Shouldn't PCGS & NGC be required to certify their certifiers?

[coinman_23885]

Who would certify them as competent?

 

CAC?

 

Maybe even Legend (at least one principal seems to have strong opinions about other graders - there has even been a test devised with monkeys and blindfolds or at least that is what I have heard) .

 

The authentication certifications could also be done by Dan Carr.

 

 

 

 

(I am obviously joking on all points; after your humor through the years, I thought I would throw some your way that you might enjoy RWB. I am in no making fun of any of the companies mentioned, and I have respect for them. ).

[RWB]

Very good!

[Afterword]

"I'd like to ask a question to the collecting community: With all due respect to the professionals and scholars, should graders ad finalizers at the grading services be required to be certified in the series they grade?"

 

 

 

 

Then we could complain about the inconsistency of those certifying the graders along with our complaints about graders inconsistently grading coins.

 

[orifdoc]

Required? By who? What expert polices the experts? If God himself graded coins 99% of people would disagree with at least some of his decisions. It's subjective. It's imprecise. It's messy. It changes over time.

 

The TPGs are private companies in a free market. They will sink or swim based on their business practices and usefulness to the market. Many (virtually all) grading services have not passed this test. If the market values the opinion of the two big TPGs, (it CLEARLY does) what incentive exists for them to change?

 

There are already plenty of incentives for them to get it right. Preserving brand confidence and keeping warranty claims to a minimum are two of the easy ones to identify.

 

Experts can disagree on almost anything - even areas of hard science. How do you reconcile that? What hope is there in an area as subjective as coin grading?

[AHFreak]

This obviously was just a thread to explain to all of us ordinary folk how great you are Lucky One. . . I skipped over all the meaty parts, but I got the point. ..

[Hard Times]

I'd like to ask a question to the collecting community: With all due respect to the professionals and scholars, should graders ad finalizers at the grading services be required to be certified in the series they grade?

 

Isn't this what CAC is doing?

 

how is that possible- does CAC view every coin slabbed and do they put a description of condition on their label? Again, you missed my point. CAC certifies a certain coin to be in the middle to upper end of the grade assigned, it doesn't tell you if the coin was properly graded (please see previous posts for my reasoning), it is mainly concerned with EYE APPEAL.

 

EYE APPEAL is in the EYES of the beholder. Grading is subjective and an art. As Mark pointed out, a grade on a slab for a coin is just a starting point because each coin is unique. So really, certify the certifiers? Hmm......

 

Best, HT Who believes one has to learn how to grade themselves and only take TPG and CAC decisions as advice. But if one can't grade, then ask Bill Jones (thumbs u

[Lucky One]

Thanks for the feedback guys, and to the aholes who got personal, that only shows how immature and close-minded you are.

 

The point was not to expect perfection, nor was it to get the grade *I* want. It is simply to ensure that every grade we see actually came from graders and finalizers who KNOW the series that they are grading. I have been a problem solver my entire adult life and people paid me good money to find the answers they needed. I have fine-tuned many things in my life and know that almost ANYTHING can be done if we just sit down, gather the facts, consider all possible improvements and implement the best ones toward that goal.

 

Not a single person who resorted to personal insults offered any constructive criticism or a better solution. And worse, they likely didn;t read and COMPREHEND what I was saying. I don't think I can out-grade the pros, no one can, not even the pros. On any given group of 100 coins, the exact same group of graders may grade them one way the first time and then grade 10% of them differently on the second go-round. I know from experience that if I'm sure of the grade and don;t get it on the frst try, upon resubmission I'll get it. Granted, I have been a proficient grader since the 1970's so I am more accurate than the average collector or even professional dealer, but the results say something, do they not? And when I can get a MS63 to upgrade to a MS65 on the first shot, I guess I know what I'm talking about. To the jerk who said I am here just to show how great I am- well, if that's the way you feel, perhaps you need some therapy my friend. I don't poo-poo others ideas, especially when they are laid out with logic and reason. You want to tell me why my idea is wrong, by all means do so, but it is very childish and unbecoming to attack someone personally for offerng a new idea.

 

One last time now- the reason I laid out the idea is not to argue about all grades assigned. I have full faith in most of the grading and all of the graders, and I have happily paid for their services over the years. But the graders can't take the blame, only those giving them their marching orders can. Only they can change the system and only they can be held responsible. I wish they would just recognize their responsibility and implement this idea on their own, but after a decade or more of thinking this, I figured it was high time to put the idea to fellow collectors. So, I submit that some grades, on only some types of coins, are improper simply because all aspects of the manufacture of that particular issue were not known to those who graded it. A few good examples that come to mind are 1810 capped bust halves- there are many issues in that series like the 1810 that are struck from sunken dies and look circulated even when they are choice BU; or the 1859-C half eagle- again, there are others in the series with striking anomolies or die defects that make a fully detailed (for the issue) piece look like it had circulated because the metal couldn't strike up into the sunken die, or as with the 1859-C, the die itself was not properly annealed before use. There are other coins struck from dies that were worn and stressed badly, and it is not uncommon to see a coin struck from a rusty die, and lets not forget about planchet problems. If the grader was familiar with all aspects of a coin's manufacture, they would not only get the grades closer to reality, but the grades from one coin to another from that particular issue would be much more uniform since all graders would be applying the same knowledge to their decisions. Makes sense to me, dont know what you're missing, and I don't think I can put it in simpler terms.

 

My point, and my only point here, is that without that specific knowledge the graders don;t have a freaking clue what they are looking at. You can't come to an accurate conclusion in anything out of ignorance, can you? So, as I have been advocating- IF we (or the grading companies) ensure that all graders of a particular issue *know* that series intimately, they won't make the mistakes that we see in slabs so often today. The great discrepancies that we encounter in major name slabs on the bourse floor of every show are created because one group of graders may be proficient in that series and particular issue and another may have only general knowledge, so the experienced group will get the proper grade and the inexperinced group will not, leaving a large difference in the two slab's grades. It really is a simple cncept, you just need to open your mind to get it.

 

If this is the way it is on this forum, where the jerks are allowed to sideswipe someone personally, then why would you expect any quality in the conversation here? My guess is every time a jerk makes fun of or insults someone on these forums, the bullies win and the poster leaves, never to share his ideas here again. What good does that do for the collecting community? Fools...

 

[Lucky One]

Professional certifications and licenses are mostly a farce. Their primary purpose is to reduce competition by making it harder for those on the outside to get on the inside. Secondly, to dupe the public with a false of confidence because having one hardly assures that the individual with it is competent. I know this having a CPA and two other industry certifications in my field.

 

The grade on the holder is an opinion and nothing more. Licensing or certifying the graders isn't going to improve its "accuracy".

 

I agree with most of hat you said, but I, like any other knowledgeable collector who uses grading services, know that it is just an opinion, but please consider that it IS a needed service and that the standards are loose as long as the graders don;t understand what they are grading. The point of my question was to see if others are tired of getting an 'ignorant' grade on specific issues only because the graders didn't know and undestand the issue.

 

Sure it is an opinion. Doctors give opinions every day. So do lawyers, judges, politicians, coaches and all kinds of other professionals. But would you rather have an experienced opinion or an ignorant opinion from any of these other professionals? THAT is the question I am posing. The QUALITY and ACCURACY of any opinion is only as good as the knowledge and experince of the opinion giver. Again, I rest my case...

[coinman_23885]

I know it seems like a funny question, but a brain surgeon isn't qualified to perform heart surgery, or even foot surgery for that matter, so why should a Lincoln cent expert be allowed to grade Morgan dollars and bust halves, or vice versa?

 

This is not entirely accurate, and your analogy fails. The requirements for board certification are for insurance companies in many states (as you can practice without having completed residency in many states so as long as you completed the internship year), and even then, doctors can perform other procedures outside of their certification but usually refrain from doing so for fear of a law suit. So yes, a heart surgeon or neurosurgeon could theoretically do a bowel resection or even foot surgery. Coin graders don't need to worry about lawsuits insofar as the submission terms and terms of the guarantee shield them from any liability.

[Lucky One]

Required? By who? What expert polices the experts? If God himself graded coins 99% of people would disagree with at least some of his decisions. It's subjective. It's imprecise. It's messy. It changes over time.

 

The TPGs are private companies in a free market. They will sink or swim based on their business practices and usefulness to the market. Many (virtually all) grading services have not passed this test. If the market values the opinion of the two big TPGs, (it CLEARLY does) what incentive exists for them to change?

 

There are already plenty of incentives for them to get it right. Preserving brand confidence and keeping warranty claims to a minimum are two of the easy ones to identify.

 

Experts can disagree on almost anything - even areas of hard science. How do you reconcile that? What hope is there in an area as subjective as coin grading?

 

 

I'm not here to advocate for the 'market' or the 'industry', I am only speaking for the collecting public. I firmly believe that speculators and investors are a scourge on the hobby and those are the people who 'value' the opinions- true collectors and numismatists take the time to LEARN, they don;t really need the slabs excet to make it easier to sell their collection when the time comes. I kept almost every series I ever put together in Dansco albums and sold them RAW 90% of the time, only slabbing those that would have been difficult to get full value for if left raw. But the speculators and investors also are the ones who woulnd't bother with an 1859-C AU half eagle. The grading services are not nearly as important to true collectors, especially when they are so drastically inconsistent on the tyoes of issues I have pointed out in this thread. I have been in the hobby twenty years longer than the grading services have existed and can tell you that they haven't improved anything in the hobby, only in the mass trading industry. It's not about helping collectors, it is about making money for dealers, speculators and investors these days. If that is all it boils down to, the least they could do is clean it up to make it fair for all in my humbke opinion. That is all I am saying.

 

Total respect for the grading services otherwise, they have done a great job over the past thirty years, just not the best they could do...

 

[coinman_23885]

P.S. You must have uniform agreed upon standards in order to have a means of measuring competency for certification. How do you suppose one do this? Two grading services often disagree with each other, and in some series, there are arguably differences in grading standards and strike designation standards. Who is correct? What is the "correct" standard?

[Lucky One]

P.S. You must have uniform agreed upon standards in order to have a means of measuring competency for certification. How do you suppose one do this? Two grading services often disagree with each other, and in some series, there are arguably differences in grading standards and strike designation standards. Who is correct? What is the "correct" standard?

 

And you must read and comprehend what I wrote to understand that you have the wrong take on it. Perhaps certify is the wrong word to use and that is what you're stuck on. When I was in the Navy, we first were trained to do a specific task, then we were tested on our abilities, and then finally certified. That is the context I was meanng. There are graders at both grading service who are experts in their fields, and they are utilized mainly in grading what they know best. But there are others who are not very experienced, and many of them likely havent gotten a lifetime of experience under their belts yet. What I am advocating is that those who ARE experts in fields that the younger and less experienced graders are not experienced in should train and then certify those who are not. Simple concept, works for the military, works for the medical profession, works for mechanics, works for electricians, works for technicians, so why would it not work for mere coin graders. I have learned tons of things in my lifetime, but I didn;t learn many of them without experts giving instruction, and I certainly couldn;t have mastered ANY of those skills without masters showing me the way...

[Lucky One]

P.S. You must have uniform agreed upon standards in order to have a means of measuring competency for certification. How do you suppose one do this? Two grading services often disagree with each other, and in some series, there are arguably differences in grading standards and strike designation standards. Who is correct? What is the "correct" standard?

 

after thinking about this, maybe what you're stuck on is what they should be certified in. I don;t think you can teach a person to 'grade', it is something that is so basic that the skill is simple to learn by observation. I am talking about certifying a person on a series and the methods of manufacture and the technology used, as well as specific problems encountered for specific issues within the series. I tried to make this clear throughout this thread but it seems to be a point lost on most here. All I am saying is that anyone can grade most coins, but without specific knowledge, they wouldn't have a clue if an 1810 capped bust half was lacking all of it's central detail due to circulation wear or a sunken die. Same for the other example I gave, the 1859-C half eagle. You can find them in sharp AU but the reverse is so mushy that it looks like a VG-F. Without specific knowledge, an inexperienced grader in that series would get it wrong, and rightly so- the coin looks circulate heavily, but in reality even an uncirculated piece has no more detail. Now do you understand why I think graders should be certified in the series they are exoected to grade? I don't expect an opinion to be the same every time- that is why it is called an opinion. I just want to get the RIGHT opinion, based on intimate knowledge and experience, for the money I send them to do so, that is all. You can not give a proper experienced opinon on some coins without first getting the knowledge and experience necessary to form the opinion, can you?

[orifdoc]

Don't the TPG's already "certify" their graders by hiring them?

[Afterword]

"What I am advocating is that those who ARE experts in fields that the younger and less experienced graders are not experienced in should train and then certify those who are not."

 

 

 

 

 

Why would you assume this is not already the case? I suspect graders are indeed trained and retrained, if needed. The training and instruction and learning probably continue, to some degree, throughout their entire tenure.

 

If this is true, then what you are actually doing is criticizing the very thing you are advocating.

[Lucky One]

Don't the TPG's already "certify" their graders by hiring them?

 

did they? A hire is nothing but a certification of employment, is it not?

[Lucky One]

"What I am advocating is that those who ARE experts in fields that the younger and less experienced graders are not experienced in should train and then certify those who are not."

 

 

 

 

 

Why would you assume this is not already the case? I suspect graders are indeed trained and retrained, if needed. The training and instruction and learning probably continue, to some degree, throughout their entire tenure.

 

If this is true, then what you are actually doing is criticizing the very thing you are advocating.

 

well, you see, I'm not assuming anything. The results of poorly trained graders are all over the bourse floor of every coin show. Maybe you just haven't viewed enough of them, or maybe you don;t collect the most abused series, but I have several good examples in my collection, in NGC and PCGS slabs, that prove beyond any doubt that something went wrong in each case: they were clerical errors, a problem that IS correctable; they were favors for dealer friends, which the grading services claim can not be the case; or they were graded by people who didn't understand what they were looking at. I submit that the main cause is graders assigned to grade series that they have no real experience with. I'll be happy to entertain other possiblities if you can come up with any...

[AHFreak]

Im with RWB on this one...

 

You have to be the same guy who was posting a couple weeks ago about how the grading services should do better keeping track of "errors"... There cant be two of you, no way.

 

 

[Afterword]

"The results of poorly trained graders are all over the bourse floor of every coin show."

 

 

 

That does not prove the training of graders is inadequate, only that you are of that opinion. Without knowing the level of training that is provided to graders, it is actually no more than an uneducated guess on your part.

 

Training and knowledge can only help to an extent. They cannot overcome mankind's imperfections. Especially with something as subjective has the grading of coins.

[Afterword]

Im with RWB on this one...

 

You have to be the same guy who was posting a couple weeks ago about how the grading services should do better keeping track of "errors"... There cant be two of you, no way.

 

 

 

 

No doubt.

[Lucky One]

Im with RWB on this one...

 

You have to be the same guy who was posting a couple weeks ago about how the grading services should do better keeping track of "errors"... There cant be two of you, no way.

 

 

THIS is what I meant about getting personal. I saw how you guys pissed all over that poor soul. I didn't agree with him, for the same reasons you didn't, but I didn't insult him, I simply considered his argument and moved along. If you choose to do it to me, you'll just influence me to take my ideas and experience elsewhere, and then what does the greater collecting community gain from these forums once you've made it so uncomfortable to converse here?

 

What drives people like you anyway. I told you I am not that person. I don't appreciate being called a liar or having my integrity questioned. You wouldn't either. If you have nothing constructive to add, just be quiet.

[MarkFeld]

"What I am advocating is that those who ARE experts in fields that the younger and less experienced graders are not experienced in should train and then certify those who are not."

 

 

 

 

 

Why would you assume this is not already the case? I suspect graders are indeed trained and retrained, if needed. The training and instruction and learning probably continue, to some degree, throughout their entire tenure.

 

If this is true, then what you are actually doing is criticizing the very thing you are advocating.

 

well, you see, I'm not assuming anything. The results of poorly trained graders are all over the bourse floor of every coin show. Maybe you just haven't viewed enough of them, or maybe you don;t collect the most abused series, but I have several good examples in my collection, in NGC and PCGS slabs, that prove beyond any doubt that something went wrong in each case: they were clerical errors, a problem that IS correctable; they were favors for dealer friends, which the grading services claim can not be the case; or they were graded by people who didn't understand what they were looking at. I submit that the main cause is graders assigned to grade series that they have no real experience with. I'll be happy to entertain other possiblities if you can come up with any...

 

Sorry, but I think your comment about "The results of poorly trained graders are all over the bourse floor of every coin show" is way off base. I guarantee you that many of those results are based on the assessment and decisions of some of the best, most experienced graders in the world.

[World Colonial]

Professional certifications and licenses are mostly a farce. Their primary purpose is to reduce competition by making it harder for those on the outside to get on the inside. Secondly, to dupe the public with a false of confidence because having one hardly assures that the individual with it is competent. I know this having a CPA and two other industry certifications in my field.

 

The grade on the holder is an opinion and nothing more. Licensing or certifying the graders isn't going to improve its "accuracy".

 

I agree with most of hat you said, but I, like any other knowledgeable collector who uses grading services, know that it is just an opinion, but please consider that it IS a needed service and that the standards are loose as long as the graders don;t understand what they are grading. The point of my question was to see if others are tired of getting an 'ignorant' grade on specific issues only because the graders didn't know and undestand the issue.

 

Sure it is an opinion. Doctors give opinions every day. So do lawyers, judges, politicians, coaches and all kinds of other professionals. But would you rather have an experienced opinion or an ignorant opinion from any of these other professionals? THAT is the question I am posing. The QUALITY and ACCURACY of any opinion is only as good as the knowledge and experince of the opinion giver. Again, I rest my case...

 

I understood your original point. My point is that I don't believe what you propose (based upon my understanding of it) will make the difference you claim. I don't believe certifying graders is either necessary or will make any difference because for the most part, I don't believe "incorrectly" assigned grades are much of an issue for the US series most collectors buy.

 

One segment which has its own grading standards is large cents. The EAC's are much stricter than either NGC or PCGS. From what I can see, EAC's are the predominant one which advanced collectors use and the "incorrect" NGC and PCGS standards are a mininal factor in how these coins are priced outside of authenticity and maybe attribution.

 

For the most widely collected US series, I presume (since I do not buy them but only know what I read here and on PCGS) that the vast majority of the time, the grade will not vary by more than one point between NGC and PCGS or between one submission and the next one. Not always, but almost. From my viewpoint, this is accurate.

 

It's a very unpopular view here, but my opinion is that there isn't a dime's worth of difference between most coins in proximate (MS) grades, never mind between an "A", "B" or "C" coin with the same MS grade on the holder. I know frequently there is value wise but then, its the buyer's choice to pay the existing exorbitant premiums some of these coins are worth over those one or more grades lower on the Sheldon scale.

 

My solution to the problem you are describing can mostly be solved by collectors choosing not to pay exorbitant premiums for what are disporportionately common or very common coins. What you are describing isn't a problem with the world coins I collect.

[Mr. Smith Guesser]

I know this is an older post, but I understand what the OP is saying. It would be nice if, when submitting a Morgan dollar, the coin would be graded by someone who specifically focuses on Morgan dollars.

 

Obviously, this wouldn't work for most world coins because...well, how many experts are there on...I don't know...the 1972-1986 Maltese 5 mils? Probably not many, if any at all. But it might work for the highly collected U.S. coins, i.e. Morgans, Peace dollars, etc.

 

So how about this for a suggestion...

 

Perhaps having your coin graded by someone who is an expert with a specific coin series could be a more premium service?

 

Or, there could be another firm, similar to CAC, which has evaluators who are experts on specific coin series?

 

Just some thoughts.

 

...BTW, I don't agree that "These companies make huge amounts of money", however. Collectors Universe (PCGS' parent) only made $2.2 million in income from continuing operations during their third quarter of fiscal 2015 ending 3/31/15. $2.2 million might be a lot for an individual, but it's really nothing relative to other corporations such as Wells Fargo, which brought in $6.1 BILLION in income from continuing operations (or over $65 million per day) during their quarter ending 3/31/15. That's "huge amounts of money". I know comparing CLCT to Wells Fargo is sort of like comparing apples to oranges...or maybe cherries to watermelons...but I'm just saying $2.2 million in income from continuing operations isn't "huge" in the corporate world.

[World Colonial]

I am aware of the difference with world and US coins.

 

The first point I was making is that when US coins were much cheaper prior to the 1970's, this problem would not have existed. There was a different problem without TPG where dealers frequently bought at a lower grade and sold at a higher one, but it's a different issue which in my opinion substantially existed because of communication limitations without the internet.

 

The second point I was making is that I don't believe grading on the most widely collected US series is inaccurate except minimally. It is or appears to be for soem of the less widely collected series but it doesn't impact most buyers. Those who disagree with me will mostly (if not entirely) do so because they consider differences significant that I consider trivial.

 

I am aware that the price difference between two proximate MS grades and even between an "A", "B" and "C" coins can be significant. The TPG impact this somewhat because the grades and grade distributions are used by buyers in deciding how much to pay; In other words, the price structure But the TPG do not have any control over how much any single buyer pays or the absolute price level.

 

I consider it unrealistic to expect more consistently than what i am describing. If the market disagrees wit me and NCG and PCGS don't "cut it", someone else will displace them.

[johnny9434]

it makes one wonder who'd certify ngc and pcgs? (round and round we go)

[Lucky One]

and after the latest round of posts, which I humbly appreciate, it seems you are all still stuck on the general grading of couns while I am saying specific types of coins should require more experience before being given the task of grading them. Yes I agree with those who say the difference in opinions is so slight that it doesn't matter in the broad sense, but for specific issues, and I have given very clear examples that have been totally ignored, the graders need a LOT more knowledge and hands-on experience with them and the evidence I have offered should be enough for any reasonable person to understand. As I have said, a person well versed in one series may know absolutely nothing about another. As for price differences being negligible, try collecting no-motto half eagles and then tell me there isn't a problem. The difference between a VF25 and a VF30 can be a thousand dollars. Grading a solid AU 1859-C half eagle VF, as one WOULD be inclined to do if they didn't know that is they way they were struck IS the type of problem I am talking about here, not the typical sour grapes complaint from those who expect a MS65 but only get a 64. Yes, they are opinions, and they are arguable, but they are based on a very subjective point of view. A striking or die anomaly for a particular issues, like the 1810 bust half dollar or the 1859-C half eagle, is an objective point of view, and one that can't be had without the knowledge that the dies for these two coins had problems, period. Again, maybe the title was a poor choice or words or the phrase just didn't convey what I meant it to convey, but I don't want graders certified, I want graders to be proficient in ALL of the coins that their supervisors task them with grading. I hope that is the last time I need to clarify the meaning of the post...

[Lucky One]

"What I am advocating is that those who ARE experts in fields that the younger and less experienced graders are not experienced in should train and then certify those who are not."

 

 

 

 

 

Why would you assume this is not already the case? I suspect graders are indeed trained and retrained, if needed. The training and instruction and learning probably continue, to some degree, throughout their entire tenure.

 

If this is true, then what you are actually doing is criticizing the very thing you are advocating.

 

well, you see, I'm not assuming anything. The results of poorly trained graders are all over the bourse floor of every coin show. Maybe you just haven't viewed enough of them, or maybe you don;t collect the most abused series, but I have several good examples in my collection, in NGC and PCGS slabs, that prove beyond any doubt that something went wrong in each case: they were clerical errors, a problem that IS correctable; they were favors for dealer friends, which the grading services claim can not be the case; or they were graded by people who didn't understand what they were looking at. I submit that the main cause is graders assigned to grade series that they have no real experience with. I'll be happy to entertain other possiblities if you can come up with any...

 

Sorry, but I think your comment about "The results of poorly trained graders are all over the bourse floor of every coin show" is way off base. I guarantee you that many of those results are based on the assessment and decisions of some of the best, most experienced graders in the world.

 

and for the most part, I agree with you Mark. I know you are very familiar with bourse floors, so you have to know what I'm saying IF you read the whole thread and all my reasoning. The problem is it seems no one reading this thread is actually understanding what I am saying. (except one that I noticed got it)

[Hard Times]

and after the latest round of posts, which I humbly appreciate, it seems you are all still stuck on the general grading of couns while I am saying specific types of coins should require more experience before being given the task of grading them. Yes I agree with those who say the difference in opinions is so slight that it doesn't matter in the broad sense, but for specific issues, and I have given very clear examples that have been totally ignored, the graders need a LOT more knowledge and hands-on experience with them and the evidence I have offered should be enough for any reasonable person to understand. As I have said, a person well versed in one series may know absolutely nothing about another. As for price differences being negligible, try collecting no-motto half eagles and then tell me there isn't a problem. The difference between a VF25 and a VF30 can be a thousand dollars. Grading a solid AU 1859-C half eagle VF, as one WOULD be inclined to do if they didn't know that is they way they were struck IS the type of problem I am talking about here, not the typical sour grapes complaint from those who expect a MS65 but only get a 64. Yes, they are opinions, and they are arguable, but they are based on a very subjective point of view. A striking or die anomaly for a particular issues, like the 1810 bust half dollar or the 1859-C half eagle, is an objective point of view, and one that can't be had without the knowledge that the dies for these two coins had problems, period. Again, maybe the title was a poor choice or words or the phrase just didn't convey what I meant it to convey, but I don't want graders certified, I want graders to be proficient in ALL of the coins that their supervisors task them with grading. I hope that is the last time I need to clarify the meaning of the post...

 

While you are correct that subtleties for certain dates and mintmarks or varieties can result of over and undergrading by the TPG's, expert knowledge by the specialist is a great opportunity to benefit from this. So I am not sure why you are so concerned about it and why you want all graders to grade the same way for all series, which is what I think you mean by proficient. I provide a link to an example of this. Whomever bought this coin from Winter (now who could have that been ) greatly benefited from the undergrading of this particular variety in terns of value for the buck paid. Nothing wrong with that and is why knowledge is king. You can look at many coins of the same denomination, date and mintmark and see a wide range of variance, but they still may be mostly graded correctly according to most informed numismatists. This is why grading is an art and is subjective, it is up to the individual to learn. There are some impressive graders on these boards such as Mark Feld, Bill Jones, and Jason Poe to name just 3 of many. All can help anyone here to learn and advise. But keep in mind the subjectivity in grading will never mean that all assessed grades for all coins will be consistent for all graders, and hence the proficiency you advocate for.

 

Best, HT

 

http://raregoldcoins.com/inventory/sold/new-5-00-1839-d-ngc-vf35-cac

[Lucky One]

and after the latest round of posts, which I humbly appreciate, it seems you are all still stuck on the general grading of couns while I am saying specific types of coins should require more experience before being given the task of grading them. Yes I agree with those who say the difference in opinions is so slight that it doesn't matter in the broad sense, but for specific issues, and I have given very clear examples that have been totally ignored, the graders need a LOT more knowledge and hands-on experience with them and the evidence I have offered should be enough for any reasonable person to understand. As I have said, a person well versed in one series may know absolutely nothing about another. As for price differences being negligible, try collecting no-motto half eagles and then tell me there isn't a problem. The difference between a VF25 and a VF30 can be a thousand dollars. Grading a solid AU 1859-C half eagle VF, as one WOULD be inclined to do if they didn't know that is they way they were struck IS the type of problem I am talking about here, not the typical sour grapes complaint from those who expect a MS65 but only get a 64. Yes, they are opinions, and they are arguable, but they are based on a very subjective point of view. A striking or die anomaly for a particular issues, like the 1810 bust half dollar or the 1859-C half eagle, is an objective point of view, and one that can't be had without the knowledge that the dies for these two coins had problems, period. Again, maybe the title was a poor choice or words or the phrase just didn't convey what I meant it to convey, but I don't want graders certified, I want graders to be proficient in ALL of the coins that their supervisors task them with grading. I hope that is the last time I need to clarify the meaning of the post...

 

While you are correct that subtleties for certain dates and mintmarks or varieties can result of over and undergrading by the TPG's, expert knowledge by the specialist is a great opportunity to benefit from this. So I am not sure why you are so concerned about it and why you want all graders to grade the same way for all series, which is what I think you mean by proficient. I provide a link to an example of this. Whomever bought this coin from Winter (now who could have that been ) greatly benefited from the undergrading of this particular variety in terns of value for the buck paid. Nothing wrong with that and is why knowledge is king. You can look at many coins of the same denomination, date and mintmark and see a wide range of variance, but they still may be mostly graded correctly according to most informed numismatists. This is why grading is an art and is subjective, it is up to the individual to learn. There are some impressive graders on these boards such as Mark Feld, Bill Jones, and Jason Poe to name just 3 of many. All can help anyone here to learn and advise. But keep in mind the subjectivity in grading will never mean that all assessed grades for all coins will be consistent for all graders, and hence the proficiency you advocate for.

 

Best, HT

 

http://raregoldcoins.com/inventory/sold/new-5-00-1839-d-ngc-vf35-cac

 

thanks for the input but even though it is useful info and I agree with it, it's off topic- I'm advocating for graders who are very experienced in the coins that they are charged with grading, not the subtleties of 'grading'. I didn't put grader in the title to avoid this, but people still are stuck on everything but what I intended...