Reliability of authentication services

I'm new at collecting coins and I am going to send my 1895 20 Centavos Puerto Rico coin to be authenticated and graded by ANACS sometime this week or next week. I'm choosing ANACS because they seem to be less strict with cleaned coins, which mine is. I don't want my coin sent back to me un-slabbed just because it was cleaned. My main concern is authenticity. I could really care less if it was cleaned or if it has a couple of minor scratches. Also, I am not a member of any coin association which other grading services require you to be.

However, my main concern like I said before is to get my coin authenticated, not so much graded, as my hobbies to collect is more out of love of history than as a pure and technical coin collector. I would like to know how accurate and reliable these grading services are as far as authenticating coins. What kind of steps and procedures do they use to authenticate a coin? Is it just simply weighing them and looking for general signs, or do they do a very thourough and detailed inspection not just on the coin but on the history of the type of coin itself?

If I get my coin back as "authentic", how confident should I be that it is indeed authentic and that a thourough inspection was made?

Thanks for any info anybody might be able to give me.

 

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I would go to their web sites as the top four would be more than happy to explain how they authenticate coins. Matter of fact, they do that first before they grade. No need to grade a bogus coin if you think about it.

Many of their authenticators clinic on the subject. For instance, one grader told me years ago that half of the 1916-D Merc dimes that were on the trade show floor were fakes (as he was shaking his head). Your top coins will attract the scum of our hobby, so these top four services are very good at catching fakes.

Is it possible for them to miss one? Sure...but in today's climate, they are VERY good at authentication and it is extremely rare when they get stumped.. Actually, most here would agree.

Now the issue of grading is a whole another matter and will be debated till kingdom come.

Authentication is so important nowadays that I would be very hestitant to buy, for instance, a 1909S-VDB 1c unless it had been authenticated. I have seen some very good fakes of this coin along with 1916-D Mercs that have come back from these services with the treaded, "Added Mintmark" notation.

Nobody likes to be had, and they do a good service here when authenticity comes into the discussion.

 

Forgive me for asking but what is your 1895 centavos coin worth off hand? If you paid $5 for it than I don't believe it is worth paying the fees that would be incurred for grading and slabbing the coin...

 

It cost me 127 dollars. It is in very good condition (at least in my eyes), which is one of the reasons I want to get it authenticated. Sometimes I look at it and think to myself that it looks "too good". A previous owner cleaned it, which might explain why it looks so sharp and lustrous. I know that decreases the value, however I'm mostly interested in its authenticity and that the details are still present. The latter already holds true, so I want to get the former checked as well.

 

Is it made out of gold or something??

 

Could you post a pick of it?

 

NOS, 1895 20 Centavos Puerto Rico is made of 0.835 silver and weights 5g (~1/6 of ounce)

 

Must be quite rare then as condition must not be much of a factor on account of it being cleaned.

 

PCGS will slab cleaned and scratched coins as long as the problems are not too severe. At least that is my interpretation of their policy explanation. From the PCGS website:

"PCGS has a policy prohibiting the encapsulation of coins with problems such as: artificial toning, excessive cleaning, environmental damage, PVC damage, major scratches, or planchet flaws."

Personally, I have little use for any of the tpgs and think they have been detrimental to the hobby. For the small amount of exonumia slabs I have viewed, even the big boys seem to have some trouble performing the task of properly identifying what they have slabbed. I won't even start on the grading topic. Since I am strictly a collector and not a seller looking to increase profits, authentification would be the only reason I would consider using their services, and then only if I was unable to do so myself.

For the price of a submission to a top service, you could likely purchase a good book explaining how to detect counterfeits. The knowledge and insight you would gain IMO would be a better return for your $$$ than a piece of plastic and a warm fuzzy feeling for the one coin. If you remain unsure, you could still submit it.

 

Amen cwtokenman!! What you say makes 100% sense and goes against what GDJMSP says. I figured they are human and can make mistakes so now there is no chance I will ever pay to get a coin slabbed based on your sayings.

 

I sure will once I have my lunch. I got rock hard contradictary proof now. Keep in mind though my goal is not to create a conflict at all!!

 

If you are referring to GDJMSP's post #2, I would have to say that I agree with him. I have heard rumor that the big boys have slabbed one or two fakes, but that would be such a small percentage it may just as well be considered zero. But they certainly are human, and certainly make mistakes. Since I primarily collect Civil War tokens and other exonumia that seldom becomes slabbed, I sometimes wonder at the level of familiarity they have when one does get submitted. They certainly have not looked at thousands (or even hundreds) of many types of cwts as about 80% of the 14,000 varieties have populations of 20 or less. I would hope that a higher level of expertise exists with regular coinage since there are more submissions and more example to review. But I have seen a number of flagrant tpg errors with regular coinage as well. Some errors are such that even a novice collector would not be apt to make (such as having the wrong denomination on the slab label). Perhaps they need additional personnel to verify the correct label was placed in each slab.

 

Well more personnel means higher rates for the consumer. Doesn't bother me much though cuz Im not really into slabbed coins. Now...I will type up my findings and post them here in a few minutes.

 

GDJMSP-
"Send it back with a note saying unidentifiable ?? - aint gonna happen. They don't DO that.

Send it back with a note saying counterfeit - now THAT they do. "


He wrote that in the 4 sols French coin thread-which has caused me nothing but psychological grief and turmoil I might add-and as you can see cwtokenman notes that they can and do make errors but GDJMSP has them as being almighty and what have you so I do not know which side to believe. This grief is just horrible to me, I might have trouble sleeping now but I will try and build a bridge and get over it.

 

Hmmm well gimme a bit and I'll find some more writings to back myself up more...