Ever had your coins graded

[photo-master]

I just looked into it as I have an error coin I'd like to have graded. But you must become "a member" to submit directly to either the PCGS and the NGC, that means $50 for a year membership. You can also go to a dealer/coin shop and submit to the grading companies that way. --Worth it for an avid collector, but bunk for a single submission.

Just wondering what experience you guys may have with grading...

 

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[Mackaydon]

I submit coins for professional grading through a dealer.
If the dealer then buys the coin from me after grading, he waives the grading cost.
Don...

 

[LM]

It depends on the coin.
For key dates or types where the price difference between a 62 and a 64 might be a 1000% spread and you're confident the coin falls somewhere in that range (or better), it's usually worth a shot even if you have to pay retail rate. For lower value stuff, slabbing is usually not worth the cost in terms of being a value-adding service.

Aftermarket grading is great for trading higher value stuff on impersonal mediums like ebay or for verifying authenticity of examples that are known to suffer from forgeries but honestly, in my opinion, professional grading not the end-all that many collectors make it out to be. I have a pretty high batting average for re-submissions, which means that the their grading standards are far from perfect (especially in the upper mint state grades where it's just downright voo-doo and speaking from hunch, there's probably some dishonesty going on... Collectors put way, way too much faith in the integrity of that process)

Depending on what you want to have graded, talk to an experienced collector or dealer and if they know their stuff, they will tell you to whom you should submit. Of the big 3 (PCGS, NGC and ANACS), some are notorious for being tougher or looser graders on certain types, which translates to being better or worse depending on if you're buying or selling, even though the markets only casually acknowledge this in terms of selling prices. Savvy collectors know it's sometimes better to buy a NGC 62 than a PCGS 63/4 of certain types, or a PCGS AU-50 rather than an ANACS 58, etc, etc, etc.

Arbitraging this difference in grading standards is how I've achieved a consistently high average with winning resubmissions, but your mileage may vary.

 

[photo-master]

LSMorgan, wow thanks for that great answer.

I have maybe a $300 error coin (copper wash nickle), I was thinking about selling it on ebay. It just feels like the coin graders have made themselves quite the guild, I smacks a bit of shutting out the little guy that only wants a coin or two graded. I don't mind paying the price for grading/slabbing but I dislike joining the club to send the coins in on my own for grading.


Read this yesterday: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin_grading
In the May 26, 2003 edition of Coin World, the hobby newspaper had announced they had contracted investigators to conduct a year-long, comparative study of PCGS, ANACS, NGC, and ICG, along with several other grading services, each known as a TPG or Third Party Grader. In their investigation, Coin World sent several of the same coins to each grading service over the course of a year, each coin being graded by all Third Party Graders sent to. The findings were; "In no case did the grading services agree on the grade of any given coin, and in some cases the difference in grading was as much as seven points off". By way of example, a finding published by Coin World involved one case where ACCGS had graded a coin as "cleaned", which lowers the coin value. Additionally the coin had been graded several grades lower than PCGS while PCGS had not noted the same coin was "in fact, cleaned". It is standard in U.S. numismatics to grade coins on a point-scale from 1 (poor) to 70 (perfect), and to note if a coin has been cleaned or poorly mishandled, or in some cases to reject it for encapsulation.

On January 5, 2007, the Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG) published a more recent report about grading services and standards. The survey indicated the professional opinions of numismatists who buy and sell coins. No grading service was listed as "outstanding". PCGS and NGC were ranked as "superior". ANACS and ICG were ranked as "good".