They do, but at a premium charge like PCGS TrueViews And this service is extremely useful for spotting fake slabs. The photos aren’t going to be great, especially for free, but they are sufficient to be able to positively ID the coin most of the time.
I was wondering why NGC returned a Vespasian sestertius to me a couple of years ago with "no decision". What does that mean? It seems to be a total waste of money sending the coin to you in the first place. I subsequently sent the coin to David Sear, who deemed it authentic and issued a certificate to that effect. Also, here is a coin that is no longer held in place, apparently due to shipping. When I purchased this coin online, it was seemingly securely nested in the prongs, but when it arrived it was completely out of them, rattling around in the slab. It seems to me, given the frequent irregular flans for many ancient coins, this system of securing the coin in the slab is problematic. Thank you
I can't comment on a specific coin as to why it was returned as a no-grade without knowing which coin it was. It's could have been due to cleaning, or altered surface or some other reason hat we weren't confident it was genuine, nor were we certain it was a forgery. We were probably 50/50 or 60/40 as to whether it was genuine or not. In those instances coins get returned as No Decision. Also, with first century sestertii, there are a ton, and I mean a ton, of 19th century cast forgeries on the market that are actually quite good and very deceptive. No casting seems, good patinas, proper weight and color etc. We are quite cautious with first century bronzes. Concerning David Sear, he doesn't have a "No Decision" option. There actually is a lot of gray area in ancient coins and when coins fall into this category, he guesses on whether he thinks a coin is real or not, and he makes a lot of mistakes. I don't know in this case if it was a mistake or not. When a coin is returned as no decision you don't pay the grading fees, just the postage charges. Assuming the coin was sent in with other coins, it didn't cost you anything. If it was sent in alone there's not much I can do about the postage charges unless you don't want the coin returned to you. Concerning the lose coin, ancient coins aren't round, they are heavy and thick and at times they come lose from the prongs. We try to make sure they are secure, but they still pop out occasionally. We do 50-60,000 coins a year and perhaps have to reholder 20 every year, normally tetradrachms due to their thickness and weight. These can be returned and we will reholder them at no charge, other than the postage fee. Barry Murphy
Greetings, Barry. First off, thank you for all the clarity to add here on the forum with issues regarding NGC Ancients. So ... "fall out of prongs" - What do I do? Just add it to a regular submission order? Stay Healthy, Fred Genchi
It's best just to send it in with other coins just to save on the postage charges. Just for simplicity purposes make it the first or last coin in the submission and just write "MechError" on the submission form. If you send it in by itself you will pay the postage both ways. Barry Murphy
As I said in an earlier post, NGC does offer Hi-Res photography of coins in the slabs. here are a few examples..... Barry Murphy
We are not judged on our best products but by our worst. No one notices 50,000 coins done well but everyone notices a fake, a coin out of prongs or a bad label. My comment was based on the image posted on the NGC site which shows a snapshot. The three above are better but the Antiochus is far from the best you could do with a raw coin.
Whatever Doug. No ones trying to argue photos of coins outside holders aren't better than those inside. You said NGC can't take a picture through a slab. We can and do all the time. So do a lot of dealers with great success. For some reason CNG can't figure out the technique. The web photos are simply for identifying if the coin in the holder is the coin we saw. That's it. Not for publication or anything else. Like I said, we photo 10-15000 coins every day, 5 days a week. That's 1200-1800 every hour, 20-30 every minute. They aren't adjusted for lighting or anything else. Barry Murphy
Looks like this coin has a bulk submission byzantine label. https://www.ngccoin.com/coin-grading/labels/special-labels/ancient-coins/ Coins submitted in bulk like this (ie romans like Constantine family etc, byzantine, shipwreck) often are noted as authentic and holdered but do not receive a grade. If you want the grade you would have to resubmit, but may not be worth it based on the price of this coin.
A coin dealer friend rants and raves about how this is a rip-off since you paid to have the coin graded, they should slab it. To him it made no difference that they DID grade the coin and found it to be problematic.
Unfortunately your coin dealer friend is ranting about nothing. If we didn’t grade it, he didn’t pay the grading fees. Barry Murphy
With ancients, if a coin is returned as not eligible (a coin type we don’t do) or No Decision (as the coin in this discussion was returned) there is no charge. coins returned as Not genuine or Tooled are charged a fee because a service has been performed that should facilitate the return of the coin the the seller. Barry Murphy
I usually sent at least 100 coins each year and dont have complaints besides that could grade my coins little better in terms of scale , but i guess im not Morris