What is the process to take when one finds a new variety or a new error. I am just curious as to how that happens. I imagine it takes a bit of time, but I haven't been able to find any information on this. Please point the way!
There are different procedures for authenticating varieties as opposed to errors. Errors can be authenticated by the grading service and will not show up in their population reports. On the other hand, most varieties need to be authenticated by an outside source before a grading service will slab them as such. Chris
Just keep in mind that that "outside source" has to be one recognized as being an authority on the subject. And there aren't that many of them.
The last new variety of large cent was found by Tom Deck recently, well a year ago at this point, a new variety of 1825 large cent. Pretty sure he had it checked out by Grellman and Wright to authenticate it. There was an article here: http://www.coinworld.com/Articles/ViewArticle/1825-coronet-cent-from-ebay-may-confirm-long-
For Modern Coins there is CONECA and Dr. James Wiles. ( http://conecaonline.org/content/coneca_attributers.html ) There is also John Wexler. ( http://www.doubleddie.com/402401.html ) New varieties could be submitted to either party for validation or attribution as a known variety. There are other folks for other coin series. The ONLY TPG I know of that will attribute and slab a newly discovered variety is ANACS. PCGS and NGC won't slab the coin unless its listed in the Cherry Pickers Guide (CPG). Getting the coin in the CPG can prove to be very difficult and can take a long time.
