Sent 7x modern coins for the PCGS quarterly special late last year. Grades and photos came up today; only one point away from a perfect order. Definitely no complaints here... even if my registry set won't be #1 Can share individual photos if anybody's interested. Adding these beauties to my Modern Morgan & Peace registry set. So far, of the 18 coin set, I'm only 3 points shy of perfect (and almost certainly will never upgrade those coins).
Can you give me the scoop on what a PCGS submission entails and explain it to me like I'm 5 years old? You buy a yearly membership, do you get 5 free submissions for that or do you pay for them in addition to the subscription. I've read their website directions and it's still fuzzy to me. I have a few Morgans I'd like to submit or crossover but a little help would be appreciated, thanks.
So in order to submit to PCGS, you need to be a member. Once you're a member, you can submit any number of orders during your membership. Membership lasts one year and comes in three different tiers; $70 for plain, old membership; or $150 for membership + 4x vouchers; or $250 for membership + 8x vouchers. Vouchers do not rollover and have to be used within calendar year. You can use vouchers for regular/basic PCGS grading service. Meaning, if you'd like an express order, you won't be able to use your voucher. Additionally, vouchers do not cover fees beyond grading; for example, vouchers do not cover added fees when re-grading slabbed coins and of course does not cover shipping & handling fees. I'd recently used 4x vouchers for a regrade order. So, these vouchers covered the grading fees for my order, but did not cover the $10 per coin fee for the 2x coins that upgraded and did not cover S&H. Membership also gives you access to their quarterly grading specials which rotate every three months. For example, submit 5x coins but only pay for 4x; or variety attribution 50% off; or (as order above) economy modern for $3 off. So instead of $17 per coin, it was $14 per coin. Plus $5 per coin to "upcharge" from standard holder to Gold Shield holder which includes TrueView images. Plus $10 handling; plus $32 insured shipping. Mathematically, if you know you're going to submit at least 8x coins in a given year, it makes sense to opt for the $250 tier and get 8x vouchers. Since the standard grading fee is $40, the vouchers are "worth" $320. There are plenty of other nuances, caveats, loopholes, and exceptions but hopefully that helps a little with understanding PCGS's vouchers.
Looks like a good return on those! I've considered switching to a PCGS membership because of the long turnaround at NGC for grading economy world coins, over 100 days now! I'll revisit that in the future when renewal time comes.
Thanks! I sort of figured that the $250 membership would be the best bang for the buck, assuming you had enough coins you wanted them to handle. But I really wasn't sure. My LCS used to submit them for customers but they stopped doing it for whatever reason. They did say that they were considering doing it again.
