I am looking for information about the PCGS numbers found on their slabs. pcgs.com has information about the numbers to the left of the decimal point, but there are numbers to the right of the decimal point. E.g. a 1955 DDO has the number 2826.63. I'm assuming that the numbers to the right of the decimal point represent die varieties. Does anyone have a reference that explains them?
The numbers to the left of the decimal are the PCGS number of the coin. The numbers to the right of the decimal are the PCGS grade. The number to the right of the '/' are the PCGS certification number.
That was so obvious and I missed it. I was looking at two 55 DDO's that both had the same number to the left of the '/', 2826.63. They were both graded MS63. So, I assume the numbers to the right of the decimal point don't indicate whether the coin is business strike or proof or the color if it's a Lincoln cent. Are you aware of a reference that explains their system?
These three web pages should explain the numbering system for the numbers to the left of the decimal point. http://www.pcgs.com/pcgsno/pcgs_lookup.chtml http://www.pcgs.com/pcgsno/index.chtml http://www.pcgs.com/pcgsno/frame.chtml?type=date&filename=lincoln_cent Now lets take a closer look at some of the information from that last page 2425 1909 VDB 1C MSRD 2431 1909 1C Lincoln MSRD 2428 1909-S VDB 1C MSRD 2434 1909-S 1C Lincoln MSRD 92434 1909-S/S 1C S/Horizontal S MSRD The first Lincoln is the 09-VDB in red 2425 RB would be 2426, BN would be 2427 then we come to 2428 the 09-SVDB in RD, 2429 in RB, 2430 in BN 2431 is the 09 in RD, 2432, in RB, 2433 in BN 2434 is the 09-S in RD, 2435 in RB, 2436 in BN Then we have a variety the 09-S/S They used the same numbers for the 09-S but preceded it with a 9 92434 in RD, 92435 in RB, and 92436 in BN The problem is that they are not consistent on how they assigned the numbers. Later in the list you will find where they used an 8 instead of a 9 to indicate a variety. And there are some places where it just doesn't follow the stand "Groups of three" to indicate the three colors for each date/mint. The numbers for the 22-D weak D and 22 plain strong reverse just come out of nowhere. This probably come from PCGS having changed the numbering system a few times over the years and having to go back and "shoehorn" in varieties added to the list. The numbers to the right of the / are assigned in an even weirder fashion. The computer keeps track of every serial number that has been assigned to a coin. Each morning each person entering submissions is assigned a randomly chosen starting point of numbers for that day. As each coin in a submission is entered it receives the next sequential number. If the next sequential number is one that has already been used before for some other coin, the computer selects another random starting number and continues on from there. So usually all of the coins in a submission will all have sequential numbers. If they don't it means they ran into a block of numbers that had already been used. But since the starting point is selected at random each time from all the available numbers, there is no way to tell just from looking at the serial number when a particular coin was submitted, or if one coin was submitted before or after another one (unless they were in the same submission.). The computer keeps track of all of that information and it may be called up internally at PCGS, but they do not give it out. There has been speculation from time to time that the first number in the serial number has special meaning and can be used to tell if a coin was submitted at a show, or for crossover, or a regular submission etc but so far every time we have tried to check the validity of such claims it has fallen through so I don't really think that it is true.
Your explanation certainly makes sense of the numbers, but I wouldn't give PCGS credit for explaining them. I see now that there is a gap in between each number, with 3 numbers available (at least for Lincoln cents) for BN, RB and RD. This fits with the instructions for submitters since they are asked to use an RD number which seems to correpond to the ones listed. What happens when a submitter uses completely the wrong code? Where did you learn about the way the certification numbers are assigned?
What happens when you use the wrong code? Well sometimes when it is obvious the folks at PCGS correct the problem and change the code. Sometimes they don't catch it and the slab can come back as the wrong variety or date/mint combination. For example on the PCGS board there is a person who has a great fondness for 1964 accented hair Kennedy halves. He cherrypicks and submits a lot of them. One day he decided to see if PCGS was actually confirming that the coins he sent in really were accented hair. So he sent in a NON-accented hair piece with the PCGS number for accented hair. Not only did it come back as accented hair, but as a PF-69DCAM, the finest known accented hair Kennedy As for how the numbers are assigned, for the PCGS I learned from bits and pieces picked up on the PCGS board and from comments by David Hall and other PCGS employees in their replies to questions and speculations about how the numbers are assigned. As for NGC. once again comments on their forum and from David Lange. NGC is much more forthcoming on company information than PCGS is.
