How does the Pcgs grade guarantee work?
stephunter
Posts: 2,324 ✭✭✭
Have a friend that has an 09-S Vdb in a Pcgs 64 Red holder, but the coin is obviously not red. Actually closer to brown than Red/brown. Does Pcgs buy the coin from you or do they downgrade and send you a check?
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Best I could find:
"The Guarantee of Grade & Authenticity is fundamental to PCGS's concept of third-party grading. The cash-back policy ensures the accuracy of the grade assigned to any PCGS coin as long as it remains in its tamper-evident holder. If a coin is believed to be improperly graded, and a discrepancy is found when resubmitted through PCGS's Downgrade Resubmission service, the guarantee entitles the coin's owner to options designed for his protection."
As for what those "options" are I can't find anything on their site anywhere. It really will depend on many factors how they will handle it. They might buy it outright from you or downgrade it & offer you some "difference", or claim "mechanical error" & return the coin to you. With the first two scenarios, you may or may not like the values they use to determine how much of a check to cut to you. They might factor in what the coin cost YOU in determining how to treat you - NOT a fair market amount based on recent real sales.
Keep us posted.
A couple of years ago I sent a couple coins back for review. At that time I had to submit the coins for Presidential Review and follow that process. I also had to include documentation of the price I paid. In my case David Hall agreed with me and PCGS refunded my money, the Presidential Review fees, and shipping. I was very satisfied with how this was handled. It is one of the reasons why >95% of my coins reside in PCGS holders.
More recently, the coin was downgraded and I was given a check for the difference.
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson
My digital cameo album 1950-64 Cameos - take a look!
1st set included the PR70. They just cut a check for the value I put on the invoice. Unfortunatley I put low ball numbers to save on shipping. (Bad Choice). Good news is they broke the coins out of the slabs and sent them with the check.
2nd set was all MS and PR69. They just cleaned up the spots and re-slabbed them and returned them.
On both sets I had no contact with PCGS, they just did it, so based on this there is no way to tell what will happen.
Either way you get billed for shipping.
Hope this helps.
They can upgrade the coin, reholder and send it back keeping the fees.
They can agree with the original grade and send it back keeping the fees. (They may or may not reholder.)
They can downgrade, reholder, and return fees, coin, and a check for the difference in value.
They can downgrade, return fees and a check for the coin.
Which one they do is usually pretty much up to them, but sometimes they will give you the option between the last two. If after re-examining the coin they decide that it has a problem that would preclude it from being in a PCGS slab they will NOT give you the third option.