Tell Me About SEGS

Perusing an auction site and have my eyes on a 1904-O Morgan MS-63 DMPL by SEGS..... I'm not necessarily a Morgan guy but I do love an attractive coin and this one is certainly attractive. Were it not slabbed I would be cautious that it may be tampered with, but I am not familiar with SEGS and it's hard to identify tampering from photos sometimes. Is SEGS reliable enough to identify a tampered coin?

 

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SEGS is not a reputable company. That being said, I've seen several people crack these coins out and submit them to reputable companies with mixed results, though I've never seen a counterfeit or anything of that nature. Best to treat it raw and do your due diligence.

 

I didn't know they were still around. I've never heard anything good or bad about them.

 

I have seen some really nice coins in SEGS slabs but most folks don't care for the brand. I understand that the plastic they use is really tough to crack open.

 

Not too concerned about the brand. Just concerned about their ability to spot a problem..... I think I'll bid on this one as though it were a raw MS coin.... Thanks guys!

 

SEGS is a very mixed brand. When I was dealer I handled a few SEGS coins which were very nice. I once had an 1848-C quarter eagle on consignment. It was SEGS graded MS-63. The same dealer had another one also graded MS-63 in a PCGS holder. He wanted over $20,000 for the PCGS coin. The SEGS coin was consigned to me at $6,500. I sold the SEGS coin to an extremely well known dealer at a Bay State coin show for a decent profit. I will gurantee you that that coin did not stay in the SEGS holder for very long.

Why didn't I buy the SEGS coin and cross it? At the time, money was thin. The net worth of my business was just over $20,000. To tie up that much money in coin with a limited market, at least for me, was too much of a risk.

I once had a very nice SEGS graded Shield Nickel which they graded MS-64. It was a great coin except it had a large lamination which still attached to it. The leading services won't touch it. It would have been a great coin for the collector who was interested in the problems the mint had with Shield Nickels. For most collectors, the lamination mint error killed the coin.