Welcome to my personal BLOG. I will use this forum to ramble on all things related to my numismatic ventures: David Lawrence Rare Coins (DLRC), DLRC Auctions & Dominion Grading Company (DGS). I hope to get feedback from those of you in the numismatic community, whether you are a retail client, fellow dealer, or passer-by.
There are so many issues in the coin business these days, it will be fun to address them in this “informal” area.
For today’s initial post, I will comment on a topic that was heavily discussed in the PCGS chat room last week, while I was on vacation:
“Is there an inherent conflict of interest with DGS grading DLRC-owned coins?”
Of course there is… HOWEVER, but there are also conflicts of interest in every for-profit venture and it is up to the consumer to decide whether a dealer/company is reputable and has integrity. At DLRC we’ve spent 29 years building that level of trust in the coin community and we only ventured into the grading arena because we know that we can grade with integrity; especially when it comes to grading our material.
In the first two months of grading we have made numerous efforts to shield the grading process from the submission process so we really don’t know when we are grading our own coins. Which is good, because we have tended to grade our own coins too conservatively for fear that we would set a bad precedent.
We have also added the letter ‘D’ to the end of the serial # of all coins submitted by DLRC for grading. This layer of transparency was done in an effort to demonstrate when we have graded a coin of our own. The pessimists will ask, “Could we cheat and omit the letter whether it suits us?” Of course we could, but that implies a level of dishonesty that does not exist at our company. Ask ANY employee or ANY long time customer. We play by the rules and we have built that rare company that believes integrity and honest dealings will allow us to rise above the competition in the long run.
Well, that’s it for tonight’s initial ramble… I will respond to any and all polite questions and I will also be happy to answer to any industry-related inquiries as well.
-John
