I found the answer but it might not be the answer that i was looking for...(a pun on the rhythm and blues song)

After looking up the topic on PCGS' board, I found several posts on this topic. It seems that the early coins were encapsulated by their collector's society, I think that it's called collector's universe, rather than PCGS, but using PCGS holders. If that's not enough to confuse a collector, I'm not sure what is. Apparently that is the reason for the absence of the bar code. THEN PCGS changed their minds and started following their normal protocol and grading coins numerically with bar codes though i've seen one posted on the internet with a bar code and a 'gem' grade.

So when I bought mine, I had to look through a number of them and guesstimate which one actually was GEM (MS 65) since they weren't graded by the normal PCGS staff (I'm assuming). And yes, it appears that the other bidders were doing the same as those coins were selling at a much higher prem. than other similar 'gem' labeled coins.