Coins We Love: 🙀The CAC is Out of the Bag🙀

The worst-kept secret in the coin business was announced today. Certified Acceptance Corp (CAC) is officially morphing into a real, live grading company. You can read today’s Coin World interview with John Albanese here.

People have been asking Albanese to do this for years, but he REALLY didn’t want to do it. As public momentum has picked up dramatically in the last year or so, I think that he decided that it was something he had to do, based on the desires of collectors and dealers alike. In the last 6 months, there has been a large influx of coins being sent to CAC, showing that the demand is certainly there. I could go on and on about this, but the main question I want to answer is “How does this affect the hobby, coin collecting, or collectors?”

Here are my initial thoughts:

1. What will grading service competition do for the industry? Competition in the grading services is always a good thing. There has been an absence of collectors and dealers involved with grading services in the past which is a scary concept. Grading services are businesses that make a lot of money, so it is understandable that corporate America would want to get involved. However, if you ask me, there has to be a passion and understanding of the hobby. This is where CAC is a breath of fresh air.
2. How does this affect the CAC sticker? I think it will add value to currently stickered coins, especially if they phase out the stickering program. CAC stickered coins will continue to bring a premium and might increase in value. If you have a collection that hasn’t been reviewed by CAC, you should think about sending your coins in quickly, especially if you’re thinking of selling. Shameless plug: We can help you with that if you’re looking to sell!
3. What about security? Well, I do know that CAC is sourcing their holders from the USA. This is a big advantage over going overseas, which is where we’re seeing many counterfeits hit the marketplace.
4. What will it do to PCGS/NGC values? Honestly, I don’t think it’ll affect these at all in the short term. It will take some time for a grading service to get operating and to be successful. So, I don’t see how it will affect these, especially when coin collecting is growing so rapidly.
5. Why will it be located in Virginia Beach? I wish I could take credit for that. It will be nice to have a grading service 15 minutes away from the office. It will also increase the number of dealers and collectors coming through Virginia Beach, which is an exciting opportunity. But, I’ll tout that Virginia is a very good state to do business in, and our lack of sales tax on coins had something to do with it. Another contributing factor is that a number of the investors were supportive of the area.

If you have questions about this announcement, I will do my best to answer them. If there are specific questions that I can answer, I might be able to do that in next week's CWL.

We have a few shows coming up! DLRC will be in Baltimore on October 26-28th for the Whitman Expo and have a small team in Greenville, SC for the SCNA show from October 27-29th. I am excited to be returning to my “home” Greenville coin show for the first time in 20 years. If you see anything on our website you want us to bring along to either show, let us know!

This week I will be looking forward to my favorite South Carolina hole-in-the-wall restaurants and thinking more about the new grading service. We hope that you find some coins of interest in this week’s Coins We Love!

Numismatically yours,

John Brush

Click here to continue reading!