After collecting off and on for many years I decided to have many of my coins professionally graded in 2021. Initial discussion was in a post back in May. Over the May through August timeframe I sent in about 85 coins (the bulk of my "good" coins to four services: ANACS, PCGS, NGC, and ICG. Not really enough to develop a trend, but some observations. My initial submittal was to ANACS, they were offering a ten dollars and/or cents for $10 each special. They offer a reasonable flat fee per order for conservation service. I opted for it. I was pleased with their work. I used them again. They set up at coin shows, at one I saw they were offering free return shipping for event submittals (ten coin minimum). Good deal. Check their web page for specials. However I found their imaging service inadequate and did not opt for it on submittals subsequent to my first one. Second one I used was PCGS. Was a little put off by their membership fee in order to use them but they are the best at marketing their services and probably the most regarded in the slabbing world. Sent them what I thought were some of my best quarters and halfs. They offer separate submittals for grading and conservation so I went straight to grading. Couple of what I thought were my best Washington quarters came back ungradable PVC residue to my disappointment. On subsequent orders I made sure I gave silver coins a really good acetone bath before sending them in and no more rejects. Turn-around time was reasonable. Most recently I used them on a few gold eagles / double eagles to reduce potential uncertainty concerns in selling them. Sent some similar key Washington quarters to NGC and opted for their conservation service in conjunction with grading. Again a little discouraged right off the bat that one has to join the club in order to buy services. I declared the coin value at the AU-58 grade for conservation service fee and to my dismay, they came back XF, but with conservation service charged at their 4% fair market value on my AU-58 estimate. Not going to break the bank but really trims any margin on trying to sell these coins for more than what I have into them. Took three months between sending and receiving the order, I did not use NGC again but this one time. Their imaging service was fair, not as good as PCGS, and harder to capture images. I sent most of my orders to ICG. As I mentioned in my initial post back in May, I was immediately impressed by them: they called me to discuss my order on a couple of occasions, they had the best pricing, and the quickest turn-around time. But I was disappointed with their imaging service. The only example I can offer of sending similar coins to multiple graders is on some Franklin and Kennedy half dollars. Many years ago a mail-order vendor had a promotion of getting a free proof silver Kennedy when buying a proof Franklin. I bought three. The ones I sent it to ANACS and ICG this year came back PF-64. The pair I sent in to PCGS came back PF-66. This project pretty much exhausted my supply of coins I consider worth paying the premium for slabbing as compared to the coin value. In the end, it was a net gain. Lost money on many (purchase price plus slabbing was more than selling price) but did well overall by having professional grading by which to measure and get fair selling prices.
It's like hearing the joke and getting no punchline. Come on, inquiring minds want to know. Who wins the overall TPG war for you @Jim-P
I may submit a few to PCGS and try crossover. Gotta like PCGS and go with the flock, but I wouldn't use them exclusively. I might use ANACS again if they have a special that interests me. I'd use ICG again for best price. I wouldn't use NGC again. Most of my collection I have liquidated on ebay, usacoinbook, BST here, and two coin shows that I did this Fall. At the coin shows, I did not get the impression that the any one slabber's coins sold better than others, it was a function of rarity and price. And I didn't have enough of a lot to see a trend. I collected a full set of BU Peace dollars, now I only have three raw ones left. I collected a full set of BU silver Washington quarters, the only ones still raw are newer than 1940. Although I bought them when silver was $5/oz, I don't see that adding the cost of slabbing would make them marketable at more than melt. Didn't have a lot of them to start with, but all my high grade Morgans have been slabbed. I have a set of BU Franklins, but I don't see gaining value on those by slabbing. The collection of 20th century silver I assembled in the '90s was more for fun than for investment. Certainly nothing scarce there or four-figure value. So I really don't have much left that would benefit from slabbing. If I do decide to try to pull together another submittal, it will be for quite a few coins to reduce average costs.
I'm not impressed with ngc either. Not from personal experience but I know some people had problems with their conservation before as well. I love pcgs imaging. All my top coins go there. Their imaging is phenomenal. I have several I want to Reholder just to get truview.
Both should be announcing their new specials on Monday though ANACS has been pretty lazy with them lately and doesnt always get it posted right away
Thanks for sharing your insights Jim! So far I’ve only used ICG (I am not submitting plus-$500 coins and I’m primarily interested in educating myself) but I will try ANACS for some world coins I think. I’ve also heard NGC is good on those. Among the limited number of hammered old European coins I’ve seen graded by all 4 of the TPGs, ICG seems to label more “Details” than the others, while NGC seems more fair in dealing with coins of that vintage. Did you submit any world coins to ANACS or NGC? Anyone have any observations on submitting medieval hammered coins? (Not pricey ones and I’m not doing this for resale purposes).
@MIGuy I've submitted modern world to NGC; it used to be fine but lately the wait times are extremely long. My most recent sub (and likely last for a while) took over 3 months and it has only gotten worse since (pushing 5 months from what I hear). The only way to get quicker turnaround times is at the highest tiers but that isn't cost effective for most people (including me since I was mainly subbing coins under $100 to continue my sets). In general, NGC used to be the preferred grader for many world coins but PCGS has mostly caught up (and passed NGC in quite a few of the higher end world coins). As far as medieval hammered coins, I'm not sure (never owned any) but I believe the slabbing market for those is still unsettled. I don't recall seeing many in Anacs slabs. PCGS and NGC both have some but raw might still be the dominant form in which most are held by collectors (similar to ancients).
Thanks! I've picked up a few of the medieval hammered coins in NGC slabs, and I've seen them in all four of the big TPGs slabs. I submitted an 1272-1307 England Penny, Edward I hammered silver coin (not expensive) that was nicer than most I've seen to ICG. I have seen similar coins (just online pictures) - period English pennies, that are not as nice (here's an ANACS example - https://www.ebay.com/itm/133959387565?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28). My submission came back from ICG as a VF20 damaged Details. Hammered coins often have imperfect edges, etc as a consequence of how they are made, and I've seen other period hammered pennies that weren't as nice, with similar imperfections, that graded straight in NGC slabs, often with higher grades. However, I concede I could argue this one the other way too. I think that my goals - to guarantee authenticity (better learn to recognize fakes) and improve my ability to assess grades are coming up against the reality of the fact that ideally you need someone who really knows the coin type and is familiar with the normal "imperfections" attendant to the particular coin. It also probably doesn't help my cause that I'm paying the discounted CT rate of $15 for world coins and some grader who has 100s of coins a day (I imagine) to grade, has to try and figure out what's going on with a very old, perhaps not very familiar inexpensive coin that isn't made nearly as well as stamped press coins, in a relatively short amount of time to carry on with their work for the day. I have picked up some used books on medieval and early English coins and continue to do my own research. Here is the penny I referenced -
@MIGuy I'm no expert (as I mentioned already ) but my first impression would have been that your coin looks to have some damage. Then again, that would just be an educated guess and I agree with you that other examples (including that Anacs one you linked), are far from perfect. ICG might also have been conservative when judging your coin. I'm not sure how many graders any of the four top companies have that know the intricacies of hammered coinage. They all might be using similar standards to coins of later years and that leads to grades that don't fit. I would think NGC and PCGS should have more people that know these (just based on them being larger and having more graders overall) but you never know (ICG or Anacs could have one person that is the specialist for these).
I believe its fairly even at this point depending on the country just like world coins. I believe there's probably a slight preference for NGC overall specifically in eastern European coins just like more modern issues, but you definitely want a first tier TPG for them
