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A couple questions for CAC
Rather then start multiple threads I figured I’d list a couple questions here in one thread. I’m hoping someone here can shine some light for me. Other members feel free to post your questions here to if you’d like.
-Why doesn’t CAC set up at shows? I’m certain it would be a hit with the members. It would save a lot of anxiety we all go through while we wait for our coins to make it through the USPS system.
-Has there ever been any thought in possibly charging a fee for the membership to be able to inquire if a perspective purchase has already been seen by CAC? In an age where a lot of expensive coins are bought over the internet. I would certainly be willing to pay a few bucks to learn if a coin has already been seen and rejected. It would be worth a small fee per cert number. Maybe that just me?
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Comments
The trouble with showing the failure coins is exactly that. Think about the money made from coins being sent in again and again. That, and it kind of makes the failure list a sort of black list. You should learn to look at a coin and know if it'll achieve the sticker or not. Not have a database tell you.
If you're sending your packages registered you shouldn't have anxiety.
CAC doesn’t disclose which coins have failed to sticker because of the black list aspect - submitters of failed coins certainly wouldn’t want that information made public. Likewise, PCGS and NGC don’t publicize which coins have failed to cross.
I don’t think it has anything to do with whatever extra submission fees might result. I’ve heard and believe that they don’t make much, if any money on the submissions part of the business.
Seated Nut:
You do have a valid point on your last question. Feld says look PCGS and NGC do not say what crosses etc. BUT IN MY OPINION, what is wrong with transparency? You as a collector (who should work with your dealer more) has few tools to protect themselves. If you could avoid a bad purchase, why not? And shame on the seller for not saying the coin flunked. The coin will not change. There will still be buyers for it at a much cheaper price. I think it is critical information that should be shared.
In today's market, ask yourself, if a coin is not CAC-WHY? A CAC coin clearly brings more money. Any dealer worth their salt will have sent it in.
CAC makes very little off of grading fees.
I have learned a ton from viewing cac coins over the years. I still have tons to learn but sometimes there are coins on the internet that appear to be nice and wholesome but end up being duds. It would really help to know if the coin has been and failed. What I have done in the past is either decide to not purchase or adjust my level of bid accordingly. I think the market already prices in that a coin is on a black list. Yes there are exceptions as there are with everything. Overall I believe this information would do more good then harm.
@Legend says: In today's market, ask yourself, if a coin is not CAC-WHY? A CAC coin clearly brings more money. Any dealer worth their salt will have sent it in.
I say: +1
CAC will never disclose if it has been or not, you rely on the seller to be candid about that. I'm not really sure JA and Co. would want the sellers to be open about that either, isn't the stated logic for not showing what has failed to avoid bifurcation of the market?
I guess it's moot as that bifurcation has actually already happened, though. Except it's worse than the two categories being "Beaned" and "Failed", it's now "Gold Bean!", "Green Bean!", and "No CAC". It's clear that in the upper echelons of the market, if you have a group of coins in old holders out of a collection that is fresh to market, you probably should sell all of them rather than CACing all of them simply because people will gamble on "Schrödinger's CAC". If you sell them side by side, even if you don't send them all and just handpick what you send in, the assumption is going to be that the ones that aren't CAC failed to bean. It's a tough situation to work around.
While some people will gamble on Schrodinger’s Quantum Theory of the cat in the box that the coin was never previously submitted to CAC, me and most others will not bid more because of that. Our group may “hope” that may be true. In reality just for ME, I wouldn’t bid at all. However, I fully agree I could be wrong in this theoretical case, and the high bidder who presumably only paid a “low” price due to it not having a CAC, is well rewarded if it gets one!
Steve
This is an interesting and longtime subject regarding the professional graders and particularly our host. It would benefit the hobby to maintain a "fail" list but would discourage submissions as the negative of not earning the sticker would have an added negative besides the fee and postage. There is a good solution, but I will save it for a suggestions thread as this is not the right place.
My imaginary "acid test" on anything where there is a price diferential on an element attached to an item is to place both items on a table under a "FREE..take one" sign and observe how many choose which.
🤔
#1) A regrade will change the coin's cert number and there won't be a record of it failing CAC.
#2) I'll take a MS67 fail over a MS66+ CAC without hesitation if it looks better.
The demand for cac coins in the market is extremely strong. As Winesteven said the non cac coins have already been black balled by many (Paraphrased). The market has adjusted accordingly. I believe cac has seen most of the better material that exist in many series. Especially the seated series I collect. So I assume a coin has not stickered if it doesn’t have one. Certain dates only have a handful of examples that are CACd anyways. Those rare dates still enjoy a premium without a sticker. It just makes you analyze the coin closer to figure out why there is no stcker. I see it as a win win for cac and the collectors. Cac gets a new revenue stream and cuts back on the coins that continually get sent in over and over. Which saves them time . The collectors who have interest in cac coins would benefit on a couple different levels as well. The people who hate cac and claim they don’t like stickers on their slabs dont matter in this scenario because they would not care about if a coin has been or not. I’m with LEGEND on this, I think transparency is best.
Your point #1 is absolutely true.
Regarding your point #2, the real question though, is “Are you willing to pay a lot more for a 67 fail without a CAC, if the 66+ with a CAC is priced much less?” Common example using rough numbers: An attractive common date Peace Dollar (1923 or 1925) graded MS66+ with a CAC may sell for slightly more than $1,000. One graded MS67 that failed (assuming it’s failure is due to it being a “C” coin) sells for about $4,000+. Are you saying that if the eye appeal of the latter is a bit nicer to YOU, that you’ll pay that differential? Maybe you would, as others do, or maybe you wouldn’t?
Steve
#1, that would imply a certain intellectual dishonesty of the collector "or dealer" involved. Sellers will boast of the CAC pass but scurry away from the value diminishing pan.
If CAC-fail coins are blackballed, I can't see how they will be a lot more. CAC can benefit people who do not collect them by eliminating competition.
Take the 1929 saint for example, most of them are "C" in MS64. You may go years w/o seeing a bean one. (There are several reasons why the Fab-5 are "grade-inflated")
I don't like the term gradeflation but that is another long-long story.
It's unfortunately pretty common to regrade higher end coins that fail CAC and send them back in for another shot at the bean. When the bean is worth a bucket of $ and liquidity on its own, the downside is minimal and the upside easily justifies the risk.
I've always thought CAC should image everything they get in to help eliminate this issue, or at least make it way less common.
CAC says they will re-evaluate coins that have previously failed to pass, and it’s true. In two instances I had coins that did not sticker and when I sent them back in a few years later (same holders and cert #s), they got stickered. That being said, I have resent in plenty of others that failed a second time,
The point is being missed here: Where is the defense for consumers? Why is the dealer world so afraid of transparency? The coins will find their market value.
Look at the world we live in-Gradeflation had nearly crippled the coin market. A lot of collectors got hurt. Granted a bad culture has been created (resubmissions), but I still do not blame the collector. We all can and should make coin collecting better. It would be a positive for everyone involved!
I'm all for transparency. But I bet collectors wouldn't want potential buyers of their coins to be know they'd failed to cross, either. Each transaction has a buyer and a seller with competing interests. What's; good for one usually isn't for the other.
Well Laura, I guess we can see which one of us gets banned first...but here goes. Salesman for the last 4000 years have strived to place their wares in the best light possible. Many collectors consider the sticker to indicate a premium coin and even those that do not recognize the added value of the beaned coin to those that do. So sure...I have not seen an auctioned coin yet that boasts of a failed submission to CAC. I am sure that someone has...but that is the outlier. This forum is populated by many dealers so perhaps everyone can take an oath to disclose the third and fourth party submissions when known. Bet on the Don't line though as it won't happen.
I understand the Legend logic posit. I understand the Feld logic opinion.
I am a supporter of transparency. I am an avid supporter of improving the hobby for the sake of collectors, when possible.
But, I interpret the comments as an emphasis of fiduciary duty. Who has this duty, and how does a person apply the duty to an opinion?
Does CAC have an implied duty of confidentiality, and to not disclose any 'blacklist' information that could monetarily harm the client that submitted, without the permission of the client? Of course. There is an easy remedy for such an impasse, though: inform the submitter that the result of evaluation can be disclosed by CAC, as a requirement of the submission agreement.
However, it is very logical that the burden of transparency is more stringently applied to a dealer that knowingly sells a piece that the dealer submitted to CAC, and it was not stickered by CAC, absent any duty of the dealer to not disclose that is imposed by CAC, and I can't imagine any such non-disclosure agreement that would be imposed by CAC. After all, it is an opinion. The dealer can just as easily be adamant in disagreement of the opinion and state the disagreement to the client he/she is selling to. Opinions are just opinions, until abused for personal monetary enrichment.
If a dealer, or more importantly (to me) a collector, willingly sells a coin to a person knowing it was submitted to CAC and not stickered, and implies the coin never was submitted...whether the piece had been cracked out and resubmitted to the TPG for a 'new' SN or not, the coin is still the same coin.....that certainly violates the first duty of and to collectors: honesty.
Where is the trust but verify reliance? The hobby, and all participants of the hobby at all levels, whether investors/collectors-hobbyists/dealers/TPGs and 4PGs, all suffer, when there is any abuse of the Trust factor that is the very core of the numismatic world.
Just an opinion, and probably naïve. I can live with that.