NGC vs PCGS

[danmc82]

4 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

So what would you class as harder to get coins that wont drop in price?

[SilverTanner]

1 hour ago, shortstack68 said:

Everything would depend on your interest. Numismatic British coins are always a good buy, older sovereigns in high grade, young head Victoria 1850 backwards, the Sydney and Melbournes are also holding their own. It's better to study the form and see what's going on especially if you're buying Chinese, not sure really what's happening there just now. If you have £2k-3k spare then Victoria gothic crowns are always popular but make sure it's bought from a reputable source as there are probably more fakes off these as original coins

This is good advice, from my collecting interests it is the key date coins in top grade of any series that seem to do very well as do rare patterns and proofs, preferably these also need to be of popular series with lots of other collectors out there - like the sovereigns.

So in addition to high grade examples of the early coins mentioned the coins for George V would be the 1934 crown, the 1925 & 1930 halfcrowns and the 1925 & 1932 florin and possibly the 1917 sixpence (apologies to the many penny and farthing collectors as I have only collected British silver!)

I do find it very difficult to stick to that, and wish I had done it earlier, but it is the reason that I now collect typesets and not complete date runs (with a couple of exceptions?) as that means I should end up with coins of increasing value for each denomination!

ST

[Pampfan]

I've seen a coin week video were pcgs explains that the reason one of these coins had a huge population increase was because someone found unopened original rolls of that coin and sent them in to be graded.  This resulted in a huge increase in high grade coins - and thus the drop in value.

Everyone must remember that the population of a graded coin can only increase over the course of time - it all depends on if there are hoard finds - sunken treasure finds, etc. 

This is one risk in coin collecting.

 

[Jester]

As a former baseball card and comic book collector (yes, geek here), my opinion from what I've seen the very short time I've been collecting coins is that this hobby is progressing just as others have in the past (unfortunately).

Any former or current baseball/sports card collectors?  In the US back in the day your choice of cards was either Topps or Fleer.  And it was just that, about 10 or so cardboard cards and a nasty stick of gum in each pack.  When I finally got out of baseball card collecting, packs were down to five or six cards a pack and packs could run anywhere from $10-$15 USD/pack.  You had hologram cards, hologram rookie cards, jersey cards, signature cards, bat cards, you get my point.  The card companies were hyping up these cards so much it created the FOMO complex (fear of missing out).  Same thing with comics...foil covers (platinum, gold, silver), sketch variant covers, signed covers, a constant flow of new characters (can't miss out on a first appearance!), etc.  And of course, all of these things could be graded.

Compare all that to coin collecting now.  Colorized coins, Gilded coins, High Relief Proofs, Reverse Proofs, Privy mark coins, Privy mark on the edge coins, Engraver signed TPG tags...I'm sure you all could add many more examples of the options a collector is faced with today.  To bring this long diatribe home, I think TPG is another of these options that gets thrown in our faces as a must if you really want a "nice" coin.  With the large dealers working directly with the mints and then hyping these things to no end, are we surprised someone would pay $129.99 for a one ounce Ag coin in a slab that's one in a million mintage (you know what I'm talking about!)?  If I'm going to buy an expensive coin sight unseen that I want for my personal collection, I'll get a graded specimen.  Other than that, I'm trying to take the advice of the rap group Public Enemy, "Don't Believe The Hype".

Wow...all that typing and I never answered the OPs question.  I personally like NGC : )

[sovereignsteve]

46 minutes ago, shortstack68 said:

I believe the same thing happened with Morgan dollars when a bank hoard of them was found

Yes the banks had millions of these things, stored in vaults from the time they were minted. They weren't popular as coinage in those days but the US Government were commited to buying silver and producing dollars due by the Bland-Allison act of 1878.

All these coins were released in the early 1960's. As a result, some years previously regarded as rare as rocking horse s*** became common in mint state grade eg the 1903 O

Apparently, some enterprising American collectors/dealers saw an opportunity and took some of the new-found coins to London, where they sold them to unsuspecting dealers at old, rare prices. The dealers will have been referring to the Red Book catalogue prices printed before the Treasury Release.

 

[Pampfan]

6 hours ago, Jester said:

As a former baseball card and comic book collector (yes, geek here), my opinion from what I've seen the very short time I've been collecting coins is that this hobby is progressing just as others have in the past (unfortunately).

Any former or current baseball/sports card collectors?  In the US back in the day your choice of cards was either Topps or Fleer.  And it was just that, about 10 or so cardboard cards and a nasty stick of gum in each pack.  When I finally got out of baseball card collecting, packs were down to five or six cards a pack and packs could run anywhere from $10-$15 USD/pack.  You had hologram cards, hologram rookie cards, jersey cards, signature cards, bat cards, you get my point.  The card companies were hyping up these cards so much it created the FOMO complex (fear of missing out).  Same thing with comics...foil covers (platinum, gold, silver), sketch variant covers, signed covers, a constant flow of new characters (can't miss out on a first appearance!), etc.  And of course, all of these things could be graded.

Compare all that to coin collecting now.  Colorized coins, Gilded coins, High Relief Proofs, Reverse Proofs, Privy mark coins, Privy mark on the edge coins, Engraver signed TPG tags...I'm sure you all could add many more examples of the options a collector is faced with today.  To bring this long diatribe home, I think TPG is another of these options that gets thrown in our faces as a must if you really want a "nice" coin.  With the large dealers working directly with the mints and then hyping these things to no end, are we surprised someone would pay $129.99 for a one ounce Ag coin in a slab that's one in a million mintage (you know what I'm talking about!)?  If I'm going to buy an expensive coin sight unseen that I want for my personal collection, I'll get a graded specimen.  Other than that, I'm trying to take the advice of the rap group Public Enemy, "Don't Believe The Hype".

Wow...all that typing and I never answered the OPs question.  I personally like NGC : )

I too did the same collecting of baseball cards and comics. You need to put it into perspective however - at the time there was no internet or instant satisfaction from social media - we actually had to go out into the real world and meet people to get that card or comic you wanted.  It was just a different time long gone. 

I guess I started collected coins because there is still some part of it left from going to a coin show etc. 

Now the bad part of collecting the paper "comics and cards" is that I think about the hoard of silver and gold I would have right now if I had just picked the shinny metal over the worthless paper.  Hey - this sounds familiar today - except I am on the other side.  

(last thing - who would have ever thought the case of series 1 garbage pail kids I bought as a kid would be the one thing that made me the most money of all the cards I ever bought)