Last Fall I purchased a very attractive Bank of Canada $5 1935 French Text note (Serial # F257008) from a local dealer. Although it was beautiful to look at
it had been washed and heavily pressed and a single vertical pressed-out fold was still clearly visible. I paid a lot of money for it. I then sent it to BCS and the note received the technically correct grade of
EF-45 (without the "Original" designation). I say "technically correct grade" because it had clearly been folded at one time so it couldn't properly be called an AU and it had been washed and pressed so it couldn't properly be called "Original". However, the fact that it had been laundered bothered me so I removed the note from the holder and sold it at a show as a raw note (I made a profit of about $50.00 incidentally). Since that time someone sent the note to PCGS who graded it as
Choice About New 58 PPQ !!. It was offered at the latest Torex auction (Lot 638) but it didn't sell. I was extremely surprised that it received the PPQ rating as it had been unequivocally washed and pressed. Also, I was surprised that it earned an AU-58 rating, i.e. just 2 points shy of a full UNC-60. If it had received an AU-50 rating (
without the PPQ designation) from PCGS that would have been quite understandable but to have received an AU-58 PPQ rating really blew my mind! It is therefore logical to conclude that the designation
"PPQ" does
not necessarily imply an absence of washing & pressing. CAVEAT EMPTOR!
It's very well known that Canadian and American grading standards are different, and there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but here we have an unambiguous and crystal clear case of a note increasing from an EF-45 to an AU-58, which is a 13-point boost! The corresponding Charlton catalogue values are $2,400 (EF) and $4,000 (AU) so one can easily understand why so many people prefer to have their notes graded
à l'Américaine. Caveat Emptor! By the way, I'm beginning to wonder why I didn't send this note to PCGS myself !
Do any members have similar pairs of photos that show emphatically the differences (or similarities) between Canadian and American grading standards?
« Last Edit: June 29, 2009, 04:05:31 pm by Ottawa »
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" Buy the very best notes that you can afford and keep them for at least 10 years. " (Richard D. Lockwood, private communication, 1978).
