Some people crack open the slab and submit the same coin over and over, hoping to get a better grade for it, especially where the difference in one point can mean thousands of dollars. Do your graders recognize such attempts? And what about the effect this practice has on the population reports? - Submitted by Morgan Fred.
Taylor: I am constantly amazed that the graders recognize a coin they saw last month, or longer ago. I remember one grader saying that he can't remember people's names but he can always remember their coins. I guess that's why they are graders and not salesmen.
As for the accuracy of the pop reports, all we can at this point is ask people to send the labels back from when they crack a coin out. If you, or anyone else, has a better idea my ears are wide, wide open.
ANACS seems to be certifying a lot more 70's since introducing the new holder. Have the standards gotten looser since then? - Submitted by The_Cave_Troll.
Taylor: A lot of people have speculated that I brought this practice with me from ICG when I came to ANACS. Let's face it, modern coins are not for everyone--just as I mentioned in an earlier reply is sugar-coated cereal, or, for that matter, American cars. Once people accept that notion, it becomes easier for some to accept 70s.
The way I see it, until 6-8 years ago, darn few coins that were struck after 1964 were ever submitted to coin grading companies. Given the presses that were used to strike pre-1964 coins and the ways planchets were prepared then, I can't imagine many (any?) pre-1964 coins would have graded 70. However, with the Mint replacing its hundred year-old presses in the 1980s and 90s and the Mint demanding higher quality planchets and the Mint producing infinitely better dies and hubs, the quality of the coins they were making was significantly better.
Also, if you can accept 69 as a grade, what do you do when you have a significantly better coin than a 69? I don't think you have a choice but to use the next higher grade.
I hear a lot of people commenting about the prices people pay for a 70. Is it any more outrageous than the $89 Ralph Lauren shirt I'm wearing that was made in Malaysia for probably less than $2. Or how 'bout a $4 cup of latte at Starbucks that runs through your plumbing in 30 minutes?
Maybe I'm as stupid as my 16 year old says I am, but I'm convinced people dress the way they do to look their best--regardless of how repulsive it might be to me--and I'm just as convinced that people spend their money the way they do so it brings them the most.
If I send in a coin to be "re-holdered" which is in a cracked, scratched, or dirty holder, or in an older ANACS holder type, does the coin get re-graded? - Submitted by jdheyne.
Taylor: One of the things we do not want to do is put any coins into our new holder that are not accurately graded. To automatically cross all old ANACS coins over into our new holder would severely undermine the new holder and would undo all the good of the new holder.
If a person submits a coin to us in our classic (old) holder we cover the grade with a sticker and then the graders regrade it. If the new grade is the same, or higher as occasionally happens, all is well. It gets reholder in the ClearView holder and sent back to the customer. If the new grade is lower, then it comes directly to me and I call the submitter. I tell the submitter that the coin is still in the same holder he submitted to us in but we now want to downgrade it. I then remind him what the grade was and what we now think it is. I then tell him that based upon our research the coin WAS worth, let's say $500, and now is worth $300. We can either downgrade the coin and send him a check for the difference--$200 in this case, or send it back to him in the same holder it was submitted in. My preference is always to downgrade the coin and send the check, but since the coin is not mine, I can only try to persuade him to do this.
