Price Differences from Third-Party Grading
Third-party grading brought order to coin collecting, but with fourth-party stickers, eye appeal, and market premiums now in play, collectors need to understand why “like” coins can sell worlds apart.
There is a significant pricing difference between coins that have been encapsulated by a third-party certification service and those that are “raw.” This is nothing new. Sometimes, it simply isn’t worth the extra cost to submit a low-value coin for examination. Other times, it can be “buyer beware” since perhaps the coin either has problems and couldn’t be graded, or perhaps the coin wasn’t graded high enough to suit the seller, and for that reason, the coin was cracked out of its slab.
In recent years, a fourth-party certification service has been double-checking the work of third-party services, then adding a sticker to the encapsulation if that fourth party agrees or considers the coin to be even better than what the third party concluded. It would be great if coins of the same grade always sold for the same price—but that’s rarely the case. Increasingly, there are significant price differentials depending on which third-party service certifies a coin, with increasingly significant additional markup being assigned to coins having been awarded a coveted fourth-party sticker.
Adding to all this is eye appeal—something buyers often consider separately from a coin’s assigned grade. Advanced collectors understand all this, but collectors just entering the arena may not. The original reason for third-party services was to weed out counterfeits and establish law and order regarding grading. Today, coins have become commodities due to incremental grading and encapsulation. We’ve come a long way, but the education that should follow through so that this can be understood properly has not. It’s time to educate the average collector to understand all the fine points about various certifications and why prices may differ greatly for what may appear to be like coins.
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