Hey- Whatever happend to AccuGrade????

I am a long time reader, but short time poster, and have noticed (on
ebay at least) AccuGrade is virtualy nonexsistent! You used to be
able to find 'em buy the hoards, but no more...no more. And what has
happend to all of those gem quality Morgans and such?
CRACCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK, was that the sound of thousands of slabs
breaking at once? In all seriousness, I believe their demise was the
direct, correct, use of RCC, and the marketplace. Just a note to say
Thanks to all that were involved, some withstanding the stoneing of
the few (K6AZ your name pops into mind, but I know more helped)

Again Thanks, and if we can't keep it real, keep it raw.

Rick

Rick Braden wrote:
I am a long time reader, but short time poster, and have noticed (on
ebay at least) AccuGrade is virtualy nonexsistent!

ACG is definitely on the way out. Just about all of the bottom-feeders
have switched to NTC and PCI now. While the exposing of their evil
certainly helped, I do not believe this to be the primary motivator. ACG
and their allies could have gone on screwing their customers forever,
successfully. What has really killed ACG, IMHO, is the revelaton that
the Hagers not only screwed over collectors, but also their dealer
network. When you have evidence that dealers were paid off in coins
deliberately overgraded to inflate their value, you can't expect the
dealers to stick around much longer. Frankly, NTC and PCI could not have
asked for a better marketing team than Al and Diane Hager.

--
Bob

The market place is pretty efficient. Once buyers and sellers of acg
slabbed coins realized that even a properly graded coin in an agc slab did
not bring anywhere near as much in the marketplace as a pcgs or ngc slabbed
coin, it was inevitable that their business would tail off.

I suspect people will continue to want slabbed coins, but not want to pay
pcgs/ngc prices for them, and the NTC/Trugrade/PCI/Star, etc grading
services will flourish for the foreseeable future. if I wanted coins to be
in slabs, just for the protective feature, and the handy container, I would
not be averse to putting them in any convenient brand of slab. I'd be
inclined to go with the cheapest. I think the coin world self slabs
probably fit that bill, and that may well start to siphon off a lot of the
low end slab market as buyers realize there is little added value in most of
the third tier slabbers.

I doubt they are gone forever though. These kind of people have a way of
coming back. Give it 5 years and see.

"Bob Flaminio" wrote in message
...
Rick Braden wrote:
I am a long time reader, but short time poster, and have noticed (on
ebay at least) AccuGrade is virtualy nonexsistent!

ACG is definitely on the way out. Just about all of the bottom-feeders
have switched to NTC and PCI now. While the exposing of their evil
certainly helped, I do not believe this to be the primary motivator. ACG
and their allies could have gone on screwing their customers forever,
successfully. What has really killed ACG, IMHO, is the revelaton that
the Hagers not only screwed over collectors, but also their dealer
network. When you have evidence that dealers were paid off in coins
deliberately overgraded to inflate their value, you can't expect the
dealers to stick around much longer. Frankly, NTC and PCI could not have
asked for a better marketing team than Al and Diane Hager.

--
Bob

In article , "Bob Peterson"
writes:

I suspect people will continue to want slabbed coins, but not want to pay
pcgs/ngc prices for them, and the NTC/Trugrade/PCI/Star, etc grading
services will flourish for the foreseeable future.

I'm not surprised at what's happening. I always said that IF you truly care
about other collectors, you'd campaign against all rip offs not just one or
two. As long as you destroy the carriers and permit the disease to flourish,
you'll always have those who will come forward to overgrade coins and defraud
collectors. That's in process right now and it will continue. Accugrade may
be going or gone, but the things they did are still being done and will
continue to be done as long as retribution is extracted only from a one or two
while looking the other way when others do the same thing.

Right now, it looks like a pretty hollow victory and it's gonna get worse.

dondi3
DONDI enterprises. BUY, SELL, TRADE. RARE COINS & PRECIOUS METALS
Member COINNET, CSNS, ANA, INA, MOON, ILNA.

"DONDI3" wrote in message
...
In article , "Bob Peterson"
writes:

I suspect people will continue to want slabbed coins, but not want to pay
pcgs/ngc prices for them, and the NTC/Trugrade/PCI/Star, etc grading
services will flourish for the foreseeable future.

I'm not surprised at what's happening. I always said that IF you truly
care
about other collectors, you'd campaign against all rip offs not just one
or
two. As long as you destroy the carriers and permit the disease to
flourish,
you'll always have those who will come forward to overgrade coins and
defraud
collectors. That's in process right now and it will continue. Accugrade
may
be going or gone, but the things they did are still being done and will
continue to be done as long as retribution is extracted only from a one or
two
while looking the other way when others do the same thing.

Right now, it looks like a pretty hollow victory and it's gonna get worse.


amen! lets start with the big contributors to the ana who engage in this
activity and continue on with the big advertsiers in the coin pubs.

dondi3
DONDI enterprises. BUY, SELL, TRADE. RARE COINS & PRECIOUS METALS
Member COINNET, CSNS, ANA, INA, MOON, ILNA.

On 18 Oct 2003 14:04:16 -0700, (Rick Braden) wrote:

I am a long time reader, but short time poster, and have noticed (on
ebay at least) AccuGrade is virtualy nonexsistent! You used to be
able to find 'em buy the hoards, but no more...no more. And what has
happend to all of those gem quality Morgans and such?
CRACCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK, was that the sound of thousands of slabs
breaking at once? In all seriousness, I believe their demise was the
direct, correct, use of RCC, and the marketplace. Just a note to say
Thanks to all that were involved, some withstanding the stoneing of
the few (K6AZ your name pops into mind, but I know more helped)

Again Thanks, and if we can't keep it real, keep it raw.

ACG started to go downhill last year when several of their big dealers
jumped ship and started using PCI and NTC. The proof finally came
out in the Charlotte hearing that that were screwing over their dealers,
namely centsles. But this had been known before then, just most of
us did not have the particulars.

While ACG is on the way out, there is no shortage of people to take their
place. Due to the amount of money involved in numismatics, this will always
be the case, there will always be someone out there to part the new or
unknowledgable collector from his cash.

--
K6AZ WEB PAGES

http://www.k6az.com/web_pages.htm

DONDI3 wrote:
I suspect people will continue to want slabbed coins, but not want
to pay pcgs/ngc prices for them, and the NTC/Trugrade/PCI/Star, etc
grading services will flourish for the foreseeable future.

I'm not surprised at what's happening. I always said that IF you
truly care about other collectors, you'd campaign against all rip
offs not just one or two. As long as you destroy the carriers and
permit the disease to flourish, you'll always have those who will
come forward to overgrade coins and defraud collectors.

That's rather like saying since we can't catch *all* criminals, we
shouldn't bother chasing any of them. ACG was clearly wrong, and there
was hard evidence of their wrongdoing, as put forth by Barry, Eric, et
al. Are you suggesting that because those gentlemen were unable or
unwilling to also go after NTC, PCI, TruGrade, and the rest of the
bottom feeders that they should have passed on ACG?

--
Bob

In article , "Bob Flaminio"
writes:


DONDI3 wrote:
I suspect people will continue to want slabbed coins, but not want
to pay pcgs/ngc prices for them, and the NTC/Trugrade/PCI/Star, etc
grading services will flourish for the foreseeable future.

I'm not surprised at what's happening. I always said that IF you
truly care about other collectors, you'd campaign against all rip
offs not just one or two. As long as you destroy the carriers and
permit the disease to flourish, you'll always have those who will
come forward to overgrade coins and defraud collectors.

That's rather like saying since we can't catch *all* criminals, we
shouldn't bother chasing any of them. ACG was clearly wrong, and there
was hard evidence of their wrongdoing, as put forth by Barry, Eric, et
al. Are you suggesting that because those gentlemen were unable or
unwilling to also go after NTC, PCI, TruGrade, and the rest of the
bottom feeders that they should have passed on ACG?

--
Bob


No, I'm saying that if they accomplished no reduction in the crime, it makes
little difference to the victims WHO the criminal is, does it? It's not like
there's LESS victimization of slab buyers now than there was before...just it
ain't gonna be Alan. The elimination of ACG is like having a lobotomy for a
brain tumor...profitable for the surgeon, effective on the tumor, but not
particularly satisfactory as far as the patient is concerned.

Dondi3
DONDI enterprises. BUY, SELL, TRADE. RARE COINS & PRECIOUS METALS
Member COINNET, CSNS, ANA, INA, MOON, ILNA.