My approach to the collecting of Republic Eight Reales does not generally include holding much interest in the grade printed on the “slab” . As do many collectors, I prefer to grade and value coins for myself. Also, I am usually not overly concerned about the investment potential of a particular Cap and Rays coin because my general assumption is that the series will perform well enough over the long run. After all, to me, the challenge of collecting the series by DAM, while formidable and expensive, is largely a hobby, and I am into the enjoyment of that hobby for that “long run”.
However, when one considers buying a slabbed coin and stops to think that the coin will be sold in the even longer run (probably over the one’s dead body), then some consideration should be given to which service graded the coin, to the assigned grade, and to where the coin’s grade fits into the grading population of the DAM and of the series in general. Coin condition, or at least the condition and state of preservation relative to the coin’s peers, rules its monetary value.
The populations afforded by the third party grading services do give one an indication of availability of a given coin in various grades. So, if I am offered a common date raw coin which I grade as MS-63, and I know that neither service has graded many MS-64’s or better in their respective opinions, then I may well decide to look no further for a better specimen.
Just over two thousand (2000) Republic Eight Reales have been encapsulated by NGC and PCGS, and this total is beginning to become statistically meaningful. As I write in October of 2007, NGC and PCGS have graded about 1308 and about 720 coins, respectively.
From my other numismatic interests, I know that the two major grading services often have different standards on the “average”. For example, a common date NGC MS-66 Mercury dime, if it had an identical twin sister (no, it is not really masculine Mercury on the dime, but rather Ms. Liberty) with an identical environmental history, would quite likely see her sibling in a PCGS MS-65 holder. My general experience with several US coin series is that NGC has a standard which results in a grade about 0.5 to 1.0 points higher than does PCGS – again, on the “average”.
Which one of these two major grading services has the “correct” standard? I believe that as long as each is self consistent and reasonably repeatable when applied, then both standards are correct. The onus is on “consumer” of the grade to know both standards and how they compare.
Recently, I became interested in analyzing grades of the Eight Reales series. First, in the period from 1890 through 1897, most of the coins are common. Indeed, over 28 percent of the coins submitted to the two services are from this last eight years of minting. The population summary for the 1890’s is:
1890 – 1897 Republic Eight Reales
Coins Graded Average Grade
NGC: 372 Coins MS-62.8
For “average uncirculated” Eight Reales PCGS appears more strict. Without broaching the intricacies of formal statistical analysis, sampling theory, etc. (again, this IS just a hobby!), I conclude that, for common date, nominally uncirculated coins, NGC’s standard results in a solid one grade point ( +1.0 to +1.2 ) higher than PCGS. An NGC MS-64 coin is likely to become an PCGS MS-63 if an attempt is made at crossover, for example.
Looking in more detail at the 1890’s (see graph below), the services show some additional differences and some similarities.
One might conclude that NGC has a more self consistent grading standard. Both services tend not to assign the grade MS-60 for some reason which does not follow from an expected random sampling of coins. And, PCGS rarely assigns an MS-61 either. Apart from the aversion to MS-60 as a grade, NGC’s grading distribution appears more normal, more random (more Gaussian in technical parlance) overall, than does PCGS’s in the range of AU-50 through Superb Gem Uncirculated , or MS-67.
PCGS appears considerably more likely to give a marginal coin an AU designation (AU-50, -53, -55 or -58) than does NGC. On the high end, however, PCGS is possibly more apt to assign MS-65 or MS-66.
NGC clearly has a greater percentage of its coins in the MS-63 and MS-64 slots. That said, NGC has the graded the only MS-67’s of the two services, an 1891 Zs FZ and an 1896 Zs FZ. (I would love to see these two coins or the NGC MS-67 1884 Ga AH which is the only other MS-67 from the entire series!) But, as implied above, NGC has about 2.2% of the 1890’s population at MS-66 while PCGS has 4.6% in “Six-Six”. PCGS has graded more 65’s than NGC on a percentage basis, also.
PCGS may more discriminating of superb coins. I tentatively conclude that a solid gem might be more prone to receive a “pop top” grade at PCGS than at NGC. Now, one must consider that coin owners in the with no-question superb coins might have been more likely to have selected PCGS than NGC. To the extent that there is a bias toward PCGS for “super coins”, then the apparent upper-end differences in standards between the two companies would be diminished.
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In summary, if I owned an unslabbed coin which I judged to be MS-63, then I would be more apt to choose NGC to grade it if I were to be shopping for grade points. Based on the number of coins graded by each service, people seem to agree with this conclusion. When buying, I would, if blindfolded, select a PCGS 63 even if somewhat higher in price than an NGC 63. All bets are off, once the blindfold is removed, of course.
For a raw superb gem, I would lean towards PCGS to grade it because, not only is that service often conceded to be “superior”, PCGS may have a bias or, perhaps, a more skilled eye towards awarding a higher grade even while PCGS is more conservative overall in the grading of this series.
Caveat The foregoing is based strictly on the available information for Cap and Ray Reales of the 1890’s. Future analysis of the entire series, where rarer coins are involved, may lead to different conclusions regarding the grading services. The services have been claimed of being more or less strict when rarity of the coin is a factor.
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Karl Herzog is an Oklahoma resident and chemical engineer with a major petroleum refining company. He is a collector of several US and foreign series, including Republic of Mexico Eight Reales. He plans additional research in this Republican series. Karl can be reached at the following email address:
mailto:Kherzog49@sbcglobal.net
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