Lower PCGS Grading Standards?

[Petespockets55]

.....................I knew the bar moved for grading, but honestly I didn't realize quite how much.Dan

I have heard the same thing about PCGS grading becoming less stringent
and more forgiving, creating higher grades (and volume of
re-submissions/crackouts to PCGS!). Personally, as a collector, I preferred PCGS
graded coins because I felt they were better looking coins compared to
NGC graded ones. I think that the market has agreed with this in the
past with higher prices realized for PCGS vs.NGC. I can see a number
of reasons this would happen to PCGS grading standards and most of them
revolve around increasing the income stream to PCGS.
Does anyone else have any thoughts, positive or negative, about the
reasons for the PCGS shift in this direction? (Known or suggested
thoughts are welcome concerning why they are doing this for my own
curiosity?) Thanks in advance to anyone willing to reply. Cliff/Petespockets55

[Maineman750]

Until they come up with strict standards, it's all politics and money games that I won't play....unless I have a rare coin I want to sell.

[WaterSport]

I would agree with your statement on PCGS loosening their grading standards. In fact, I go back far enough on their forums when just trying to get a MS 66 graded cent – was a BIG DEAL and the top of the line for a Lincoln Cent. Now, all those MS 66 cents I paid top dollar for are hardly worth half of what I paid due to the populations of PLUS and MS 67 – 68 cents. It’s easy to look at the cents and figure that you could re submit them to get higher grades, but it is a lot of $$ and I am not trying to crush people playing with registry sets.

I always record my grade for a coin before I send it to PCGS in order to help my grading skills and usually I was over graded. Now, I am under graded. At this point and time, I would have to say that all three major companies are pretty consistent with one another. In fact, I feel that when it comes to proofs – ANACS is a bit tighter as I have had a hand full upgrade 1-2 points after being cracked out of ANACS holders and sent to PCGS this past year.

I would not want to second guess as to why they are not as tight as they use to be other than to say, I think the pressure came from the dealers and not from everyday collectors like you and I.

WS

[GrumpyEd]

We all have opinions, probably biased by the exact coins we see or got graded.

The no brainer is that in general the market values the older holders/grades. On top of that the longer the coin was in a holder the more stable it probably will stay over the short term.

I'm not swearing these are the best coins but the market seems to think:

For PCGS the best are "rattlers" then "Doileys" (Doileys are the king as for being rare) then "OGH" and "no prongs" then "prongs" everything else going down as they get newer. I think the newest generation holder is slightly fatter.

For NGC the best are the "Black" (Black are pretty rare) then the "fatty" the "white no prong" then "white prong" and everything else going down as they get newer.

For ANACS the best are the "little ANA" then the "small white no reflector" then the "small white with reflector". For me there was another cycle, the "easy crack blue" was sort of random then the "early gold" got a little better then it's down or flat from there on as they get newer.

There are many minor generations not mentioned.

[centMD]

I think everyone brought up some good points here. One thing to remember is that my results could vary widely by grader as well. Even different coins I myself would have graded differently. I would have put the 1943 DDR-001 that is a MS65 as a MS66 and the MS66 as a MS65. I think that the 1926 is by far the nicest of the MS66RD coins, and I was a bit dissappointed it didn't get a plus when compared with the others. However, these are just my opinions, and if asked to grade 10 coins randomly my grades would vary from Bob's and Ed's and Roger's grades above. General trends are good to know with the companies, but individual coins can break from trends. Even within my small submission I saw inconsistency, but again, these are just opinions. I suppose you could mae up some kind of saying if you felt like it, such as, "old is gold, newer buy fewer" for what you should do, but the best thing is just to try to see a coin in hand and use your judgement of does this coin fit the grade, is it worth the money, will it make me happy.

Dan

[GrumpyEd]

I think that the 1926 is by far the nicest of the MS66RD coins, and I was a bit dissappointed it didn't get a plus when compared with the others.

It sometimes seems that they sort grade on a curve. On 26-D and 26-S even ugly ones can get decent grades (like ugly ones can be 63-64) because none are really nice. Then on dates that come really nice like 26-P they're really tough to up a grade (like give out a 67) or a plus because so many are nice. Sort of like a beauty contest with ugly contestants, someone still gets the crown but if they're all perfect then even the losers are nice looking.