PCGS Rarities and Finest Known Labels 0

[Zebo]

I saw a discussion where PCGS will be announcing, today, their new rarities label. I also saw a photo on their finest known label (below).  Both of these would be a bit hard to police and I wonder if there will be guidance on what is and what is not.

for rarities - there are so many variables. What is rare and what is scarce or common. Conditional rarities or a rarity based upon a variety while the year/mint may be very common. Rarity based upon estimate of survival. I can see potential abuses. Neat idea.

for finest known - that's also a tough one unless you are talking about something similar to the photo below.

thoughts?

[MarkFeld]

I don’t think it’s nearly as complicated as you’re making it out to be.

The Rarities holder: “The Rarities Holder is an optional holder for coins submitted at the rarities service level, which is the highest tier. Any coin submitted for top-tier grading or reholder will have the option of being encapsulated in this holder..”

Regarding the “Finest Known” on the grading label for the PR66 1913 Liberty Nickel - I would hope and expect that such a title will be reserved for the extremely rare instances in which the possible existence/appearance of an equal or finer example is close to zero. Think 1913 Liberty nickels,1804 dollars,1894-S Barber dimes, etc.

 

 

Edited August 20, 2019 by MarkFeld

[World Colonial]

The examples in Mark's post are actual rarities and very prominent coins.  "Rarity" as predominantly used in US numismatics for the last several decades?  Not even close.

As for this grading tier, I presume the fee will reduce the incentive to have every or even most condition census coins in it.

[Zebo]

16 hours ago, MarkFeld said:

I don’t think it’s nearly as complicated as you’re making it out to be.

The Rarities holder: “The Rarities Holder is an optional holder for coins submitted at the rarities service level, which is the highest tier. Any coin submitted for top-tier grading or reholder will have the option of being encapsulated in this holder..”

Regarding the “Finest Known” on the grading label for the PR66 1913 Liberty Nickel - I would hope and expect that such a title will be reserved for the extremely rare instances in which the possible existence/appearance of an equal or finer example is close to zero. Think 1913 Liberty nickels,1804 dollars,1894-S Barber dimes, etc.

 

 

You are probably right Mark - about being overly concerned about the rarities label. I just do not want anyone to see something label like that and the coin not be rare. I like the idea - especially for heirs that inherit collections and do not have the knowledge or interest in them. The finest known is also a neat idea, but would have to stand the test of time.

this all kind of reminds me of the Chicago White Soxs, when the owner hired a midget to reduce the strike zone. A gimmick in other words. Interesting, as it may be.

[MarkFeld]

1 hour ago, Zebo said:

You are probably right Mark - about being overly concerned about the rarities label. I just do not want anyone to see something label like that and the coin not be rare. I like the idea - especially for heirs that inherit collections and do not have the knowledge or interest in them. The finest known is also a neat idea, but would have to stand the test of time.

this all kind of reminds me of the Chicago White Soxs, when the owner hired a midget to reduce the strike zone. A gimmick in other words. Interesting, as it may be.

It sounds as if someone is willing to pay the price to submit under that tier, theoretically, any eligible coin could end up in one of those holders.

[Coinbuf]

Not a fan, with gradeflation out of control todays finest known is tomorrows bargain bin item (slight exaggeration but not all that far off).  And if that picture is the final product its quite ugly, the milky center ring draws my eye right to it and away from the coin.  Looks like they dug around in a stash of old unused parts and threw this together ick, the idea has merit but the execution is a train wreck.  As the Kool-Aid flows at a raging pace ats I'm sure that there will be plenty of plastic buyers that will rush in their old slabs to have this new look, happily I wont be one of those.

[Zebo]

3 hours ago, Coinbuf said:

Not a fan, with gradeflation out of control todays finest known is tomorrows bargain bin item (slight exaggeration but not all that far off).  And if that picture is the final product its quite ugly, the milky center ring draws my eye right to it and away from the coin.  Looks like they dug around in a stash of old unused parts and threw this together ick, the idea has merit but the execution is a train wreck.  As the Kool-Aid flows at a raging pace ats I'm sure that there will be plenty of plastic buyers that will rush in their old slabs to have this new look, happily I wont be one of those.

I like NGC slabs much better and stay away from such promotions.

[Coinbuf]

Unless its an old or unusual slab it means very little to me, I value the coin not the plastic.

[numisport]

Its gonna be a tough acquisition for slab collectors 

[Jade Collection]

That slab is ugly looking in my opinion!

[EleMint Man]

I like the concept of a rarity holder but these look too large and bulky. Also, how many times has this V nickel been slabbed!?

[Revenant]

I just know, at some point, they'll have something with a "finest known" label out there and another coin will come in and either they won't give it the grade it deserves or they're going to have some 'splainin to do to the person with the no-longer-finest-known with the finest known label.

On 8/21/2019 at 2:33 PM, Zebo said:

I like NGC slabs much better and stay away from such promotions.

I love NGC and much prefer their holders to typical PCGS holders or that ugly thing, don't get me wrong here, but NGC does their own gimmicks. There is absolutely no shortage of specialty labels, and signed labels and all that other stuff with NGC. It does frustrate me sometimes because, even with moderns that are recently graded, it can be a royal pain to get a set that has matching labels and if all the labels / slabs look different the set doesn't look as nice as a set and... my mild inner-OCD person goes slightly insane... I swear, one day I will have to reholder my whole 10G set just to make them all match. But at least for now I can hold back knowing the set isn't complete.

Overall, that's pretty small potatoes compared to this, but it is a thing that they do.

[coinman_23885]

Unless it is reserved for coins where there are a small, finite number of coins whose condition census is well known, then this is a horrible idea.  It will generate law suits if new examples are upgraded or come to the market (think the newly 1854-S $5 - what if instead of being XF it bested the Pogue AU58+?).

[coinman_23885]

I also think it is pretentious.  Everyone that is knowledgeable will know that the Eliasberg 1913 PF66 nickel is the highest graded.  You don't need it on a special label. 

[World Colonial]

13 hours ago, coinman_23885 said:

I also think it is pretentious.  

It is yet another marketing gimmick.  Much of TPG grading is marketing and has nothing to do with collecting anyway.

I keep on wondering how long it will be before submissions and then revenues don't start declining noticeably.  There is a finite population of coins where it makes sense to have it graded.  For many years, I have assumed that NCLT represents an increasing share of submissions with much of it at bulk discounts.

Both services are trying find additional revenue sources from somewhere and these labels and holders are one way to do it.  From my standpoint, it sure beats raising grading fees which have increased noticeably since I first submitted.  Doing that consistently in the current flat or falling market will discourage submissions.

[7.jaguars]

I wonder how much it would theoretically cost to slab a 100K coin? IMO, this was probably complementary to get the "series" started off.

[Revenant]

5 hours ago, World Colonial said:

.

I keep on wondering how long it will be before submissions and then revenues don't start declining noticeably.  There is a finite population of coins where it makes sense to have it graded.  For many years, I have assumed that NCLT represents an increasing share of submissions with much of it at bulk discounts.

I'm sure at this point the vast majority of submissions are NCLT or moderns that someone is hoping to nail a high grade condition rarity on, either for a registry set or to sell / flip to someone with a high grade collection that calls for that coin who may or may not be a registry user.

I'm sure a significant fraction of the older coins coming in are crack-outs hoping for an upgrade.

One of the things I'm struck by with the 10G series I collect is, based on the slab designs, many of the coins on the market were slabbed 15-25 years ago. I monitor the pop reports and they're going up slowly, but it's slow and seems to be getting slower.

I think there are still plenty of raw older coins out there that could be graded though because there's many out there that don't want slabbed coins. But, because of that, I doubt many of those raw coins are streaming into NGC or PCGS.

Edited September 1, 2019 by Revenant

[Zebo]

6 hours ago, 7.jaguars said:

I wonder how much it would theoretically cost to slab a 100K coin? IMO, this was probably complementary to get the "series" started off.

The cost would be $1,300.

 

Edited September 1, 2019 by Zebo

[World Colonial]

7 hours ago, Revenant said:

I think there are still plenty of raw older coins out there that could be graded though because there's many out there that don't want slabbed coins. But, because of that, I doubt many of those raw coins are streaming into NGC or PCGS.

Agree but an inference from my prior post is that most of these coins will never be submitted because there is no point to it.  If by 10G you mean classic eagles, I could see a lot more being prior to sale (especially with higher gold prices) for authentication.

Proportionally, there are potentially (probably in my opinion) more 19th century and earlier US classics outside of the population data than in it going by the survival estimates such as Coin Facts.  My opinion of these estimates varies but the variance with the counts even considering resubmissions is proportionately large.  As one example, Coin Facts claims 35 survivors for the 1802 half dime while the TPG data records 14 (excluding PCGS details coins which I haven't see included) and there are probably some duplicates since NGC records three AU-50.

However, even if most of the remaining US classics economically worth grading are ultimately submitted, the total number probably isn't that meaningful relative to current total volume.

I didn't mention it before but if the TPG are pinning their hopes on much higher meaningful volumes from world coins, it isn't going to happen.  First, most non-US collectors outside of a handful of markets (China and South Africa) don't really like TPG.  But even if they did, for most countries, the coins economically worth grading don't exist in sufficient numbers where the volume will ever be meaningful.  In Europe outside of the highest TPG grade eligible coins, there is also the likely reality that the supply is far too large to be absorbed by any forseeable increase in the collector base.  The coins are "cheap" because most are too common or are lost in a sea of obscurity.

[Revenant]

16 hours ago, World Colonial said:

Agree but an inference from my prior post is that most of these coins will never be submitted because there is no point to it.  If by 10G you mean classic eagles, I could see a lot more being prior to sale (especially with higher gold prices) for authentication. … In Europe outside of the highest TPG grade eligible coins, there is also the likely reality that the supply is far too large to be absorbed by any forseeable increase in the collector base.  The coins are "cheap" because most are too common or are lost in a sea of obscurity

Nope. Netherlands gold 10 Guilders, but I get that a lot because I'm one of the few that collects them graded as Gem BU and doesn't trade them at near melt. So I see where you're coming from and agree in general.

[Revenant]

On 9/1/2019 at 7:33 AM, World Colonial said:

For many years, I have assumed that NCLT represents an increasing share of submissions with much of it at bulk discounts.

On this note, did you see the new press release about them grading their 10,000,000th silver eagle?

https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/7657/10-million-silver-eagles-graded/

I think the last time I checked NGC claimed to have graded 40,000,000+ coins. So let's say that they've graded 40-50 Million coins in their roughly 30-35 year history. That would make silver eagles, just silver eagles, 20-25% of everything they've graded. We know that 30 years ago when this all started hardly anyone was grading, much less bulk-submitting silver eagles. So I would not be surprised if SAEs make up 30-40% of current submissions and NCLT in general makes up 50-90%.