Remember one of those other fly by night companies was PCGS. David Hall even says he bought the rights to use ACG encapsulation. I think Alan was just ahead of his time and did make the mistake of selling ACG rights to some shady dealers. I have dealt with Alan also and he was one of the better dealers to deal with. He would discuss why a coin graded the way it did. He helped me learn how to spot cleaned coins. For those who like TPG coins you actually have Alan Hagar to thank for bringing it to mainstream. I just wish I had the money when he offered to sell me a large portion of his collection 5 years ago.
I'm glad that you had the opportunity to appreciate ACG products, as I. I still have many of their graded more expensive coins for which I had a great appreciation. Many of my ACG graded Gold Double Eagles were removed from their slabs and submitted to a jury of THE 2 prominent TPG. The jury has found by its "raw" grading that the study cited by Coin World in 2003 is generally still relatively accurate. The jury has indicated that the ACG coins don't deserve the grade spread indicated by critics in the past, and never garnered a "cleaned"/problem adjudged slab from either. An expected exception was when I had a mint-state ACG coin still in slab recently submitted at a show for "cross-over". I still have that "key" coin in its slab with a "cleaned" declaration by the TPG. The aforementioned "cleaned" coin is so seldomly seen that I'll need to wait an appreciable amount of time before removing the coin from the ACG slab for witnessed/certified submission to the 2 TPG. I'm certain that the coin will be returned with a grade from both TPG. @TexasSilver In the event you don't know, there is a great ACG bias on this site, many being involved in past threads/action, which I believe you'd find interesting reading. JMHO
