non-approved” grading companies, you just couldn’t use their grade to describe the coin or show the grade in the photo, or something like that.
If you select a non-approved company in that drop-down, does it then require you to enter a specific grade in another drop-down?
I’m guessing it’s an oversight. There are so many rules that it’s hard, even for internal folks, to keep track of everything.
ebay needs to spend less time making rules and more time swatting flies.
The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.
Albert Einstein (14 March 1879--18 April 1955)
I'm usually a big eBay supporter but in this case, I don't get it. They want grades in the listings I submit? Well, I include them in both the title and description. How hard can it be for them to verify that a grade is included by the seller when listing something for sale? Not hard at all- try listing a coin from "Cuba" and see what happens.
Maybe the policy on the other services is changing on June 1st when the new policy is official. I have PCI and SEGS slabs i could list to see what happens. Personally, I've anyways thought the current policy was silly anyway. On a raw coin, why can I say XF but not XF40? And I'm not sure what the harm was in allowing the other services. If you don't know the difference between PCGS and SEGS, maybe you should do more research before you buy?
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
This is kind of my point. They're going to make you use a drop-down list to select a grade (well, a grade range- but still...) while they can already tell if you're using a grade (XF vs. XF40).
They have a phenomenal number of fake coins and they are messing with things that were working already.
You probably shouldn't buy those.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
That thought very much ran through my head as an explanation for how they got that list
The fork occurs when you choose between graded or ungraded (which, moronically, they list as the two options under "condition" where it used to be "certification"). If you select graded, you put in the grading company and grade. I also assume it's an oversight, but it's just so basic that there's no excuse for it. Their coin policy page is 50% about grading companies, and it takes 60 seconds to read.
Then there are also problems with grade ranges. For raw coins, I don't mind not giving precise grades because it's less for a buyer to complain about ("you said it was a 45 but it's only a 40!"). To that end, I'll also list coins as VF/XF when they're near the line. But with the new drop-downs, I can choose Fine to Very Fine, or Extremely Fine to About Uncirculated. So now my VF/XF is either F/VF or XF/AU. Perfect.
I'm hoping that part of what they can accomplish with this is a better data feed for price guides. I can imagine that with the loosey-goosey way it is now a lot of the data is trash. If they can standardize it, it'll be a big help. Really though the only way that happens is probably if they can make it easy to select the industry coin number (which includes translating PCGS coin numbers).
I've got some listings like that, too. Apparently, eBay is okay with less accuracy in grading as long as you use their options.
Not gonna happen. They already have "Circulated/Uncirculated" as an option and some sellers can't even get that right.