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Testing the grading services

Started by true_grade,

18 posts in this topic

true_grade

true_grade

Posted
Posted

Anyone see the article "How do they compare?" by Beth Deisher in Coin World today?

 

An article on the comparison of 15 coins sent to 8 third party grading services.

Conclusion; what anyone in the coin biz has already known, inconsistency!

 

They should have taken it further by resending the same coin 3 times to each one to better emphasize the irregularities that transpire.

 

 

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true_grade

true_grade

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Over the past 10 months they have had someone outside Coin World submit 15 of the same coins to third party grading services; Send them in, have them graded, returned and take pics of the final graded coins, then crack them open and send them onto the next service.

 

Only one coin could be considered close on grading across the 8 services; a 1963-D Franklin half dollar was graded as MS-64 by 5 and the other 3 graded it as MS-63.

 

However the other 14 coins look like hits in a ballpark (foul balls to homeruns), all over the place; a 1910-S Lincoln cent went from a NG to MS-65.

 

Scary to think of the money being used on these guys.

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BankNote1

BankNote1

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Were the top services NGC PCGS close to each other in grading or were they also all over the place?

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true_grade

true_grade

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Were the top services NGC PCGS close to each other in grading or were they also all over the place?

 

3 of the coins where different as night and day; 6 were graded as NG by both, 3 were the same; 3 were within the same grade with differences of a few numbers.

 

 

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gmarguli

gmarguli

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What a completely useless test. A real test is submitting 100 coins 5 times to see what consistency is at the grading services.

 

Considering that ACG bagged or noted 40% of the coins as problem coins, I wonder why they were submitted. They must have been awful.

 

Why even bother with the scam grading services?

 

Other than that, it looks like they can't grade circulated coins (which is well known).

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Oldtrader3

Oldtrader3

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PCGS and NGC held their own, they agreed more then they differed. ANACS also showed some class. Given the subjective nature of grading, this is better than some earlier comparisons that I have seen, but the earlier ones included classic American gold coins, which throws a new level of difficulty into the equation. These dealer/graders differed by 8 grades on some Indian Half Eagle and Indian St. Gauden's Eagle coin grades that they assigned (re: Les and Sue Fox). It was a parody of puffery!

 

My personal experience is that grading gold is an arcane science, some art, much craft. IMHO, most Cu, Ni and Ag coin graders are not necessarily good Au coin graders. I suppose that the converse is also true. Admittedly I am opinionated on this subject, but I have seen too many good silver coin graders fall on their swords with gold grading, even dealers whose instincts I implicitly trust on silver coin grading.

 

Grading is and always will be part science, part art and part instinct. This post ought to stir a few juices.

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braddick

braddick

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What a completely useless test. A real test is submitting 100 coins 5 times to see what consistency is at the grading services.

 

Considering that ACG bagged or noted 40% of the coins as problem coins, I wonder why they were submitted. They must have been awful.

 

Why even bother with the scam grading services?

 

Other than that, it looks like they can't grade circulated coins (which is well known).

 

I completely agree and I'd take it a step further: How about liner coins and coins that are strictly Problem Free ranging from AU58 to MS68.

 

Also, once they are all returned- send them out again!

 

A separate test should have another round of coins go back and forth as CROSSOVERS. There is so much CoinWorld could have done and didn't that I'm more disapointed with them then the results.

 

 

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jtryka

jtryka

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So who tipped off ACG that this was a test? Something else that may have been instructive is to have some independent grading experts give an opinion as to what the "true" grade is. That way we can tell if they were being too tight or too loose. If one service like PCGS is always the lowest, it doesn't mean they are the most accurate, but that point is lost in the results.

 

Oldtrader, I could not agree with you more! Grading a gold dollar and a circ CC half eagle, presents two of the most challenging aspects of gold grading, but say nothing about grading the more popular series, like Saints and Indians.

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true_grade

true_grade

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What a completely useless test. A real test is submitting 100 coins 5 times to see what consistency is at the grading services.

 

Considering that ACG bagged or noted 40% of the coins as problem coins, I wonder why they were submitted. They must have been awful.

 

Why even bother with the scam grading services?

 

Other than that, it looks like they can't grade circulated coins (which is well known).

 

Not useless, just not what it could have been. It is also a 2 part article. There are pics of the coins in this issue.

 

I myself, didn't understand why (if they knew) so many of the "test" coins tested were cleaned/altered/damaged. I can see putting in a couple that you knew should be caught, but half your sample?

 

As I also stated above, a better test would have been for the same group of coins to be sent in to same service at least 3 times. Also a mix of grades, not just coins in MS or sliders.

 

If they hadn't used the services they had then someone would have brought up that question of why not test (??).

 

Now here's the test I want to see; Newbie goes to coin shows, buys coins at sellers price/grade, THEN have them sent to the grading services (min 2 times), crack em open, then go back to coin shows and market them for the best grade/price they can get. Now that would open some eyes and [!@#%^&^] a few folks off!! 20/20, Dateline, 60 Minutes where are you? Oh God no, if they were to expose some of the dirty fecal matter going on in this industry it would cause a major collapse.

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true_grade

true_grade

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Something else that may have been instructive is to have some independent grading experts give an opinion as to what the "true" grade is.

 

That was the point of the test, they did have 8 independent grading services give their opinions on the coins and what the true grades were suppose to be.

 

Oldtrader, I could not agree with you more! Grading a gold dollar and a circ CC half eagle, presents two of the most challenging aspects of gold grading, but say nothing about grading the more popular series, like Saints and Indians.

 

I think the gold coins should be a seperate testing all together.

 

 

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true_grade

true_grade

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I would like to see the responses from the services on this testing.

Maybe that is in the 2nd part of the article?

 

Though the test is far from being perfect, I commend them for being brave enough to approach it. Think of the ad dollars these services generate for Coin World (Amos Press) and the possibility of losing it all for just showing the collectors in black and white what we have all been saying for years.

 

Has anyone else done anything like this? I can't recall anyone putting it in writing in a "major" publication.

 

Will it make any difference? Most likely not. Whatever flavor of service you desire, you're going to defend it no matter what.

 

Just take the article as it is and hope it opens the door for better/consistant grading practises. rantpost.gif

 

 

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CarlWohlforth

CarlWohlforth

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I finally received my CoinWorld with the first part of this article. I was dismayed by the selection of coins used for the test. No high grade moderns in the bunch. No proof coins. No high grade Morgans. No high grade coins at all.

 

I will wait until I read the 2'nd part before I comment further.

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Flash

Flash

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Some of the coins in the sample were in third-party holders to begin with. I find it interesting that, out of those previously-slabbed coins, the original grading service gave only one of them the same grade on the second go-around. Also, who the hell came up with the pre-test descriptions of those coins? I got quite a chuckle out of reading the pre-test descriptions and then comparing that to the test results.

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true_grade

true_grade

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Read the "second" part of this story today; what a waste of time and should have been made into just one story.

 

Anyone see of hear anything about any "fallout" from the "test"?

 

 

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