Can't tell on the obverse at all, but the reverse has that AU look to it, so I'm going to give the 1990ish PCI the benefit of the doubt here.
Thanks John, I guess in hindsight I should have left it in the holder and fired it off to you for VAM verification. I'll know better next time.....I'm still a little wet behind the ears when it comes to TPG, top 4 is all I recognize and had never heard of PCI before. I do have several PNC slabbed Morgans....5 I think, never heard of them before either. A couple I have attributed, should I keep them in their original slabs? Maybe send them to VSS?
That particular era of PCI slabs - 10-digit serial, green border, Futura-style typeface - is known for accuracy and indeed conservative grading. There are those - myself included - who will contemplate higher prices than indicated grade for them in many cases.
I have an old PCI slab that I have kept all of these years because I, too, thought that it was undergraded.
PCI has had more lives than a cat, and only those slabs with the font matching yours are considered desirable and generally graded correctly. I've never heard of PNC as a grading company. Perhaps @Conder101 has, but I would bet that the grade on those slabs is meaningless, the holder is non-collectible, and the coins are best treated as being raw. If you were to send those to me (VSS) for attribution, I would ask you whether or not you wanted them in that holder or one of mine.
Ya John, I bought them a couple years ago and everyone of them are graded MS66, most of them might grade 63 in the right light and a very generous grader. Thanks for the education you guys! John, I'll be contacting you, I actually have a small group I was planning on sending. My handle on VAMworld is "jrfaust"
Early PCI slabs with the green labels were generally right on the money. I sent 6 such coins to PCGS fairly recently. Four came back with the same grade PCI gave them, one with a lower grade (58 to 55), and one came back with a higher grade (58 to 62). I was pleased, to say the least.
I think Conder101 created this image. Be careful with these slabs. One of the newer owners of PCI came up with a label to make folks think it was an older slab but the grading standards were not the same.
This is the old PCI slab that I have. It looks like the old type, and as I previously stated, I think that the coin is undergraded. This is one of the most black/white contrast proofs I have ever seen for an 81-S Type II. Most of them have cloudy fields. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The guy that bought PCI from DGS and brought back the old green label style and 10 digit serial numbers and tried to pass them off as the OLD PCI slabs could be identified by looking at the A in mintage and the number font. He used the correct "ball and stick" type a seen in the label marked old two posts above this one, but the numbers used the curved tails on the 6 and 9 and long serif 1's as seen on the label marked NEW in that post. So a like on the old label and numbers like on the new label, with 10 digit serial numbers.
For someone like me who worked with fonts in the sign industry, the differences are stark and immediate. Another good hint is the higher-quality kerning on the newer label (look at the wide interletter spacing in the middle of "Mintage", something which wasn't available at the time of the original PCI slabs.
The reverse die was granulated and appears as a 'sandblasted' look. Can't really tell by the pics but it doesn't seem to have much luster. The high points on the hair looks to have circulation wear. Did you send this to another grading company? Just read further that you are sending to ANACS....Why not PCGS os NGC?