I've seen people have aspirations of owning the highest graded coin by a certain time by people like NGC and the likes. My question is how do you know its the finest ? I've seen codes on certain coins with xxxxxxx-009 am I right considering this is the number it comes in at the time of printing ?
No. 009 is the ninth coin in however many you sent in on the particular invoice. When you send in say 15 coins for grading, as they log them into the computer they use the invoice number...say 3257761-001, -002, -003, etc to -015.
If you are a member of NGC, or PCGS, you can go to their population reports. It just gives the number of that specific grade a certain coin exist in their database. So for a PCGS ( I don't have NGC) a 1914-D Lincoln cent Brown, there are70 that are MS63, but there is no diagnostic as to whether a certain MS63 example is the best or worsse of the group. That is why CAC with their different colored stickers are used to have different levels, but still no numbers. And this is of course only those who have sent the coins in for grading.
Regarding the time frame in which a given coin was slabbed, the TPG can pin it down to the day by using their own records if they choose to do so. But the TPG does not disseminate that information to the public. For the public there is no way to pin down exactly when a coin was slabbed, but one can determine a given time window or range as to when a coin was slabbed, but that time range will often cover several years - eg: Oct. 1998 - May 2002. You can do that by identifying the slab type since the slabs are known to have changed over the years and the time of those changes is known. Some slab types were used for only a few months, others for several years. So that's about the most you can do to pin down a time frame as to when a coin was slabbed.
Thanks for all the help. I didn't win the coin I looked at but I'm now eying a cheaper alternative in an almost identical grade but is brown rather than rb. Un slabbed so is up for less
Among the first things I learnt when I started collecting is "you get what you pay for". That's true in most cases and that's why I am not looking for bargains anymore.
