The Current State of Coin Grading - How NGC / PCGS are Currently Grading Coins - Opinion Rant

What is your opinion on the current state of coin grading?

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Ben The Coin Geek
Old Pueblo Coin

[MichaelLynMusic]

Great Video...thank you posting this Sir! As a new collector { only 7 mos. in } I was getting ready to give
up trying to figure out what is going on with these inconsistent variations...thinking that I will never catch on. Thankfully my buddies wife sent me your link to shed light on the fact that I'm not losing my mind on the grading process and collecting in general.

[JASN-ojqu]

I once sent in coins in original mint cello that came back "cleaned" lol just insane.

[DaveSmithmarketingconsultant]

I enjoyed your rant. I'm not expert enough to know how to assign a grade to my coins, so it is hard for me to argue the grades they assign. I do believe that everything you said is true. And then some. There are dimensions to TPGs that many collectors don't always understand. As long as TPG's are in a competitive landscape, they will be looking for ways to differentiate. As long as they are in business, they will be looking to increase their profit margins. While accurate grading is always the goal, they cannot help but be motivated by other influences. It is a shame. And it is wrong. But until we develop a micron level scanner that contains templates for every coin on earth, then lock it in a box so that no one can mess with it, this will continue. PCGS is proud of their market share and reputation. They are proud that they grade one level below NGC and two below ANACS. NGC is proud to be lower priced than PCGS. ANACS is proud to recognize minor errors/varieties that NGC and PCGS won't. Also, there is a marketing element for which collectors share responsibility. Experienced numismatists often say, "Buy the coin, not the slab". But if you were purchasing a valuable coin and found two that were identical, were exactly the same price, but one was in an ANACS holder and the other was in a PCGS holder. Which one would you buy?

[Ben-qupn]

Your judgement and reasoning is accurate and insightful. Thanks Ben!

[robertlung]

Heritage at one time back had ALL 4 3rd party graders. ICG was told to HIT THE ROAD JACK because of their inconsistency with All coins graded by them. ANACS is kind of like a HALF Sister among the Grading Services. They are Still working with Heritage and I have bought quite a few ANACS Coins myself from Heritage, E Bay and some Local Dealers here in The Phx Market. Remember Everybody, BUY the Coin, NOT the Holder. YOU can always "Crack Them Out" from ANY Holder and Resubmit to Another 3rd Party Grader if you so DESIRE. I have done this for many years now.

[silvertopaz]

Graded coins are ok, for the most part. I do have some. I have crack some out to put into my Type Set. I'm an older collector and enjoy looking and handling my coins. I'm not ever thinking about selling them. This is just me. Love holding and looking at the Liberty Cap and Draped Bust coins. Holding a copper or silver coin from the late 1700's. The History, the thoughts of who held it, that it was used to buy or the time it took to earn it. This is what coin collecting is for me. I collect what I like or love not as an investment.

[silverbanky]

Ouch! My beloved Browns. Keep up the great work Ben.

[ericdawson]

Wonderful presentation. I agree with much of what you say. I am perhaps an expert in certain areas and am aware of exactly as you say the fact that I would be naturally biased in my favor. However, I have seen errors on high and low sides that seem not consistent, and I am talking about coins that I don't have an iron on the fire with.
It is more than just anecdotal and it worries me a lot, even moreso with the purchase of these two TPGs by companies interested in maximizing profits. I agree that it is not an intentional turn to conservatism.

[meteoman]

That was a very well thought out articulate rant with which I agree completely. Years ago, I complained of how much over grading there was, and now it's inconsistent grading. I have never used the services of a grading company, though I have bought graded bullion where the cost ignored the fact that the coin was slabbed. One of my jobs at a LCS is to grade coins to prepare them for sale. I have never had any complaints.

[yttst]

Imagine sitting in dark room grading coins hour after hour, day after day, year after year.

[markkindsvatter]

I dunno man. Half the time I think they flip a coin (pun intended)...i have sent off special edition proofs and have never received a 70...not a single flaw to be found at 20x mag...all these companies guard their pop reports....and that is a large part of the problem,

[lucadraghi]

I have a theory that since the higher demand for coin grading has occurred over the past year or so, these company's are hiring very young and inexperienced graders, which causes them to grade lower than normal, which you stated as to "not get in trouble"....however you may also get lucky and the coin is looked at by an experienced person, giving you a "correct" grade. So really it's a crap shoot...haha

[davidbeckerich]

I find it hard to believe that their are 3 graders and a person to check their grade. I can not afford grading but have seen two dimes that I noticed on the secondary market that had mistakes on the label regarding the mint mark. Thanks for being the person that watches the grading companies obvious problem areas. You are my source of coin knowledge and I feel comfortable with your input. You are a special breed and you deserve due recognition. Thanks for all the videos and hours of knowledge.

[beastmodeforever]

4:08 your right but also there's a gray area, if its a rare key date or a common date with a rare or key date for the year and mm you might not get the grade you know it is because of the hugh price jump they don't watch give out unless its a exceptional example.

[EDCwithAaron]

We just had a bulk submission of over 700 morgan dollars come back from ngc... we specified MS63 as the lowest grade, so anything they thought was lower would be sent back without a slab... there were about 10 coins that were in the reject pile that were nicer than most of the MS64s. Then there were tons of bad grades, MS63s that looked like MS65s, almost all the MS65s were really 64s in my opinion... One of the MS65s came back with a huge scratch through the obverse field that should have detail graded that coin. We got back one with a massive piece of foam or something stuck inside the slab on the obverse of the coin, and 6, yes SIX coins that were marked as the completely wrong date/mint mark.

[fightbackjack]

Ben, I agree with you 100%. We have both had the same recent experiences with NGC & PCGS. I believe the grading companies are transitioning to a more bottom line/stakeholder driven business model, which means the customer suffers as with all companies who make this kind of transition (ex: Apple). I feel we as business owners/collectors MUST take our business elsewhere. However, I will not "jump ship" until the big auction houses are on board.

[markusbellerue]

I did a test about 3 yrs ago with PCGS. And before that had many coins graded through them prior to that with great results I thought were deserving of the coins I sent in. So….

I have had rolls of 1982 lg date zinc pennies for years now that my uncle gave me back in the 80’s. I cherry picked the best, reddest most beautiful looking ones out with great luster eye appeal and mark free. I had about 7 I narrowed it down to for sending in. I decided to send in 2 of that 7. They came back both a 68. Now I know what a great coin looks like because I’ve been doing this for years and not to sound egotistical, but I pride myself in having a good eye for this sort of thing. (Hence my 2 68s that came back after narrowing it down from hundreds of coins). That was about 3 years ago.

5 months ago I decided to cherry pick again from the same batch of 40rolls that the 68s came from. Except these were new unopened rolls I never went through. I cherrypicked and narrowed it down to 5 absolutely amazing looking coins again. And compared them to the slabbed 68s side by side. In my opinion they looked just as good if not better. And one I thought would be the golden egg (68+ or 69). I decided to send them all in…….
4 came back a 66 and one a 66+.
There’s just no way. No fu**king way these coins could be that off by 2 pts. That’s when I started doing research and realized that PCGS had changed in their grading standards OR in my personal opinion their experienced coin graders are no longer present. And now all that exist in terms of decent graders, are far and few between who really know what the hell they are doing when grading these coins.

Bottom line: they have gone down hill and it’s apparent and obvious to say the least.
A complete waste of money to gamble with and pay these grading fees for a crappy grade you know is worthy of something better than it came back. We don’t know who these coins are going to for grading. It’s a complete crapshoot. !! PCGS has become all about marketing and salesmanship to get people to send in their coins. They are all about the “MoNey Money Money by the pound. “💰💰💰

[WondyCoin]

This is a great video and I've had the same experiences. NGC has slabbed some modern coins too high for me and some older coins way too low.

[金兆文]

In China, where I am from, I would say NGC and PCGS are getting very conservative this year. Since 2020, NGC has lowered its price in China to about 8 dollars for the lowest tier, and a fast turnaround of about 1 week. The result is very low grades, usually, we see 62 assigned to previously 64 morgan dollars. PCGS is another story, they are extremely slow, usually takes more than 6 months, and very conservative as well, but not as in lower numerical grades, PCGS assigns detail grades to a large number of Chinese coins that seem problem-free to most collectors. So, I'd say as they got a large volume of coins, they both have become more conservative.

[JohnD]

If you want ICG or ANACS to not be red-headed step children, you should use them more and treat them like they're the equal of NGC or PCGS. I've been hearing the nonsense about ANACS being questionable for over 30 years. But somehow NGC hit the market and was instantly accepted. With the frequency of people questioning the results of PCGS and NGC, it seems to me that they're the questionable services and ANACS should be used exclusively.

Reliable technology for grading coins will never exist. Remember, technology only does what the human programs into it.