John Albanese of CAC - Plus Grades, Legacy Designation, & More - A Coin Conversation 

I’ve had the pleasure of working with CAC for the past two years and I can’t say enough positives about John Albanese. He always takes my phone calls and is simply an incredible resource for our hobby.

Because of your knowledge, it allowed for clarification of what was going on. Sometimes people really close to something do not realize they are skipping steps in an explanation. Appreciated and well done!

Very interesting video, Ben. Thanks for bringing John to us. I give your videos the Gold Bean.

Breaking CAC news on TheCoinGeek: "Honor the Plus." Not really a coup, more of a sign of respect that he gave this advance "exclusive" tidbit to you.

Legacy as a means of provenance and increasing transparency on potential gradeflation is a novel concept. It's complicated, but John's reasoning is about protecting collectors and operating with realities of the past, which I respect. Thanks for an informative interview!

Remember when people used to just enjoy coins? I don't either...

Great interview.

Nice job interviewing, thank you!

Well done, Ben and a big coup on the announcement of the "pivot" on the plus graded coins with the Legacy designation at 21:28.

John: It's called arbitrage, which is cracking out the holders to maximize the grade. Ben: What is this so-called "cracking out" you speak of? I'm afraid I'm not familiar with this concept. 😂

I posted a peace dollar video in response to your convo here. My coins are the exact point to the majority of your conversation. Id lose so much value if Plus grades didn’t matter. Great video fellas. Fantastic info.

Great guest and conversation.

As a resident of Virginia Beach, I hope they offer a drop off/pickup service to save a few bucks on shipping.

Ben is always on it!

Great feed as usual😊

Thanks for the video!

Thanks for this video; we were just live streaming about this subject! Beans for everyone!

I like the way you are committed to getting away from gradflation. And I'm looking forward to doing business with CACG. You go boy!!!

Excellent interview, I learned a lot!

This interview is the single best interview of JA. Extremely well done. Now that the market has received CACG holders, I hope you will do a follow up video on CACG coins. One issue is why they are using a TINY font for the coin number/slab number. The font size should be increased overall. A second issue is whether beaned PCGS/NGC slabs are strong candidates for “plus” grades at CACG. Admittedly, a green bean does not always equate to a “plus” (eg. many “original” CAC stickered coins are not terribly attractive) but it seems rational to consider that beaned coins are more likely to earn a plus.

Greetings Guys, Very informative interview ans a special Thank You to John for taking time out of his busy schedule. A question I wish you would of asked is about - split gradings - which you covered - but about grading attributes for each side of the coin and giving it a net grade - how many times have we seen coins that this would be a benefit - buy then I get it - if one were to do this - where would it stop? Best wishes to you both.

I think with the Registry Sets, a lot of people miss the point that instead of looking at it as an either/or approach, John's 62D vs. 32D for example, it's an *AND* approach. The finest known 32D is a phenomenal coin, but how many people can own one? A: PCGS has exactly two graded MS66, which is top pop. People love to show off their collections and have bragging rights. PCGS understands that better than anyone and markets it better than anyone. I have no misconceptions that I can ever own the single finest of every coin in the Washington set, but that doesn't mean I won't celebrate when I do own a top pop of a particular example. I actually have several. None of which are remotely on par with a 1932 D top pop coin but are still very cool to me nonetheless. I have a 1932-D but will never be in the market for one of the two MS66s. That doesn't take away from the 2020-W American Samoa that I submitted and is now tied for top pop. It's all about the AND.

Ben, breaking the news before John can communicate it out himself!

Incredibly informative, thanks I enjoyed this one a bunch! 🙂

Interesting Ben! 👍

Ty ty

Ooh boy. Numismatics is hard.

Actually, the old ANACS white holders come in 2 different sizes

He doesn't like the plus, but he has a company whose entire business is to tell you if your grade deserves a sticker for being basically a plus?

When CACG will allow mare retail mortal collectors send coins directly to them for grading and will they do error attribution??

Third-party grading has its pluses and minuses; oh, wait, I have yet to see a minus sign [-] after the numeric grade on a slab, letting the collector, most of whom cannot determine the state of preservation of a coin, know that it’s low-end for the assigned grade. ⚾️⚾️⚾️ ROGER, The LOS ANGELES DODGER

While this was an interesting interview, I started to get really confused about halfway through. I totally agree with your comment about how you wish we could go back to just verbal designations for coins in broad categories rather than numbers. That said, what CAC is doing seems to be doing is making it even worse with this whole legacy thing is and whatever else they are adding to the market. I'm very interested, though, in how this is going to play out, say, five or ten years from now.

This guy gets it, but unfortunately has only added to the problem of slabs being of higher importance than the coins. Hopefully his grading company does things well. I don't see enough qualified graders existing to service everyone though.

if he's the president of something, you think he can get a real video set up, the ceiling looks gorgeous!

So.....Can I become a member yet?

4th guess I STILL get bronze!!!

Come to England its all rawr for the majority. Collectors love to hold their coins in hand and the grading is more strict also open to interpretation as its subjective. I generally buy nice so called gems and i send them to ngc for conservation and grading. I buy and sell a few too it helps me knowing ive had a third party inspect and knowledge the quality and grade it dosnt always help sell the coin but it helps me to justify and prove the quality and grade . Also some people dont handle coins very well is seen exspensive coins ruined but mis handling the slabs do preserve and protect.

you gotta ask the tough questions, why doesn’t CAC really open up grading to collectors? Only for dealers and auction houses….hmmm

No offense to you Coin Geek or to John, but somewhere in the conversation, you said something about "....collecting holders instead of coins" Honestly, isnt pcgs, ngc and cac responsible for the demand of coins in certain "holders" or "holders with stickers"? They inadvertently turned coin collecting into slab collecting. Top pop or not, collectors look for that sticker...

I think I know what you've been talking about but I'm not sure. For folks like me would you do a background video?

I wish you would have ask him about your issues with the other grading companies not giving you more information such as artificial color,environmental damage etc.

NOT FIRST!

So CAC has been ignoring the plus grade all this time? That's extremely disappointing. I bought a plus-graded CAC'd coin from Ben a few months ago, which had a considerable premium over the base grade. I felt comfortable buying it because CAC was supposedly certifying not only the grade but also the plus. I've looked up the registry number on their site, and lo and behold, it only lists it as the base grade. Some research indicates this was known in some circles for a while, but I didn't know. What a downer. CAC should do us a favor and just cover up the plus with the sticker. 🤣 Certifying grades, proof-like, full lines/steps/bands, cameo, but IGNORING plus merely adds to the confusion of this hobby. Now I know that a CAC sticker on a plus-graded coin (which may have a market price hundreds or thousands more than the base grade) is meaningless.

First and in the front row!

I’m 615 deep in-line to get coins graded it’s a membership at CAC. What a joke. Another crap coin grading firm. Buyer beware, again.

HI BEN. I wish you had asked John why he made such a glaring mistake by not giving my Type1 Buffalo Nickel with killer toning a Gold Sticker instead of the Green Sticker it got. Maybe I can get an OPC Gold Owl Sticker. HINT HINT.