PSA apparently doesn't want to grade coins/pins anymore
 

They raised the minimum price to $75
With extremely few exceptions, who is going to send in armour, salada,shirriff,or topps. coins
Customer service has no answer

I am not a graded collector but have a set of the three 1980 Topps test coins. I wonder if they would know what to make of or do with them.

Hmmm, interesting development Larry. I have a number of pins and coins myself, but really don't care if they're graded or not, and have certainly never sent any in for grading.

So do you, or anybody out there, know which of the what I'll call the "Big Four" grading companies (PSA, SGC, CSG, & Beckett), also grade and encapsulate coins and/or pins then? In all my years of collecting pins and coins, I don't seem to remember seeing anyone besides PSA grading such items. And if not, the price increase may likely be due, at least in part, to the costs and efforts of them even bothering to acquire and stock the special slabs needed for all the different pins and coins they grade. Also, I can't imagine the number of pins and coins they do receive for grading is very significant, so the time and effort (and cost) required to keep staff around that even know much about them and how to truly authenticate and grade them, may be factoring in as well. Plus, we know all for-profit businesses operate to make money, and if there appears to be no other real competition out there, they can charge pretty much what they want then, and see who will still be willing to pay for it. Think about it, if you could make as much money, or even more, while doing less work, wouldn't you?

And does this price increase cover or seem to have any effect on pre-war items as well, like Sweet Caporal P2 Pins, PX7 Double Header Coins, or Sweet Caporal Domino Discs? Or is this price increase just for more modern, post-war pins and coins?

All pins coins..post war pre war
Psa has the holders as they are pcgs....they've had coin holders much longer than card holders
Looks like they just don't want to bother anymore except for expensive ones

this is my feeling with SGC prices for oversized. I should send my Wheaties and a couple exhibits in, but they are charging an exorbitant price for a hand cut card. And the extra black around the oversize is an eye sore!

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Disappointing and somewhat surprising. Although I have never submitted any, I collect the Px7 Domino disks. PSA's grading of those is all over the place and seemingly without guidelines, so I assumed they considered their grading fees to be just free money, since the holders were probably pretty standard even with the plastic gaskets they sometimes use.

There never have been qualifiers, to my knowledge, at least with the PX7s, which can be found off-centered and with stray marks and stains, and focus/registration can vary too so I just assumed it was an eye-test kinda thing that only appealed to registry collectors because it was in their DNA. Oh, and since they are very unlikely to be counterfeited and generally made of material that makes them somewhat less fragile than cards, I personally never saw much point in submitting them as a collector, but to each his own. Again, it just seemed like easy cash for PSA, who appears to have been the only game in town.

I confess I buy them because they look nice (I also have some Salada and Topps coins from the 60's-70s) and I hesitate to break them out because it may diminish their value in some collectors' eyes. While we're on the subject, how do you guys store and display your graded coins/disks? I have the plastic coin boxes literally made for them, but it is not very satisfactory from a display standpoint. Are there plastic sheets to hold them fairly snugly?

I guess that is not completely surprising. PSA seems to be gearing their production more towards grading in volume for modern cards rather than pre-war. Most of the pre-war cards I have submitted have taken a long time to go through their system.

Well, I guess Cy and Eddie will just have to remain unslabbed

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...in%20Young.jpg
https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...%20Collins.jpg

PSA's loss...

Thanks Larry,

it definitely sounds like this is some kind if business decision to possibly cut costs, while raising income, for some things they otherwise don't make much money at. Kind of like when a chain store or restaurant may close down the unprofitable locations, after maybe having tried jacking prices up to make them more profitable first.

And since it seems no other TPGs are really grading pins or coins at all, what is a collector going to do, take all their business elsewhere?

Capitalist system, no competitor..... sounds like a perfect jack up the price opportunity.

I posted their response
Short of graders short of researchers short of sealers
Bottom line. GREED

Good riddance. The Pin slabs look horrible and graded pins' prices are so ridiculously jacked up, I would never buy anything but a raw one anyway.

Check out ebay, if you haven't seen the price disparity between graded and raw Pins. It's a joke.

+1

At first I thought they were just bringing it even with PCGS prices, but looking them up.... Not at all, PCGS is actually reasonable.

I wonder if PCGS would grade some of the coins?

I would guess not as that is definitely not in their wheelhouse. And can't see them possibly getting enough submission to ever make it worthwhile for them to ever even think about it.

Stuff like the Citgo coins would be. And maybe the Armour coins, as there's a handful of plastic patterns for US coins.

I think PSA used to send them over there for slabbing, and maybe grading too, since they had all the equipment.

NGC might do coins as exonumia or medals. Here is an example:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/collectors-...owOCBBTQ%3d%3d

So what you are saying is.....that they grade Funko Pops and not sports pins / coins. Is that right?

I guess in two years when Funko Pops go they way of the Beanie Babies into the abyss, they will start grading pins / coins again.

Bob

I was thinking that...NGC and CSG are owned by the same company. I always hated NGC slabs, I find the white insert distracting and detracts from the coins appearance.

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I just re-upped my PSA membership for the sole purpose of having about 50 1971 Topps coins graded. I was thinking I could bulk them for $19 -- my mistake. Now it sounds like the chance of a "special" is unlikely. Scott

I also have a lot of pins, Topps coins and Salada's that should grade very high..........but not at $75.00 a pop.

Proud to admit I would not know what a "Funko Pop" is if it was handed to me. Sounds like a Japanese soft drink.

https://www.psacard.com/services/fun...SAAEgLtNvD_BwE

My favorite part of this is that it costs them $75 to grade a tiny little coin, but grading a gigantic bloody funko pop costs $39. And trust me when I say that there's no way that the process to encapsulate those babies is easier/cheaper than a coin. Although they may have more funko pop volume.

I guess we know where their priorities lie...

/facepalm

That's a Funk Pop? Who'd collect these FUGLY things, tween girls??

Those of us that live in glass houses should be cautious about throwing too many rocks.

Not that one data point is much to go on, but a bit here from Pawn Stars, including a cameo from Steve Grad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic6dwkrgx3U

Nah, there's a heirarchy. Coin collectors look down on us because we collect cards. We look down on TCG collectors because they collect cards of fictional characters, and everyone looks down on toy collectors because they are so immature.

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...20Film%201.gif

No wonder I'm down so often...I've collected all of those and sort of still do.

I can state conclusively that I absolutely, positively do NOT have Starting Lineup figurines of Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, Johnny Unitas and Joe Louis on a shelf at my office, and have never, ever played with them. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Just chiming in to say that I'm one of the suckers who bit the bullet and recently submitted PX7 Domino Discs to PSA at $75 a pop. I don't expect them to receive exceptionally high grades, but it was important to me to protect and preserve these. I tried round coin holders with foam inserts, but found that the discs were between sizes and moved around in the holders.

My first choice would have been SGC (with Beckett a distant second), but SGC and Beckett both confirmed that they would not encapsulate these discs. So I begrudgingly went with PSA.

These would be a good way to go, and come in a lot of sizes in 1mm increments.
https://www.lighthouse.us/square-coi...s-quadrum.html

They also make a version that prevents corrosion on coins, but I don't know how it would affect the ink.

It seems that 4SC has a large fresh batch of graded 1971 Topps Coins. Maybe they aren't recently graded but sure looks that way to me.

I wonder what their rate is / was?

It's kind of frustrating competing against this. I'm holding a fair amount of high-grade coins but they are worthless at a $75 grading fee. No one pays mint prices for ungraded coins.

They have some coins listed as "buy it now" for as low as $14.99. I can't imagine they paid anywhere close to $75 a coin. That obviously isn't a business model that would work for very long.

Just circling back on this. I received the grades today, and here are the results in case anyone is interested.

This was from the REA listing description:

https://i.ibb.co/2s0kpnm/Sweet-Caporal-Discs.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/qNtTv10/Sweet-Caporal-Discs-2.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/Wpdryvs/PX7-9-Discs-F.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/88wTDKZ/PX7-9-Discs-B.jpg

The PSA grades were:

Baker - PSA 3 VG *Consistent w/REA*
Bender - PSA 5 EX *High end of REA*
Bresnahan - PSA 2 GD *Consistent w/REA*
Brown - PSA 2 GD *Low end of REA*
Collins - PSA 1 PR *Two grades below REA*
Griffith - PSA 4 VG-EX *Low end of REA*
Lajoie - PSA 2 GD *Consistent w/REA*
Marquard - PSA 4 VG-EX *Consistent w/REA*
Mathewson - PSA 2 GD *One grade below REA*
McGraw - PSA 2 GD *One grade below REA*
Speaker - PSA 2(MK) *At least one grade below REA*
Walsh - PSA 6 EX-MT *High end of REA*
Young - PSA 2 GD *One grade below REA*

To summarize: REA's eyeball test was reasonably close to the PSA grade for 8 of the 13 discs. REA overestimated the condition for 5 of the 13 pieces, and overshot PSA by a wide margin on the Collins and Speaker.

I don't know the 1st thing about Funko Pops except they are being graded very heavily. You'd be surprised as to the volume of Funko Pops as compared to pre-war coins/pins. Trust me, it's a good business decision by PSA although aggravating to those of us who appreciate real collectibles

Rich