Just last evening I got into a bidding war for a special Norwegian WW II era issue. It was slabbed MS66 by ICG. I won (I think. My wife hasn't found out, yet). I don't have it in hand, of course, but the photos indicate that the grade might be right on. At least I paid MS66 money for it. A similar one that sold a few minutes later in an ICG slab graded MS65 went for a lot less, and the photos indicated that the coin was also likely graded correctly, although the eye appeal was not even close to the one I bought. I am in frequent contact with a collector-friend in Norway. He has discussed the prevalence of NGC, with a smattering of PCGS, but no mention of ANACS or ICG. So, how do you foreign collectors feel about ICG?
I have one ICG coin I believe, its a world coin as thats what I collect. I bought it because of the look of the coin, I will say most of my collection is NGC/PCGS as they have graded more world coins that I am after. There is actually a well known grader from ICG that visits here. He goes by the name Insider and has an extensive experience grading for PCGS, NGC, etc if I am correct.
You can find nice coins in ICG and ANACS holders, if you look hard enough. The problem is, they are far less liquid than NGC. So, any nice coin in a lower tier plastic is going to generally get cracked and crossed fairly quickly. In NGC plastic, they will bring more money and be easier to sell. And so, the vast majority of my graded purchases are already in NGC plastic.
I know that here in Canada we have CCCS. These guys grade "European" standards. I had 25 of my better AV coins slabbed by them, grades came back mostly as MS-63/64. Coins had been raw graded by German/ UK auction houses as near MS. Just out of curiousity, I had them regraded by NGC/ all came back MS-65/66/67!!!!!! John
I have a 1780 Papal States Scudo slabbed by ICG as VF-35. It's not a series I know anything about, but to my ignorant eye it looks like a VF-30 or VF-35.
I saw an ICG MS-65 Newfoundland AV 2 Dollar 1882-H listed on a popular auction on sixbid. The coin looked like a "65", so I think ICG has strict grading. Sometimes its difficult to judge grade. Coin could be weakly struck (hammered) , some the dies are worn out, this even applies to milled / modern era coinage. NGC has for ancients/ strike and surface grades. This if a ancient coin is graded MS-5/5 3/5.... Its means coin is uncirculated/ has perfect strike 5/5/ but was struck from worn dies/ thus the 3/5 designation. John
This is my only ICG coin. I am slowly getting the impression their world coins might be better graded than US, but don't have enough data to say that confidently.
Looks like you maybe right. All of the TPG firms have one flaw, they omit a lot of imp. data. Like rulers name.... I would list the data like this.... Regensburg/ Imperial City Josef II Holy Roman Emperor 1 Kreuzer 1776 Regensburg Mint AU-58
I bet they're limited to two lines. Perhaps if one wrote the desired labeling in the "Notes" section (there is one on the NGC submission form, not sure about ICG) they would attempt to comply with the request. Steve
ANACS does a decent job with data also. NGC/ its pretty good with ancients/medieval/ but lacking with more recent coinage. PGGS is bad for missing data. John
I have a 1914 Prussian 5 mark graded by ICG as AU 53. I like the grade, the only real wear I see is on the eagle's crown on the reverse. It's really just a tick worse than my 1913 example that NGC called MS61. They're both quite PL, the 61 don't cartwheel much more than the 53.
I own an ICG graded 1913 G.B. 1/3 farthing, graded MS 64 RB. Grade seems to be spot on to me, maybe could go a point higher, but 64 seems reasonable to me.
I've owned some world ICG slabs. They were graded correctly, but I bought the coin and not the slab. Any that I kept for my personal sets got cracked out and submitted to NGC.
This is my only ICG example. I'm ok with the grade, but it doesn't matter much with this particular coin (I bought it for the toning). One could argue it received an extra point for color (market grading). It's harder to get a feel for their world grading as there aren't a ton of world coins in their holders (at least compared to the other three companies). Another thing to note is that the lighter blue labels are the newer generation while the older ones had a green label. Some claim that the green labels were more conservative (at least for some series and less so for more modern coins). I haven't seen enough evidence though to support that claim.