My ICG 14-D just sold for 90% plus of bid.....I took it in the shorts, paid 700 with slab fees, sold for 700, CDN bid was $750, then come the ebay and paypal fees, lost 70....... ouch, the risk of the 99cent auction huh?
Show me a silver coin which has been "damaged" by toning. My republican denarius has a very very dark 2 millenia old tone, and it shows no damage due to it. If anything, the toning prevents cabinet friction damaging the fine detail.
My personal opinion of the grading companies [stress is on the word opinion] is as follows. Top Tier: NGC - best by a slight edge PCGS Almost as good: ANACS - in the old holders ICG Second tier: ANACS - in the new holders PCI I would avoid the rest unless/until you develop a lot of expertise in grading yourself. Of course, as you have discovered, much depends on eye appeal and the individual specialties of the grading companies. I wouldn't be too concerned about which company's slabs command the highest price on any given day. Just try to make sure you get good value for what you pay. A coin in an NGC holder is probably better than the same coin in a PCI holder, but it will also cost more money. The entire coin hobby is very price efficient and the best you can hope for is to gain enough knowledge to get a fair deal, whatever slab you buy.
A great man once said "All generalities are bad." But seriously, stainless... beware of these sort of generalities. For example, many believe that grading standards have slipped over the years. That would mean that, generally speaking, coins in old TPG holders are undergraded by today's standards, right ? And since the old PCGS holders are easily recognizable by the green labels, one should stock up on them, submit 'em for regrading, and get fat because they get an extra point or two, right ? Wrong. For a number of reasons. For one, when someone dreams up these sort of schemes, they are #1,347,362 in line - behind people who thought it up long ago. If there was ever any merit in the idea, it was fished out long ago. It all comes down to the time-honored CT mantra - buy the coin, not the slab. Any top TPG's slab can be over or undergraded. Most of them are on target IMHO. Learn how to grade by reading up, asking lots of questions, and casting your eye upon hundreds or thousands of coins. Hit the coin shows. But I think it's fair to say that, generally speaking, PCGS / NGC coins are on the whole the most marketable, ANACS next, and ICG 4th. I treat all other slabs as raw coins - except I can't examine the edge.
