Big Change at PCGS!

Collectors Universe (CU), the parent company of PCGS, issued a press release this evening stating that Ron Guth has resigned as PCGS President so that he can focus on developing the CoinFacts.com Web site. Until a new president is named, CU President David Hall and CU Chief Operating Officer Steve Mayer will assume Guth's duties. Guth will become President of CoinFacts.com effective Oct. 1, and will lead an initiative to bring the site up to date, as well as develop further Web enhancements for both CoinFacts and PCGS. The press release quotes Guth as saying, "I’m very excited about returning to my roots as a numismatic researcher and writer. My intention is to mine the impressive database of information and images that PCGS has built since 1986 and present it in ways to benefit the numismatic community. For the past three years, I've had the opportunity to lead a company filled with some of the most talented people in the industry and I am honored to have been a part of this great team."

CoinFacts.com was founded by Guth in 1999, and is a unit of PCGS. It is the Web site that supplies all of the linked encyclopedic information about coins for the PCGS Price Guide, such as how many coins have been encapsulated by PCGS in each grade, important recent sales of those coins, and other important facts about each type and date. I had noticed that the information hadn't been updated in years, and sort of wondered why whoever created such a wonderful compendium would allow to it stagnate. Well, now I know! Its founder was busy running PCGS!

Although Guth is a likable, charismatic fellow, he might have been a little out of his element as President of PCGS. The company has a very high profile in the coin collecting community, and as a publicly-owned company, PCGS has stresses that a private company doesn't suffer. I always thought that Guth was fantastic on the public relations end of things, but I can't say I agree with many of the policies that PCGS put into place under Guth's tenure, such as the ridiculous First Day of Issue policy that allows for coins to get the First Day of Issue designation a decade from now if your order is large enough. I begged for well over a year for PCGS to add a "PCGS-graded value" disclaimer to their price guide pages, warning people that the prices were for PCGS-graded coins only (and not those in other slabs) after seeing a steady stream of reports from people who were ripped off by graded coin value fraud. Despite asking Guth to place this disclaimer on their price guide several times, the deed was finally accomplished through other means. In my opinion, Guth doesn't seem to have a good sense for balancing what is best for both PCGS and the community it serves as a whole. He only seemed to see the PCGS end of things. I imagine his job was a very stressful one; I certainly wouldn't want that kind of responsibility. It will be interesting to see if PCGS becomes a better community citizen under new stewardship.

Update (07-Oct-08): PCGS has announced that Don Willis will take over as PCGS President, effective immediately. Willis started Premium Numismatics of Huntington Beach, Calif. in 2002 after more than two decades in the Information Technology business. Willis founded IPNet Solutions in 1996 after a career that included a stint as CIO for U.S. Food Service, Inc., and SVP of IT for HomeBase. For a guy who had a multi-decade career in computer technology, his coins business Web site is ...interesting. Hopefully, he will bring his extensive complement of sound business practices to PCGS and help them raise the bar ethically and professionally.