All Coins Are Now SMS Coins Because We Don't Care Enough To Get It Correct

[gmarguli]

Not to pick on PCG$, which is one of my top 1000 grading services, but I couldn't believe this when I read it.

 

Anyone else that ever had a problem with PCG$ mistaking a non-SMS coin for a SMS or the other way around might get a kick (in the teeth) out of this. Personally, I cannot believe that David Hall would even post something like this in a public forum, but his willingness to continue to destroy the image of PCG$ and his ability to show how poorly he thinks of everyone else in this industry has repeatedly surprised me in the past.

 

We have had a few problems with 1994 nickels, 1997 nickels, and 1965-1967 coins. The SMS coins for those years come a lot nicer than the non-SMS coins. Very high grade examples of the non-SMS coins are very valuable. When people (dealers) submitt them to us they almost always use the non-SMS PCGS numbers, even though the coins are obviously SMS. We then simply change the PCGS number in the grading room and the computer then theoretically prints the correct insert...and if it didn't, the mistake would theoretically get caught in verification. Ocassionally, a few SMS coins have slipped thru the cracks and gotten into holders mis-attributed. This causes hard feelings and screwed up Pop figures. To correct this problem we have changed the computer input program such that the non-SMS coin numbers will no longer be accepted by the computer for these dates during the receiving process. The only way that a non-SMS example can now get out the door is if a grader physically changes the PCGS number in the grading room, i.e. the SMS number is now the required default number. This should keep this mis-attribution problem from happening in the future.

 

David Hall

 

 

So, David Hall is blaming the computer system for not printing the SMS designation on these coins that "slipped thru" the verifier?

 

And "This should keep this mis-attribution problem from happening in the future." Ummm, yes, but it will just switch the problem from SMS coins getting slabbed as non-SMS coins (creating high liability for PCG$) to non-SMS coins being labeled as SMS (lowering the liability for PCG$). Basically, PCG$ is going to err on the side of calling everything a SMS than try to get the designation correct by fixing the actual problem. Incredible. I thought they were supposed to be experts, yet they can’t tell a SMS from a non-SMS?

 

I wonder how this will help the forum member that sent in his coins and listed them as SMS only to have a grader physically change the PCG$ number in the grading room to non-SMS and gave him the finest known coins?

 

[keithdagen]

Guess that modern expert isn't quite the expert we were led to believe.

[TomB]

It seems like a weak attempt at quality control if "world-class" graders can't spend the time to note which manufacture process submitted coins are.

[IrishMike]

Tom and Greg why should PCGS care as long as submissions keep coming in? I am not sure what if anything Hall could do to stop the flow. He should change his nick to piedpiperhall.

[Wihlborg]

If my memory serves me correctly, didn’t the pied piper lead a large number of rats to the edge of a cliff where they then all fell over the edge into the ocean and drowned?

 

There sure are some spectacular cliffs over looking the ocean in California. I wonder if any are close to Newport Beach?

 

John

 

[coinman1794]

I have some super-nice Non-SMS 1966 Nickels that look very very similar to SMS coins. The coins are from an original bag! I sent one to NGC once. When they posted the invoice as received, they changed the designation to SMS because it looked so much like an SMS that it apparently fooled them. I immediately contacted NGC to inform them of the mistake. The coin was re-evaluated and the problem was fixed right away! That is the difference in service between PC*S and NGC on this issue, to be exact !

[Hoot]

The SMS coins of 1994 and 1997 are relatively easy to catch. You'd have to be pretty sleepy to miss one of those. As for the 65-67 nickels are concerned, I've become convinced that the Mint used highly polished (SMS) dies for many of the business strikes, perhaps discarded "SMS dies." I've seen a great many business strikes that looked like SMS coins, many with prooflike surfaces and similar detail. Truly, the SMS coins only had the difference of the polished dies, as they were struck only once and not twice like proof coins. I think that the Mint did a great deal of harm to the collecting hobby in those years. I've not submitted some circulation steikes for the very reason that I thought that the grading services would not believe that they were NOT SMS.

 

I think that die analyses will be the only way out of the SMS vs. business strike issues of 65-67, and probably for all denominations.

 

PCGS enters a new era of stupidity.

 

Hoot

[gmarguli]

I've not submitted some circulation steikes for the very reason that I thought that the grading services would not believe that they were NOT SMS.

 

Same here.

 

I haven't submitted enough coins of this era to NGC to know how they are in telling the SMS from non-SMS. However, they did switch a Kennedy from business strike to a SMS strike which was completely wrong. No big deal since the coin wasn't that nice.

 

ANACS has been fairly good.

 

PCGS not too good. I've had them switch some designations. One was a business strike Kennedy I got from a sealed bank roll that looked NOTHING like a SMS and they graded it MS64. I cracked it and tried again. This time they didn't give it the SMS designation and graded it MS66 (which was a fair, if not a tad optimistic grade). They also switched (both ways) some of my dimes and completely got them wrong.

 

[kenwin1]

Maybe the sms coins should be "switched mint state"