What defines a true grading service?
astrorat
Posts: 9,221 ✭✭✭✭✭
Hi folks-
With all the discussion about self-slabbers, mock grading companies and the like...how do you define a real grading company?
Yes, we can all point to companies that are great, marginal and well, less than acceptable, but that's not what I am getting at. What constitutes a true grading company - good, bad or otherwise?
This is a serious question and not meant as a platform to vent. Thanks.
Lane
With all the discussion about self-slabbers, mock grading companies and the like...how do you define a real grading company?
Yes, we can all point to companies that are great, marginal and well, less than acceptable, but that's not what I am getting at. What constitutes a true grading company - good, bad or otherwise?
This is a serious question and not meant as a platform to vent. Thanks.
Lane
Numismatist Ordinaire
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
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Comments
2. Ability to distinguish AT from NT
3. Consistency.
It makes no difference if their 66s are my 62s. As long as the company has consistency and the ability to identify the genuine article, it can easily recalibrate its numerical grades to match industry standard (or I can recalibrate mine to match the grading company's). Either way, I'll always know what I'm getting.
It'll never happen.
<< <i>1. Ability to distinguish genuine from altered
2. Ability to distinguish AT from NT
3. Consistency.
It makes no difference if their 66s are my 62s. As long as the company has consistency and the ability to identify the genuine article, it can easily recalibrate its numerical grades to match industry standard (or I can recalibrate mine to match the grading company's). Either way, I'll always know what I'm getting.
It'll never happen. >>
Spoken like a true Prodigy!
<< <i>1. Ability to distinguish genuine from altered
2. Ability to distinguish AT from NT
3. Consistency.
It makes no difference if their 66s are my 62s. As long as the company has consistency and the ability to identify the genuine article, it can easily recalibrate its numerical grades to match industry standard (or I can recalibrate mine to match the grading company's). Either way, I'll always know what I'm getting.
It'll never happen. >>
Good points, but that describes the quality of the grading service and not whether or not the company is a true grading company or a self-slabber.
Lane
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
Who is John Galt?
<< <i>Market acceptance. >>
How is market acceptance defined?
Lane
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
My two cents
WGC, SGC, AAA, or any alphabet company for that matter is consistent, they consistently overgrade coins. They don't distinguish
between counterfeits or the real thing but they are off by up to 10 to 15 points so consistency to me is a non-entity.
I want a TPG, in my idealistic world, to tell me if a coin is a non-fake, and if it is AT (and of course this has a lot to do about what is market acceptable
at the time of grading), and give me a rough idea of the coins grade. I would like to see consistency in grades for the entire series.
I don't want an 81S Morgan to be a 65 and a 04S to grade a 63 when they are virtually identical.
I would love if the TPG would aknowledge what kind of strike we're are dealing with. A weakly struck 63 could look
better than a 65, except for details, and we, the audience, would have no way of knowing this unless we're intimately familiar with the series.
I am a Morgan collector. I have a 96O graded 62 by PCGS, which looks better than most common date 64's but unless you are intimately
familiar with Morgans, if you look at this coin you have no clue.
Grading a coin based on the rarity rather than having a uniform standard across the board creates confusion and creates crackout specialists.
Bruce
In my opinion a person can still use a grading set of PCGS coins to compare other grading services by.
After awhile it becomes apparent that the other top tier services ( NGC, ANACS and lately ICG) run pretty close to PCGS sometimes just missing and sometimes exceeding the same quality in the same grade.
I have crossed many coins from these three services to PCGS who I consider to be the most consistant and the most readily marketable slabs.
All of the others in my opinion are a joke. They don't even come close to the standards employed by the top four. They don't in my opinion even try.
In my opinion they exist solely to encapsulate coins in super grades for sale to unknowledgable buyers who don't know the difference.
This brings us to the subject of marketability.
My advice to newbies is simply this: Buy some of these third world coins in ms 66. (I haven't seen many graded below that.) You should be able to buy all the ms 66s you want on ebay for ms 63 money even though the seller advertises their value @ $75,000. You should be able to buy them for a couple hundred.
After comparing them to similar graded coins by PCGS and the other top three you should become sufficiently sick in the pit of your stomach.
Then try to sell them for somewhere near what you paid.
Come back to the forum and tell us how you made out.
Yes, you do have to invest a little for your education. Have fun. Dave
The priceless ingredient in any coin transaction is the integrity of the dealer.
David J Weygant Rare Coins website: www.djwcoin.com
he who has the best customer satisfaction.
<< <i>Market acceptance. >>
Also, management and who is affiliated with the service would give it some legitimacy.
Deffinitions:
True Grading service- 1. A grading service who has 4 initials in the name; Beginning with P and ending in S with C and G comprising the middle letters in that order. 2. A grading service who has 5 initials in the name; Beginning with A and ending in S with NAC comprising the middle letters in that order. 3. A grading service who has 3 initials in the name; Beginning with N and ending in C with G comprising the middle letter or beginning in I and ending in G with C comprising the middle letter.
JJ
"I key on two things. Do they accept outside submissions? Are there some steps taken to insure that the grade given goes with the coin in hand?
Grading ability is not relevent, consistancy is not relevent, authentication ability is not relevent. The fact that they grade their own coins is not relevent. What is relevent is that they have taken a coin and applied a grade to it for a fee. They have provided a paid service, Grading. That makes them a grading service. Not a "Third Party" or and "Independant" grading service, but still a grading service. Authentication is not relevent because this is a GRADING service not an AUTHENTICATION service, and even fake coins have grades.
My requirement for the steps to link the grade to the specific coin is because if it is a grading service there has to be some way of knowing what coin the services were provided for. If we don't know what they graded, no service has been provided. A sealed holder works well, or a quality detailed photo that allows confirmation of the coin by examination and comparison to the photo.
Whether the market accepts it has no bearing on the fact that a fee has been paid for a service rendered, even if rendered poorly"