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Do any of you fella's have experience with either the PCGS, or just grading itself....my question is this: how high is the bar to get something MS-65 graded?....whats the criteria?...i know 67 and up is rarefied air....but is 65 a high bar?

thanks.

Depends all on the coin type.

In general a 65 is pretty clean of marks and spots.

Rodebaugh wrote:Depends all on the coin type.

In general a 65 is pretty clean of marks and spots.

thanks Rodee, then i'm good to go, got a few of those...lol.

i'm not planning on slabbing or selling anything, i was just looking at the PCGS list, and i know this, please correct me if i'm wrong, its the GREEN or RED quotes that mean anything, and i'm seeing a lot of green up quotes for the stuff i got. once i get stuff, i have it in plastic rolls, tight, dessicators, dont take anything out to play with it, no hands on it, etc.

you know what this all reminds me of?...i dont know how old you are, but 'member when we were kids, and it was a big deal to open a passbook savings acct, and carefully write your entries in there, as you saved?.....like that. Its a whole new world brother, aint it? We got to be saving resources these days, not spending. a hundred times face. That's the first down marker

neilgin1 wrote:

Rodebaugh wrote:Depends all on the coin type.

In general a 65 is pretty clean of marks and spots.

thanks Rodee, then i'm good to go, got a few of those...lol.

i'm not planning on slabbing or selling anything, i was just looking at the PCGS list, and i know this, please correct me if i'm wrong, its the GREEN or RED quotes that mean anything, and i'm seeing a lot of green up quotes for the stuff i got. once i get stuff, i have it in plastic rolls, tight, dessicators, dont take anything out to play with it, no hands on it, etc.

you know what this all reminds me of?...i dont know how old you are, but 'member when we were kids, and it was a big deal to open a passbook savings acct, and carefully write your entries in there, as you saved?.....like that. Its a whole new world brother, aint it? We got to be saving resources these days, not spending. a hundred times face. That's the first down marker

The green means it has increased in price since the last issue. Neal....I'm 29. Not sure what a passbook savings account is. I did save quarters as a kid....and count them everytime I added new ones to the hoard....then re-totaled the ledger.

Rodebaugh wrote:
The green means it has increased in price since the last issue. Neal....I'm 29. Not sure what a passbook savings account is. I did save quarters as a kid....and count them everytime I added new ones to the hoard....then re-totaled the ledger.

i'm 52...and back in the day. late 60's, early 70's, your parents might take you to the bank and you'd open a saving acct, with 10, 20 bucks, which was a big deal, and they would give you a little book, with our acct number, and that first entry would be the initial deposit, and afterwards, your later deposits would be hand entered...so you had this lil book. Even to this day, i keep a handwritten "inventory" book...precise. So i can look back and see everything. There's a lot of old school things i still like, cyber world is fragile.

Do you remember the little folders with slots for nickels and dimes and you put a dime in each slot and when all were full you had $5?
And $5 was a big deal because you could get a whole lotta hershey bars with it.

I remember the passbook savings accounts. I remember being frustrated at the low interest paid on them!

I hated the ledgers; too easy to make mistakes. Thank goodness for electronic spreadsheets.

neilgin1 wrote:Do any of you fella's have experience with either the PCGS, or just grading itself....my question is this: how high is the bar to get something MS-65 graded?....whats the criteria?...i know 67 and up is rarefied air....but is 65 a high bar?

thanks.

Check out "photograde" via google. PCGS has a very good one, but a lot of that requires a paid membership. There are others also.

Make sure to find the exact series you are trying to grade. Using that you can get very close to the grade you will expect.

thank you Barry, very kind of you, neil

I've had generally better luck submitting to NGC than PCGS. Both are increasingly stingy with grades of MS65 on up (including their numerical grade and a + sign, if they feel it's applicable). The experts say that on some coins a bump to MS65 from a 63 or 64 can more than pay for many, many submissions.

The heartbreakers are the ones you crack out and submit for a higher grade and they come back slabbed only "Genuine" or perhaps "altered surfaces." Every time I think I have the process figured out, then I'm proven wrong. Too much of a risk anymore. Besides, it seems that the real hobby of coin collecting has gone into a Rip Van Winkle mode only to be awakened some years in the future. For now, it's bullion...and lots of it. Ask any high-volume coin dealer. Some I know don't even expend the effort to put many coins on display in their showcases each day.

Geez. What isn't authenticated these days? There are slabs for baseball cards, paper money and many more. I'm still waiting for someone to slab my Civil War cannonball that I keep in my office. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Know Common Cents wrote:I've had generally better luck submitting to NGC than PCGS. Both are increasingly stingy with grades of MS65 on up (including their numerical grade and a + sign, if they feel it's applicable). The experts say that on some coins a bump to MS65 from a 63 or 64 can more than pay for many, many submissions.

The heartbreakers are the ones you crack out and submit for a higher grade and they come back slabbed only "Genuine" or perhaps "altered surfaces." Every time I think I have the process figured out, then I'm proven wrong. Too much of a risk anymore. Besides, it seems that the real hobby of coin collecting has gone into a Rip Van Winkle mode only to be awakened some years in the future. For now, it's bullion...and lots of it. Ask any high-volume coin dealer. Some I know don't even expend the effort to put many coins on display in their showcases each day.

Geez. What isn't authenticated these days? There are slabs for baseball cards, paper money and many more. I'm still waiting for someone to slab my Civil War cannonball that I keep in my office. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

thanks for the hit up KCC...i'm "stingy" too(lol)...i'm not going to pay some guy to ruin my day AND put a perfectly good measure of wealth in a plastic coffin...i was just curious, simply because i DID notice that leap in value between 63 and 65. but to me, that would be a fools errand, sending coins to somebody and paying THEM money. no. thanks though for the info.