On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 15:27:20 GMT, "Richard L. Hall" wrote:

There is an interesting article in the latest (June 15) issue of Numismatic
News.

The U. S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of a coin
dealer who was charged and convicted of mail fraud when he sent customers
many coins that were overgraded.

The Court said that systematic overgrading could be grounds for mail fraud
since the value of the coins is determined by the grade. The defendants had
made the usual claims that grading is subjective, there is no industry
standard, yada, yada.. more than 700 coins were admitted into evidence and
reviewed by an independent coin grader (Paul Montgomery of PCGS). Of those
coins, 67 were assigned the same grade as determined by the defendants but
the remainder were assigned a lower grade sometimes many points lower or
were deemed problem coins and not gradeable. The court noted that if
grading was as subjective and inconsistent as teh defendants claimed, then
at least some fo teh coins should ahve received a higher grade that that
assigned by the defendants. None did. The court then upheld the
conviction.

This is a victory for the good guys.

This was discussed last week here, as well as on the PCGS boards. Here
is the actual decision from the second court of appeals:

http://www.k6az.com/forums/031141p.pdf

This isn't the first time a court has attached criminal liability for systematically
overgrading coins:

http://www.k6az.com/forums/us_vs_kayne.htm

And there is a third case where a husband and wife (last name DiAngeles I
believe) have been charged with several federal counts in Florida relating
the 21st Century "grading service". This was reported in Coin World a few
weeks ago.
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