NGC vs PCGS

[Pampfan]

A lot of buzz on the forum about this topic. 

I still remember a time in my early collecting days when there were no third party grading services.  Can we imagine a time like that again?

I for one do not want to go back to what I call the "dark ages".  A time when a dealer could say this sovereign is in mint state plus and hasn't been cleaned but in reality it was cleaned.  To a novice collector, who was just starting - a quick expensive lesson just occurred.  

Then came the Age of Enlightenment with the introduction of third party grading.  Although still graded by humans, who make mistakes, I believe the institution of fair grading by an independent party has really help the numismatic community greatly, by allowing new collectors to enter and buy something that at least had a professional eye on it.  

So we arrive at the present day where all new issues are graded and most coins grade at 69 or 70, which they should since they are straight from the mint. Magnified by 5 times is how they judge the coins. The Two powerhouses of the grading world - pcgs vs ngc

Which one is better - 

I really do not care - as long as my coin is a 70 and it has a nice label

how about a vote on it

which service do you like better:

Ngc or pcgs 

 

[Agpanda]

I go with NGC, just becouse there are more NGC graded pandas

[jayboat]

I only have 3 graded coins and they are NGC. I do plan to full a box of 20 but over a long term, very long term as i will only buy them when they are a very decent price just as a side piece. . 

I dont like the casing on the PCGS but then again i have never seen one in real. I live in Northern Ireland and there are no coin dealers. I would think that they are graded to the same standard, so would think it was more of a personal choice. As mentioned above, my first NCG was a panda and i liked the feel of slab

Stack on buddy

[Scuzzle]

I don't think there's much to choose between either of them,  NGC possibly just shading it, I have a lot of graded coins mostly MS70 but all modern bullion, nothing special, my golden rule is I refuse to pay any more than the spot price of silver has reached historically so £35 was what I picked up just about everything for but I have noticed it's a lot harder to do this now.

[motorbikez]

13 hours ago, jayboat said:

I only have 3 graded coins and they are NGC. I do plan to full a box of 20 but over a long term, very long term as i will only buy them when they are a very decent price just as a side piece. . 

I dont like the casing on the PCGS but then again i have never seen one in real. I live in Northern Ireland and there are no coin dealers. I would think that they are graded to the same standard, so would think it was more of a personal choice. As mentioned above, my first NCG was a panda and i liked the feel of slab

Stack on buddy

Similar to you, PCGS & NGC are no different IMHO, personally I like the slabs of NGC more, I'm not a huge fan of slabbed coins per se  but I will collect a box full of 20 PF 70's over time as something different to look at in my collection,

[danmc82]

I prefer the look of PCGS slabs. I seem to find more for sale as well.

[sovereignsteve]

IMO if you can't grade coins accurately you shouldn't be collecting them in the first place. Knowing what you are buying and collecting is necessary knowledge to make the hobby worthwhile.

As most wise writers say; buy the coin, not the slab.

[danmc82]

If I were grading it id say PR69 but hard to judge with just a picture.

 

I'd say PCGS graded at PR66

[Guest]

I will go for 65


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[sovereignsteve]

46 minutes ago, shortstack68 said:

PF62 due to mint wipe hairlines which were misniscule to say the least.

My initial reaction was that the photos weren't detailed enough as the TPG use a low power loupe to examine. They were a little too soft.

The obverse looks perfect but the reverse has highlights on the high points which could be slight wear or just reflections.

I think PF62 is ridiculously low going by the obverse. If the mint wipe marks were that bad, it should have been given a "details" grade.

 

[SilverTanner]

7 hours ago, shortstack68 said:

PF62 due to mint wipe hairlines which were misniscule to say the least. Anyway, just picked this NGC walkthrough grading at the ANA fair, thought you'd like to see how it's done

 

 

Bit surprised by PF62 as I would have expected PF63 from the photo (I've seen much worse PF63's) - I say this as I had been tracking these proof sovereigns for a while with a view to buying one to try and complete a proof set but the grades of those that have appeared at auction were always low compared to other proof sovereigns. I was waiting for a high grade one but they seemed quite elusive and with a surprising number coming up in the usually missing 60 grade! Upside is PF62 is a good grade for the coin

My take on this is that in order to get MS/PF65 or better there seems to be a focus on razor sharp strike (by its nature a matte proof is never going to look like that) and very clear fields (very much looks like this from the photo).

An added complication is that the Edward VII obverse always looks like a weak strike on all of the British or Colonial coinage and the high grades just don't seem to be there for these coins - I have settled on MS64 as my target grade for my Edward VII collection whereas the earlier and later monarchs are all MS65/MS66. However an MS64 for Edward VII always seem to command a bit of a premium and the odd MS65 could go for anything depending how many people want it on the day (just lost out on an MS65 which went for 3x the price of an MS64 ).

ST

[SilverTanner]

On 08/02/2017 at 00:19, shortstack68 said:

Personally i've seen worse PF62 grades also and i wasn't a happy bunny when it came back with that grade, i was looking at minimum 63-64 range, as i said above, it seems it's one mans opinion, if he's had a bad day then who knows, i watched a PF65 last year go through Heritage for $4500 i think it was, definitely $4k region

$4500! That will be why I don't yet have one?

ST

[Agpanda]

I just had my PCGS Pandas out couse I was selling a few to another member here

Unfortunal all 2011-2016 have got small white spots on them

I had to check my NGC aswell, but only one of the 2012 had spots on the back

So from now on I wont be buying any PCGS more, thats for sure

[danmc82]

Will the difference be the handling of the coin whilst being graded? You'd think a well known company like PCGS would know how to handle a coin by now.

Unless its just coincidence.

[danmc82]

I have a few pcgs pandas already with no spotting. Hopefully they will stay that way.

I suppose its pot luck with these thing's.

[Agpanda]

Found this 2 pandas today, same coin and same seller

But still a diff of 70$

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1994-CHINA-5Y-999-SILVER-PANDA-NGC-MS-70-NO-SPOTS-NO-BLEMISHES-/182469951806?hash=item2a7c0e813e:g:d7MAAOSwuTxV8f1l

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1994-CHINA-5Y-999-SILVER-PANDA-PCGS-MS-70-NO-SPOTS-NO-BLEMISHES-PCGS-SHIELD-/182469951809?hash=item2a7c0e8141:g:xH8AAOSwHmhV8f9r

Anyone who want to guess why?

[Agpanda]

It´s no problem finding them cheaper, but this was the only seller I found that had both

[danmc82]

3 hours ago, shortstack68 said:

Still not sure what the point of it was, it's only a sellers overpriced opinion and if both coins in the same grade were available cheaper i'd still go for the cheapest MS70 option regardless of which TPG graded it

I assume @Bosse68 was comparing the prices of the same coin by different graders (The title thread)

For the experiment to be plausable there can only be one variable, the variable is the grading company in this case as the seller remains the same for both.

[danmc82]

1 hour ago, shortstack68 said:

The coin itself is about $300 overpriced regardless which holder it's in, so it's of no use trying to compare something that is already inflated 3 fold of its current value and then say it's because one is an NGC slab and the other PCGS, a $70 difference between different slabs companies is inconsequential due to it being vastly overpriced anyway.

 

I agree, they are vastly overpriced, but why $70 different, why not just overprice them to the same amount?

I personally prefer PCGS so for me its a bonus if people are listing them cheaper. At the end of the day, the graded coins I collect will go up in value whatever company graded them.

[NewMSmatist15]

7 hours ago, shortstack68 said:

Probably because we have a greedy seller. NGC price guide for MS70 is $190, so no bargain anywhere really, although the PCGS coin would be the better option due to the lesser price 

It's interesting the prices are dropping for this older Panda. Since modern Panda coins don't have a price guide (at least that I've seen on the NGC site) I wonder what the trend is overall. Could these be a losing investment now?

[danmc82]

1 hour ago, shortstack68 said:

Bu that is the wrong way to look at it, because in any investment, it could go down as well as up, just look at the screenshots i uploaded as an example. You should buy what you like and not what's on the label, the label numbers are what sucker people into paying OTT prices.........

Im looking at this over a 20 year period. Yes, the price could go downward but even if thats the case, the numi side of the coin still holds. It also depends how much you originally paid for the item.

 

[Pampfan]

I think that @shortstack68may be on to something when he says something may not be right in the market place.  It used to be that collectors had a "limited pool" of items to collect than they do today.  The market is being flooded with hundreds of different items - all of them grabbing at the pool of money investors have to spend.  I also think that we have become a little desensitized by the grading companies and the multitude of coins graded 70 that are out there.   

What I have seen in the USA is that old age collectors are dying off and their collections are coming back into the market place.  If these coins weren't graded - they are quickly sent off to the grading companies by the new owners - thus increasing the population of coins in all the grade categories - including the higher grades.  As this new supply hits the market - it must compete with the thousands of new products.  With less money available to spend by collectors - the prices will fall as they are not willing to spend the "big bucks" for some previously hard to get items.  So an item which commanded $3000 in MS67 10 years ago - may have collectors only willing to spend $1,500 on it today.  

The other reason the prices may be falling so drastically is because of an overall lack of demand for the specific coin itself.

(A side note: - I had two bullion 1/10 ounce eagles from 2015 - both of them were graded MS70 - by the same company NGC - and if you were to look at both of them - even though they were both graded perfect - One looked better than the other - It had greater eye appeal. - How do you explain that??) 

 

 

 - 

[Pampfan]

5 hours ago, shortstack68 said:

Here is another curious one. I got an email from Pinehurst advertising some American gold eagles in PF70 presale, but the problem i have here is how do they know that all the coins they are selling in presale will make PF70........One corporate giant greasing the palm of another? You surely cannot sell what you don't know you have and they are pricing it in tiers, which means they have to know exactly what they're getting

They will probably grade 1000's of each one.  Majority will grade either 70 or 69.

Look at how many 2017 silver eagles are being sold by the big bullion companies - thousands and thousands graded 69 or 70. They must just send in monster boxes.  

 

[SilverTanner]

At one time I did look at collecting proof 1/10 eagles as I really liked the coin. Having looked into it in more detail you can buy the whole set from the start off-the-shelf as either NGC or PCGS as there are hundreds at PF70 and the 2017's mentioned above just support this.

I didn't in the end as that was no challenge and went back to the older stuff where there is just a few at MS63/64/65!

ST

[SilverTanner]

3 hours ago, shortstack68 said:

A better plan in my opinion, getting the harder to get high MS/PF grades will be more beneficial, but just keep an eye on what it is you're buying through the NGC price guide section as there is a lot of coins dropping in price just now

Agreed!

Due to the areas I am interested in I have tended to track auction prices rather than the price guide (I have lots of coins with no entry!!) although various threads on here have prompted me to have a look - and there does seem to be lots of things dropping in price.

As I buy from auctions all over Europe and the US, and elsewhere, some interesting discussions and observations have been had relating to the state of the market (old numismatic only?). Russian coins are still popular with Thailand and Egypt surprisingly being on the 'hot' list. British coins and those of the colonies seem to be holding their own and disappearing to the east, whereas the market for lots of western european coins seems stagnant - for the ones I look at the auction prices have not gone anywhere for years and some have even dropped. The US seems to still command a premium for the top grades although this also seems to be somewhat reduced (I guess mirrored in the drop in the price guides?!).

I'm just trying to decide whether quality coins from France, Germany, Portugal and Spain are worth picking up now before the market turns! I missed out on the surge in Russian prices even though I was aware of it at time?

ST