You may get more than you expected.

A little over a year ago, I acquired a 1908S US/Philippines 50 Centavo piece that appeared to be uncirculated. Last November, I finally found the courage to send it off to NGC to see if I was right. Sadly, NGC saw my "uncirculated" coin as an AU58. It was not what I had hoped for, but there was no ?body bag,? or details grade involved, so I consider myself lucky. That however is another story, and not the point of this journal entry. It simply sets the stage for what came next.

When I received my AU58 coin in the mail, I promptly added it to all of the relevant registry sets and it raised my set scores by a whopping 237 points! The 1908S 50 Centavo piece is not an easy coin to obtain in mint state condition. While the mintage is a little over 1.6 million, not many of them survive in mint state (or even AU) condition. The NGC population report shows a total of 11 graded, and of those, only four are graded above MS60. I also dabble in US minted Cuban coinage, and I have an AU58 1915 High Relief 40 Centavo piece in my registry sets. This coin has a total mintage of a little over 2.6 million, and a total NGC population of 42, with 28 of those graded MS60 or above. Given the stats, it would seem like the 1908S USPI 50 Centavo coin should garner a few more points than its Cuban counterpart. The Cuban coin is much easier (and less expensive) to obtain, has a higher mintage, has nearly 4 times the NGC population, and is worth 713 points. This is 476 MORE than my freshly graded coin which one website describes as "the Mr. Big of the fifty centavo series." This just didn't seem right to me, so after a few days of contemplating the gross inequity of it all, I decided to ask NGC to review the scores.

I clicked on the button, filled in the request form and specifically asked for a review of the scores awarded for the 1907, 1907S, 1908S, and 1909S Fifty Centavos in EF through MS63. I sent my request on a Saturday, so I didn't expect to hear anything back for a week or so. Even then I expected to get a cordial email thanking me for my interest and declining to make any changes. Much to my surprise, bright and early on Monday morning, I had a response. Max, the NGC representative, had not only read my request, but had acted upon it decisively. The scores for nearly all USPI 50 Centavos rose dramatically. Even though scores for two of my coins went down ever so slightly, my overall set score had risen by a surprising 1,079 points.

Overall, I was very pleased with the quick response and the resulting changes to the 50 Centavo scores. Unfortunately, the 50 Centavo scores were now way too high relative to the 1, 5, 10, 20 Centavos and Peso scores. For example, the new scores for the 1936 Commemorative 50 Centavo were now higher than the equivalent scores for the two 1936 Commemorative Pesos. Clearly this needed to be rectified, so I sent another email.

Again the response was quick and bold. The total scores for every one of my USPI registry sets rose dramatically across the board. Every one that is, except my Half Centavo set. I hadn't specifically mentioned it in my email, so it was the lone USPI set that remained unchanged at the lower levels. Too low relative to their One Centavo counterparts to be allowed to stand, so I wrote a third email.

Things were going so well, that in addition to requesting a review of the Half Centavo scores, I decided to toss in a comment about the USPI type set scores. I wrote, ?The USPI Type set scores are now a bit low relative to the scores in the USPI series, but they seem reasonably consistent within the set." The response to this email was just as swift and decisive as those that had preceded it. The Half Centavo set scores now conformed to all of the other USPI sets. In the course of two days, my total coin registry score had increased by 14,214 points, and I hadn't even added a single coin! Life was good. Life was VERY good indeed, at least until I started looking at what had been done with the USPI Type Set scores.

All of the individual set scores had been replicated in the type set. There was now an incentive to select lower grade coins for a type in order to obtain a higher overall score. For example, I had an MS61 1909S Peso in my type set which is worth 477 points, but by switching to my AU53 1912S Peso, my slot score would improve to 1821. A nice overall gain of 1344 points, but it seems to me that the intent of a type set should be to showcase the highest graded coin within each type, not the rarest. The old type set scores were the same for each coin within a type with a slight premium given for proofs. The absolute scores were a bit low compared to the new USPI set scores, but they did serve the intended purpose by providing everyone the incentive to include their highest graded coin within each type. Clearly, another email was in order.

Max responded just as quickly as he had before, but this time it was not quite so satisfying. It seems that NGC has changed their policy concerning type set scoring in response to other collector requests. They are now using the same individual coin scores in type sets as in the regular sets, thus rewarding both rarity and grade. I have changed the content of my type set accordingly, causing my set score to increase by nearly 4,000 points. Unfortunately, it now contains several AU coins, one XF coin, and a couple of varieties that just happen to have higher individual scores than their normal (higher graded) counterparts.

I do not agree with the new policy on type set scoring, but if that really is what the majority of collectors want, I'll go along with it. If you do or do not agree with the new policy, please let NGC know your thoughts. In the course of the past two weeks I have found them to very receptive and responsive to my comments and requests. What you have to say really can make a difference.

One final thought: My 1908S AU58 50 Centavo coin is now worth 477 registry points, more than twice what it was worth before I sent my first score change request. I still think that's a bit low, but I've probably done enough damage for now.