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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Revello, post: 8214001, member: 103898&quot;]Oh no, I didn&#039;t bid on it, lol.</p><p><br /></p><p>I did some further research on PCI (which stands for &quot;Photo-Certified Coin Institute&quot;).&nbsp; It seems David Lawrence at one time owned PCI (I think he bought it out from Hallmark in 1991), and the early PCI photo-slabbed coins during his tenure were pretty respectable (and even collectible, to a certain degree today).&nbsp; Example:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1441567[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; The early &quot;green&quot; colored borders/lettering slabs with 10-digit numbers (on the reverse side of slab with PCI label) are, from what I read, considered credibly graded slabs and had a moderately successful record for crossovers with PCGS.&nbsp; There are collectors who apparently seek/watch for these early PCI-slabbed coins as they present a good buying opportunity due to reliability of the coin grade, if the seller&#039;s price is lowball due to the perceived inferior PCI TPG slab.&nbsp; Example:</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1441568[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>PCI changed ownership numerous times, to eventually being owned by Anthony Delluniversita who was sued for fraud, as described in the article weblink in John Burgess&#039; post above.</p><p><br /></p><p>The gold-colored PCI slabs, and slabs that have green or black borders but don&#039;t have the 10-digit numbers, are generally unreliable, according to what I read.</p><p><br /></p><p>Example of gold-colored PCI slab:</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1441570[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Bottom line:&nbsp; I&#039;m glad I didn&#039;t bid on the 1953-S Franklin &quot;FBL&quot;, given what I now know about the tumultuous history of PCI ownership and unreliability, and the type of PCI holder the coin was in.&nbsp; I might have had regrets on not bidding had the PCI holder been one of the earlier versions with the 10-digit identifier.</p><p><br /></p><p>For what it&#039;s worth, during my quick research, I ran across a series of &quot;crossover&quot; related articles by Michael Bugeja at the Coin Update website, which you might find of interest if you&#039;re interested in submitting 2d or 3d tier TPG slabbed coins for crossover to PCGS.&nbsp; Link to his archive of articles (his earlier articles are crossover-related):&nbsp; <a href="http://news.coinupdate.com/author/michaelbugeja/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://news.coinupdate.com/author/michaelbugeja/" rel="nofollow">http://news.coinupdate.com/author/michaelbugeja/</a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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