NGC "70" vs PCGS "70" - Which one is really right?
relayer
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NGC is much more liberal in assigning modern coins a 70 than PCGS, but which service is correct when they declare a coin a perfect 70?
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<< <i>Neither. Perfection does not exist. >>
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<< <i>Neither. Perfection does not exist >>
I don't think 70, although the "top grade" represents anyone's idea of perfection, and I don't think PCGS has had "perfection" in mind when they put a 70 grade on a coin, but I find it rather interesting that NGC originally refused to give out a 70 grade, believing that no coin was perfect, or deserved of a 70 grade, and now they give out the 70 grade rather frivolously. Personally, I wouldn't touch an NGC 70, even if I was in the business of maximizing profits. It is just dishonorable, in my opinion.
Judging from the number of ICG MS 70's that show up on HSN they must think differently...
Chicolini: Mint? No, no, I no like a mint. Uh - what other flavor you got?
<< <i>ANACS 70s >>
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<< <i>
<< <i>Neither. Perfection does not exist >>
I don't think 70, although the "top grade" represents anyone's idea of perfection, and I don't think PCGS has had "perfection" in mind when they put a 70 grade on a coin, but I find it rather interesting that NGC originally refused to give out a 70 grade, believing that no coin was perfect, or deserved of a 70 grade, and now they give out the 70 grade rather frivolously. Personally, I wouldn't touch an NGC 70, even if was in the business of maximizing profits. It is just dishonorable, in my opinion. >>
How is it dishonorable? Perhaps they're actually right. The fact that PCGS gives out so few doesn't mean they don't exist, but rather that PCGS can create a strong market for the coins by handing out a few--with registry collectors, when there are only a few pop-tops, they are much more valuable. I'll be honest, I doubt many people who buy 70s really look at the coins--if they did, they'd probably by 69s for a fraction of the cost.
Please send those customers over to me. My problem is I keep telling many of my customers to stop using their MICROSPOPE to determine the PCGS-PR70DCAM coins are "perfect" in their eyes.
Wondercoin
crack all 10 out.
List them on ebay, your case at a show, or on the b/s/t board and make NO mention what they were holdered as.
see what they bring.
I'm not going to bash on moderns but calling a coin a 70 is ridiculous. Crack it and submit it 10 times and see what happens.
I think for any service to call a coin a "70" is nothing more than a flip of a coin.
Crack a $95,000.00 1909(svdb) Lincoln cent grading PCGS-MS67RD out of the holder (10) times, submit it raw and how many times do you think you will end up with a $12,000 - $15,000 1909(svdb) PCGS-MS66RD?
Wondercoin
but we aren't discussing 67RD SVDB's here are we? 67RD SVDB's aren't "perfect".
Your puffery won't work with me.
Wondercoin
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No coin achieves perfection, that much seems to be agreed on.
MS70 is simply the highest grade a coin can achieve and would be near perfection in the eyes of the graders.
Argueing about which coin brings the most at auction is a red herring. A near perfect coin is a near perfect coin.
The slab is secondary.
John Marnard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1920, page 235ff
<< <i>Just take a look at sales on Ebay and Teletrade... and see the prices for each respectively and you will get your answer what the general coin collecting public belives is the more accurate grade. >>
All that proves is that some have more $$$ than others!
<< <i>Where does it say that MS70 is "perfect"? >>
PCGS states:
<< <i>This is for "Mint State" (the grade) and "70" (the numerical designation of that grade). A perfect coin! Even with 5X magnification there are no marks, hairlines or luster breaks in evidence. The luster is vibrant, the strike is razor-sharp, and the eye appeal is the ultimate. Note: Minor die polish and light die breaks are not considered to be defects on circulation strike coins. >>
<< <i>How is it dishonorable? >>
Perhaps "dishonorable" was too harsh for some, but then again, I see little difference in an NGC 70 as compared to an ICG 70, an (old) ANACS 70, or the multitude of other TPGs' 70s, with the exception that the NGC 70s bring more money than the others, and that their 70s are regularly hawked on The Coin Vault, Shop-At-Home, and the other mass market selling venues with comparisons made to the PCGS product. To me, this just isn't right.
<< <i>I don't buy them, therefore I'm right. >>
Right on the money, on all sorts of different levels.
<< <i>Neither. Perfection does not exist.
Judging from the number of ICG MS 70's that show up on HSN they must think differently...
HSn and Icg are contracted together, you will be able to buy more ICG ms 70's this way than say a dealer or submitting them yourself, and like NGC with The Coin Vault on Shop At Home, its all about QUANITY Not QUALITY, I know this because I know Robert Chambers and he submits 100,000 of coins per year at NGC. Perfection does exsist Look at Pammy Lee, know thats perfection. LOL!
My Complete PROOF Lincoln Cent with Major Varieties(1909-2015)Set Registry
<< <i>
<< <i>Where does it say that MS70 is "perfect"? >>
PCGS states:
<< <i>This is for "Mint State" (the grade) and "70" (the numerical designation of that grade). A perfect coin! Even with 5X magnification there are no marks, hairlines or luster breaks in evidence. The luster is vibrant, the strike is razor-sharp, and the eye appeal is the ultimate. Note: Minor die polish and light die breaks are not considered to be defects on circulation strike coins. >>
>>
If this is really the case, then there should be more MS70 moderns than there are. Limited to 5X would qualify many MS69 coins a grade of 70.
John Marnard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1920, page 235ff
<< <i>Neither. Perfection does not exist.
Judging from the number of ICG MS 70's that show up on HSN they must think differently...
They had to go through a box of 500 silver eagles to get those 450 ICG MS70s!
Exactly. 70's are just gift grades for coins that should grade 69. The type of market the tpg wants to create for their 70's dictates how often the spin-the-wheel stops at 70......
I'm with you.
To me, MS70 means "the best possible"
For what it's worth.
Check out my current listings: https://ebay.com/sch/khunt/m.html?_ipg=200&_sop=12&_rdc=1
<< <i>MS70 should be so rare that when either grading service encapsulates such it should be on the cover of Coin World. All the rest is BS. >>
No offense, Mozin, but I think this concept is BS. With the vast improvements in minting technology in the latter half of the 20th century I believe that it's perfectly reasonable to expect that the best possible example of a coin will occasionally be graded as such by PCGS and NGC. I don't think that these coins are necessarily "perfect," but they're certainly as close as you will ever see.
As far as the idea of never assigning a grade of PR70 or MS70 to any piece, that's just silly. That would only transfer the importance of that grade to the next highest number. You'd see just as few MS69 or PR69 grades now as you do 70s if the 70 was eliminated. 68 would become the modern collector's grade.
The bottom line is that when a coin is fully struck, lusterous, perfectly cameo contrasted, devoid of any distracting marks and is truly a standout for its type, I think a 70 grade is merited. Sure, there are some 70 slabs out there that carry coins that don't meet these criteria, but that's a completely different issue.
<< <i>Neither...there's no such thing as a perfect coin. A true MS-70/PF-70 does not exist. >>
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It's no wonder why even many pros can't agree on grading; we can't even agree on the definition according to accepted grading standards...
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I'll bet many people on these boards could put their 69DCAM examples up against some 70DCAM examples and we wouldn't be able to tell the difference. In fact, I bet in some cases, we would pick the 69 as the 70 and vice versa. Just my two cents.
<< <i>I'll bet many people on these boards could put their 69DCAM examples up against some 70DCAM examples and we wouldn't be able to tell the difference. In fact, I bet in some cases, we would pick the 69 as the 70 and vice versa. Just my two cents. >>
I guess everyone has their own reasons, but I can't imagine paying 10-20x more for a coin because it *might* have one or two fewer flaws which can only be seen under significant magnification. There are just too many coins I'd like to have to blow my wad on just one.
Except in Heaven
<< <i>I'll bet many people on these boards could put their 69DCAM examples up against some 70DCAM examples and we wouldn't be able to tell the difference. I bet in some cases, we would pick the 69 as the 70 and vice versa. >>
It is obvious that this could be said for ANY coins just one grade point apart.
Then, it is obvious that it could also be said that it would be silly not to take the undergrade to save a few bucks.
So, from this logic (?), we should all just collect PO-01s.
As Julian said yesterday:
<< <i>Grading will likely always be an art. One 65 will always be better than another, etc. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!! >>
<< <i>It is obvious that this could be said for ANY coins just one grade point apart.
Then, it is obvious that it could also be said that it would be silly not to take the undergrade to save a few bucks.
So, from this logic (?), we should all just collect PO-01s.
Well, not really. It's not that I wouldn't pay more for a higher grade -- it's that I wouldn't pay orders of magnitude more for a *very slightly* superior coin.
Take Morgans, for example, at least the commons. In lower grade mint state, the value rises slowly as you go from 60 to 61 to 62 to 63 to 64, so many collectors who will pay up a bit more for significantly better quality will have no problem paying up to 64 money versus, say, 62 money. But the gap from 64 to 65 is very large, so I have trouble justifying paying nearly 3x as much for a 65 as for a nice 64. The 65 is probably nicer, yes, but I don't think I derive three times the pleasure out of it, nor am I likely to derive more pleasure from one 65 than from three nice 64s.
It's not like the 70s are selling for only a 20% premium over the 69s. If that were the case, sure, maybe going for the 70 makes some sense. But to me, paying 5x, 10x, even 20x 69 money for a coin that's imperceptibly better just doesn't seem like a good value play.
For the history of coin collecting, the mantra of coin collectors and dealers alike has always remained "collect the finest you can find/afford", so each to their own, I guess.
<< <i> Well, not really. It's not that I wouldn't pay more for a higher grade -- it's that I wouldn't pay orders of magnitude more for a *very slightly* superior coin.
Take Morgans, for example, at least the commons. In lower grade mint state, the value rises slowly as you go from 60 to 61 to 62 to 63 to 64, so many collectors who will pay up a bit more for significantly better quality will have no problem paying up to 64 money versus, say, 62 money. But the gap from 64 to 65 is very large, so I have trouble justifying paying nearly 3x as much for a 65 as for a nice 64. The 65 is probably nicer, yes, but I don't think I derive three times the pleasure out of it, nor am I likely to derive more pleasure from one 65 than from three nice 64s.
It's not like the 70s are selling for only a 20% premium over the 69s. If that were the case, sure, maybe going for the 70 makes some sense. But to me, paying 5x, 10x, even 20x 69 money for a coin that's imperceptibly better just doesn't seem like a good value play. >>
Certainly there is a lot of learning to spot the differences between PR-69 and PR-70. These are subtle
differences simply because the entire range of quality on most modern proofs is pretty narrow.
So? This doesn't mean that the average MS-64 Morgan is the same as the average MS-65 Morgan. If
you can't tell the difference between typical examples of two grades then you shouldn't be buying the
more expensive coin. Save your money and just buy what you find pleasing at the lowest price whether
you're collecting bust dollars or clad dimes.
But no matter what individual collectors desire, the simple fact remains that many moderns get very
much scarcer as you go up the quality scale. Some may be common in MS-65 but rare in MS-66 or even
common in PR-69 but rare in PR-70. The combined actions of collectors is going to push the rare coins
to multiples of the common coins just as surely as most 1877 cents are worth more than most 1878's.
I have owned quite a few of these in 70 over the years, along with too many MS69s in the mix as well.
As an experiment, I taped over the grade(blue painters masking tape, so don't freak out) and mixed up the lot. I had a total of 60 slabs in the mix and I knew that 6 of them were 70s. FWIW, the years spanned 86 through 05. I only used years that contained 70s so it wasn't a matter knowing which years to reject out of hand.
I also spaced this test out over 2 weeks or so, so as not to have a recent memory of the coins. There was always at least a 2-3 day gap between each test.
I ran through my grading experiment 5 times and was able to pick out 5 of the 6 twice and all 6 of them the other three times. As it turns out, the one coin that I missed on both times was the same coin.
From this limited population experiment, I can conclude that there is a difference and that I also have one coin that could have gotten a 70 on a different day.
Were they perfect? I suppose that depends on one's definition. They were, however, superior to the MS69s.
I sold two of the older ones on eBay over the last month and they went for approximately 22X MS69 value for the same coin.
Having bought them quite some time ago, I basically tripled my money in the sale. Not a bad ROI over 3-4 years.
In a few years, those buyers will very likely be able to sell them again for a tidy profit if they should chose to do so.
John Marnard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1920, page 235ff
IGC ruined their chance to become a viable 2end tier grader by flooding the market with ms70's. They lost
a lot of credibility and there slabs sell for less and are assumed to be over graded by at least a point by many collectors.
I would say neither grader is correct and certainly MS70's are not exactly perfect only that MS70 is the highest possible grade, there has to be a highest number grade.
<< <i>The market seems to say PCGS is more correct. PCGS ms70's do sell for more and are not nearly as common. >>
I think that's a fair statement as far as MS-70s go (because it's not possible to undergrade a coin graded MS-70 or PR-70), but in the general case, just because PCGS coins sell for more (on average) doesn't automatically mean they are more "correct." It only means (in terms of market perception) that you're more likely to find a nicer coin in any given numerical grade in a PCGS holder. But that could, in theory, mean they are more consistently *undergrading* as well and that other TPGs are getting right.
In truth, this may vary depending on the coin series and when the coins were submitted.