2016-10-26 Wed

Before the 1980’s metals rush, coin buyers could either become numismatic experts with detailed knowledge of the series they collected or buy it from a trusted dealer.

Most dealers were not honest and Grade inflation was very common. Some dealers over-graded their coins because they did not know the real value. This created a lot of fake pricing for the coins in the market.

In the 1980s, third-party grading companies came in to stabilize grading standards. They also offered services like authentication, preservation, and security futures. That’s when collectors started trusting third party grading companies.

There have been some issues with these trusted coin grading companies as well. For example, the grading is not consistent and experts tend to have their own personal reason behind how they grade coins, which could be driven by thoughts, feelings, tastes, liking etc.

Also, grading standards are falling year on year. MS-63 of last year is this year’s MS-64.

To tackle this issue, automated coin grading systems were introduced which didn’t work out well either.