coinman_23885

Thanks for the responses. I haven't seen any NGC coins yet with a CAC sticker. Do they just do PCGS?

Mark Salzberg is not going to be too happy with this comment.

The Red Book lists the prices dealers wish they could sell their coins for; the Blue Book lists the prices dealers wish they could buy coins for to include them in inventory. The last time I bothered looking at either for pricing information, neither seem realistic.

There's plenty of ways to do this and I played around with a few. The first few tries weren't very smooth at all. I used PhotoShop Elements to do this.

 

The coin and camera are set in place and don't move. I took something like 10 or 11 photos while moving a single hand-held halogen light around the lens a few degrees at a time. Focus is manually set, the exposure and shutter are manually set, the mirror is locked open, and I trigger the shutter remotely with Canon's tethered image capture software. Each frame gets cropped and I resized everything to 300x300, which still results in a 1.2 MB image. I duplicated most of the frames to loop it like this:

 

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1.

 

Each frame plays for 0.1 sec IIRC.

Thank you!

A NewP, from David Kahn:

 

 

A little thing I just taught myself how to do. The lighting technique needs some work & over-emphasizes chatter in the fields, but I think it's pretty cool for showing luster:

 

The coin is very nice. I also like your animated GIF. How many still shots did you take and at what angle was the coin titled? What about the positioning of the lights? I have seen many do this and the result usually doesn't have as smooth of a transition as your image does.

The new policy seemingly ameliorates the concerns of those who use the registry primarily for educational and/or inventory purposes.

What is going on in the obverse fields? I see numbers or letters.

Actually, NGC's decision will impact the prices collectors are willing to pay for NGC-graded classic coins which will necessarily filter down to the auctions. I heard about Saltzberg's decision only a week or so ago. I had about a dozen NGC coins on my watch list for the upcoming Heritage FUN auction. I deleted them all, not as a "protest" or to "punish" anyone, but because my NGC registry sets will ultimately have to be switched over to PCGS and I don't want to buy coins that won't fit (and none of the coins were end-of-the-world material). I can't know from an auction photo (or, for that matter, can't really know at all) whether a coin will cross to PCGS. Besides, I don't do the regrade and cross game. When I sell is when my dealer or consignor will do it. Just as CAC coins command a premium, my bet is that we'll see a significantly greater spread between PCGS and NGC prices. I never ascribed to the -ism in the high-end, high-price coin trade "if it could be in a PCGS holder, it would be in a PCGS holder." Soon enough though, that saying be gospel. Eventually, the only hard-date classic coins you'll see in NGC holders are those at the bottom of the barrel.

I hope you're wrong, but I'm not holding my breath. If there is any damage as a result of the decision, I don't think it will ever be reversible.

 

I agree with you. I think there are more PCGS collectors that are brand loyal than NGC collectors. I may very well be wrong, but it will be interesting to see. I predict that this will hurt NGC's bottom line, and given some of the posts from people here, it may cause many of its most loyal customers to defect.

 

I don't participate in the registry and would not know how to begin.

 

I am interested, though, on some of the focus points about the issue.

 

If registry participants move to PCGS because of the apparent resale value, then the focus is economic gain, is it not? If it was not economic gain, what would be so bad about participating in both registries? Would that not be just as enjoyable and maybe even more challenging?

My guess is that most of them are annoyed with using two separate sets of software, both of which may inaccurately portray their coin collections. It is like using two software programs on your personal computer to catalog/inventory your collection. Most collectors would be annoyed by the prospects of buying duplicates (a PCGS and NGC coin) to participate in both. Having gaps would seem to alienate the collector (fill the hole in the "album") mindset of many collectors.

I can understand that NGC offered a collector advantage because it accepted PCGS and PCGS did not accept NGC, so it was a convenience of sorts. If NGC had mimicked PCGS, how many of the collectors that utilize NGC would have stayed brand loyal to NGC, and vice versa, or would they have stayed with PCGS because of the perceived economic gain?

I don't think I can answer your questions other than with more questions. Would PCGS have as large of a perceived premium if NGC had aggressively marketed its coins and brand loyalty (including an NGC only registry) early on like PCGS did? I think much of the PCGS premium (especially on very high end coins, AU58s, and even culls because of quirky everyman/lowball sets) is driven by the PCGS registry. As such, I don't know whether PCGS would have greater brand loyalty in those circumstances and what the effects of an early NGC-only registry would have had.

I am not certain NGC will be hurt via the bottom line. What is the cost to NGC of running the registry? I also think there are many more modern and world collectors than generally assumed, and the younger generation is going to go where they are most welcome. Whether that is NGC or PCGS remains to be seen. PCGS has had a free ride in the registry at the expense of NGC. As a business, NGC is no more responsible to increasing the profit center of PCGS than PCGS is responsible for same toward NGC. I do think, based on many shows I have attended and participated in, that the world collecting community is quite prevalent, and younger collectors are very astute at "discovering" the value and fun of collecting world and modern.

I hope you are right. People are upset with NGC, but PCGS has been far more abusive to collectors in my opinion. It arbitrarily banned customers with valid and respectful dissents, its inconsistency and grade inflation are creating market chaos (and with the exception of short periods of time, I think PCGS is generally more inconsistent), it has weakened its guarantee, and has even publicly refused to honor its guarantee at times claiming that coins overgraded by 3 or more points are presumed mechanical errors that are excepted from the guarantee. What PCGS has done is far worse than NGC, and those protesting NGC could help PCGS monopolize the market if the new strategy fails.

At best, I think NGC's decision alienates collectors. I think PCGS's decisions have harmed collectors and the hobby. There is a big difference between alienation and harm/abuse.

The collectors NGC is forcing out of the NGC market are those who want two things: (1) to look for and buy the best available coins within their budget, regardless of the slab and (2) to participate in a Registry. Many people who do Registry sets do it primarily to relate to other collectors. I've met several collectors from around the U.S. through my sets (and theirs). We often meet at the shows, look to each other for advice on prospective purchases, and buy, sell and trade among ourselves. It has less to do with striving to be "No. 1" than with having some fun, finding great coins, and advancing the hobby.

I think collectors will still pursue NGC graded coins since I think that vast majority are coin collectors and not slab collectors. I do think the NGC Registry will wither away to a shadow of its former self, and I think NGC submissions will go down because of protest submitters.

Very well said Kaiser14! You have given some great examples to back up your point.One question I can’t answer is what % of classic slabbed coin collectors actively use the NGC registry. Obviously no one knows. Say it 10%. To me they have forced that 10% of the collecting populace to decide between buying from/submitting to one of the services. As the number 2 company do they really think they would get more business from this move? To me I would think more people would go to PCGS coins because of the higher apparent resale value- so it would be a net loss of business versus keeping the status quo. Sure- maybe the modern collectors who already submit to NGC will be thrilled to move up in the rankings- but really how much of a % of the market are the modern collectors? As you said maybe they want to just corner the market on Modern and World coins and let the classic collectors go to PCGS?

I agree with you. I think there are more PCGS collectors that are brand loyal than NGC collectors. I may very well be wrong, but it will be interesting to see. I predict that this will hurt NGC's bottom line, and given some of the posts from people here, it may cause many of its most loyal customers to defect.

Additionally, I can't see crossing my PCGS coins to NGC as it will instantly loose value if it only crosses at the same grade.

+1

I promise you, the "final goal" of NGC is to remove all PCGS coins from sets, even those grandfathered. The grandfathering scheme is simply not sustainable (not to mention, it makes basically ZERO sense).

You're right that it is probably easier to work up to the final goal incrementally and perhaps dull some of the criticism. I wonder how long the PCGS coins will remain?

I believe the ANA has an election coming up in 2017. You might want to run for one of the Board of Governors slots. Nowadays, it might not even require any experience.

What ever happened to civility here?

I'm sure that every one of your engineering concerns is solvable. I don't have the programming experience to solve it, but I'm sure someone could. One big concern everyone would have is - why do you allow TPG X into your registry but not Y or Z? Well, you could answer that question by limiting it to TPGs that have an online cert verification (NGC, PCGS, ANACS, are there any others? Does ICG?) I'll bet you could program a bot to lookup and verify the cert numbers.

 

As for the sets - the number of specialized sets is ridiculous. There are dozens of different sets for some series, with a dizzying permutation of minor varieties. I'd start with the RedBook sets, build the site, gain a following, and then work on expansion. I'd also start with US only to begin with, and expand to popular world series later. You can't jump in with everything - the NGC registry has been adding hundreds of new sets a year for 15 years.

 

For scoring, there are several options. I don't know that NGC's point system is the best. Just using the straight grade (as PCGS used to do) isn't the best either.... maybe use the value? (just the first idea that popped in my head). That accounts for rarity (more or less), and is easily obtained from several websites (again, a programmer should be able to do that). You'd have to license the data, of course.

 

Even if you only start with custom sets, building the user base (and getting ad revenue to finance further operations) is a start. Your domain name is a huge plus.

 

Really, I think this is an achievable thing.

 

 

The competitive sets are truly almost impossible in a "no staff" and "no budget" framework.

 

And, the engineering and technical problems are not inconsequential. Alan and I have been talking about this in depth, and it is a big deal that the certification numbers cannot be systematically checked via the PCGS and NGC website tools (as Alan said, there is no API).

 

There are ways to "scour" the internet, and look up information (a "bot" as you called it). But, at NGC in particular, they have added Captcha type verification to their certification lookup -- if you try to look up more than a couple numbers from a given IP or web session within a short amount of time, you have to verify you're a human. PCGS may block your IP if you start systematically looking up hundreds of coins on their website as well.

 

You can't just say "I'm sure every one of your engineering concerns is solvable" -- unless you have actually thought about them and if you understand them.

 

There is also no way to police that a person adding a coin to their set actually owns the coin. That's a problem if things are "competitive" and all of the complaining that goes on here about adding coins, fixing points, yadda, yadda -- it starts to become overwhelming very quickly. Take a quick glance at the "NGC Registry" sub-forum here, and you'll see the kinds of meaningless complaining about all kinds of little things -- the points don't make sense, the sets don't have this variety, the requests for completely obscure and menial sub-sets so everyone can be #1 at something...and on, and on.

 

Is it achievable? Maybe. But, it will require some competent doers (like Alan), not just people with opinions. Actually doing something is quite different from talking about doing it.

NGC always manually checks the PCGS certs anyway, which suggests that there probably isn't a way to automate it efficiently with a small allocation of resources. As a multi-million dollar corporation with plenty of programmers (or that could hire a number of them), it says a lot that they hadn't found a way to automate it. Assuming someone is able to create a work around, it would likely take several days/weeks, and it's difficult to imagine someone doing that for free. I also don't see such a site taking off if it requires a membership fee, etc.

Legend on the new changes to the NGC Registry:

http://www.legendnumismatics.com/hot-topics/registry-riot/

REGISTRY RIOT

Posted: November 19, 2016 10:02 PM EST| 0 Replies

 

THINK RATIONAL PEOPLE! 

 

First, let me state I have NEVER been a fan of the Set Registries. I do see they can do some good and are good for record keeping, but I happen to see a lot of negatives. Further, I want to make it clear I do NOT like or support Mark Salzberg of NGC. However, I do fully agree with him banning “other” grading services from NGC Registries, HOWEVER (another big HOWEVER) what he said and his reasoning for the action were childish to the nth degree.

 

 

In the beginning when PCGS started its Registry it was all PCGS. I thought it was crude but later I realized PCGS has a right to include ONLY PCGS coins. Its their Registry, it is all about the PCGS product.  NGC acted like it was taking the high road and decided to include ALL services in its Registry (at the time I believe their action was more an in your face to PCGS). That was a huge mistake, they should have stayed all NGC in the beginning. So now, years later, they decide to insult their rivals and deprive collectors of what has become an important tool to them. Again, I do not have any problem with NGC going all NGC. Its how they did it, they did it so late in the game, and why. This action was clearly a slap in the face to collectors while trying to take a cheap shot at “other” grading services (I am not going into the grading issues today-that one day will be one hell of a Hot Topics).

 

 

Back to the Registry issue. Folks the Registries are NOT why you collect. You collect coins for their history, beauty, quality, etc. Not to see where you rank in some rat race. I get disgusted when I see collectors who strive to be on top only ending up with over graded poor coins. Do NOT live your collecting life for a Registry. Recently I completed an amazing 20th Century set of gold. If it were to be ranked, the $20 Saints would be #2.  My customer was not in it for the game. He loves coins as much as anyone. His sets are worth no less because they are not registered. I have NOT urged him to post his sets either.

 

 

I laughed when I saw one person crowing how much they feel betrayed by NGC for disallowing “other” brands yada yada. Dude, how the hell did you collect BEFORE registries? I can’t believe how people are upset about all this. Please get a grip. Salzberg has every right to do that-just his reasoning was poor.  There are more important issues out there to be upset about-coin doctoring is making a small come back, we’re in a choppy to weaker market, our biggest organization The ANA is seriously floundering (they should be the ones to sponsor a Registry), etc. Today, there are things called spread sheets or you can use an old fashioned pad and pen to keep track of your coins. People, start thinking more clearly, there was a time when no Registries existed (OMG-yes I am that old)!

 

 

Any comments please email me: lsperber1@hotmail.com

In fairness to NGC, however, Dena responded to my request to cancel my membership and give me a refund. They are going to refund my membership, and she said that all feedback is being forwarded to Mark Salzberg. I really hope he listens and rescinds this announcement. If NGC rescinds this decision, I will immediately renew my membership and restore my Registry sets.

I am shocked that you were issued a refund. It suggests that NGC still does care about customer service and customer opinion contrary to your other statements. In fairness, maybe Salzberg had followed one too many color bumped monster toners in recent sales that biased his over all perspective.

Sad to see you go, HT I will miss your posts. I think leaving based on the actions of one administrator (right or wrong) is a little extreme but, that is your choice.

+1

What exactly does NGC gain from the decision? If the issue is that some people were only interested in NGC only sets, then there was a filter for it. The only thing I can think of is that NGC may have become tired of manually verifying the PCGS certification numbers, which I could understand.

I think it is unfortunate as one of the strengths of the registry here was that it would allow coins from both top tier services. I also think there are many more PCGS-only diehard fans than NGC-only diehard fans, and I attribute this largely to the marketing strategies of both companies. NGC has long advocated buying the coin and not the plastic (I have seen this in various articles on the site throughout the years where I seem to recall NGC or its staff using similar language). It appears NGC has ditched this strategy. PCGS has long advocated brand name loyalty.

Unless the NGC-only following is larger than I think it is, I predict this will hurt the registry and will not improve NGC's bottom line.

The Langbords could have preemptively filed their own replevin or declaratory judgment action.

 

In layman's speak, what the heck is a replevin or declaratory judgement action? Lawyer talk

 

Best, HT

Sorry. My post was meant to say that there were procedural mechanisms that the Langbords could have used to have the coins returned to them and to obtain an adjudication. I would love to see CAFRA extended, but I do not think the statute supports the position they advocate insofar as I do not believe that this was a "forfeiture" case at all. Congress has a lot of work to do.

I wish the Langbords the very best, and hope that they prevail. Nevertheless, I think the petition is dead on arrival without a deep circuit conflict or conflict with U.S. Supreme Court precedent. I hope I am wrong.

I also think the Langbords are wrong on the law when it comes to CAFRA, and the petition only presents questions on CAFRA. The Third Circuit sitting en banc was correct. If acquired by theft, the putative thief (and his heirs) never acquired a possessory interest. You cannot forfeit something that you never acquired a possessory interest in. Unfortunately, the district court and the jury found that the government owned the coins. Appeals courts will give deference to those findings, and SCOTUS does not typically grant certiorari to correct factual errors in cases. What the Langbords are asking is that SCOTUS rewrite a forfeiture law and expand the scope of CAFRA, and it misses the point that while all forfeitures involve seizures not all seizures are forfeitures.

I also do not think that this means that the government can seize property without any repercussions and that there are no procedural mechanisms to acquire an adjudication. The Langbords could have preemptively filed their own replevin or declaratory judgment action.

What a can of worms. Why are you only bringing up Heritage? What about the other major auction houses?

 

Btw, I have made up to 5 fold profits from Heritage coins before without even regrading. So yeah.

 

What do you mean by 5 fold profits, that seems abit vague can you be more specific?

 

Thanks, HT

 

Not that hard on a few exceptional items that are under-graded like AU58 coins that could go significantly higher.

 

As for HA in general, they are one of the largest auction companies but from what I have seen on varied experiences of consignors, many of their experiences are not good and if you did a thorough search of legal problems HA has had over the years it is hard to see how they could operate in more consumer friendly states like CA or NY; TX seems to protect large businesses at the cost of some aggrieved consumers. And on a coin fraud case I brought up with first HA then PNG due to their non-responsiveness, if the large money interest like HA wants to play by their own rules good luck getting any justice.

Although I have many disagreements with the way the PNG handles complaints, if you are referring to the Double Eagle coin that you referenced in previous threads, then the PNG and Heritage were correct to handle the matter in the way that they did.

Your money was stolen by a scammer; the coin was not actually stolen from you. That is a critical distinction. Moreover, based on the sketchy scans that he sent you of the item, I doubt the fraudster ever owned the coin. He likely ripped the image from somewhere else, in which case, Heritage would have no basis to interfere with the sale of its consignor's private property. The PNG would have been correct in dismissing the complaint/not acting.

I personally wouldn't have a problem if the consignor was aloud to bid on his, or, her coins so long as they paid buyers premium if they won, and would have to eat that cost.

 

The auction house actually bids on coins too? Is this correct? If so; what is Heritage's cutoff point- 30% to 40% of retail? Is this done with all coins? I'm just curious so as a buyer I can keep this in mind when bidding...sour taste if this is truly a policy with major auction houses.

 

1. As far as I understand (and I've never done it, maybe MarkFeld can confirm), but a consignor may bid on his own coins. If he wins, he pays the buyers premium to compensate the auction house for their troubles.....

 

While in some, though not in all cases, Heritage allows consignors to place reserves, consignors are prohibited from actually bidding on their own

coins. And the reserves are disclosed.

I'm not doubting you, but when was this new policy implemented? This is the listing that always sticks out in my mind:

‡Note: The owner placed a late bid on this unreserved lot and repurchased it, subject to applicable commission.

https://coins.ha.com/itm/buffalo-nickels/nickels/1927-s-5c-ms65-anacs/a/1166-5323.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515

Ebay shows who (ambiguous) bid and what % of their bids are on the sellers etc. Ebay makes it more fairer and also does not let the house (seller) bid on up on their item as far as I know.

 

Which is more fairer than heritage.

 

So, heritage will claim that for every auction, all coins are getting sold at the premium, as though the coin market is so strong!

 

This sounds like deceiving business practice!

 

Many dealers and sellers in ebay are struggling to sell certain coins whereas always in heritage there are several buyers for them, at higher prices! I can't believe this on auction wekk after week!

 

How is it a deceptive practice when it is specifically included in the Heritage Terms of Bidding and site Terms of Use?

You obviously don't like it. I do not like it either; however, this does not make it illegal, deceptive, or even unethical.

As for eBay, there is far more fraud there. You don't think notorious shill operations (like a certain online coin dealership we all love to hate, hint, hint) don't have multiple shill accounts?

So, Heritage is rigged essentially. Typically we sign up to go against a rigged system that is disclosed somewhereaverage joe does not read into much.

It is disclosed and in the open. Bidders decide whether to participate or not. This is one of the reasons why placing nuclear bids is dangerous - you may very well be bidding against a computer. You must always do your homework; some coins can be purchased for a lower price from dealers. You should also always read legally binding contracts before you agree to them.

For the record, this is not unique to Heritage. Legend Auctions does this, and I think Stacks-Bowers does as well. If you are looking for rare coins that don't trade often, these are usually the best places if not the only places to look in many instances.