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Message:: [QUOTE="kaparthy, post: 17820, member: 57463"]About 1980-1990, the Federal Trade Commission got a bee in their bonnet about numismatics as an investment.  Among the firms that were prosecuted and settled were Heritage, PCGS, and Tulving.  In fact, Heritage's predecessor, New England Rarities finally went down the tubes in a nasty court case after it was sold.  I think that most collectors would regard those three as among the most reputable in the business today.  Myself, I have more of a problem with an overzealous government than I do with an over-enthusiastic seller.  All of that is to say that time will tell.  ICG is an example of a firm that started out strong and grew from there.  They are perhaps not generally perceived as a "top tier" firm with NGC and PCGS and tend to be labelled "second tier" with ANACS.  Myself, I prefer to speak of the Big Four: ANACS, ICG, NGC and PCGS.  One problem with "market grading" and the "market grading of market grading graders" is that it can only look at some numerical mode, rather than the whole market.  In other words, we might say that Mint State Morgan Dollars and Lincoln Cents are the mainstream of US numismatics.  But that "mainstream" is a small part of the whole.  So, publicity by, for, and about dealers and collectors who trade those Morgans and Lincolns at a distance sight-unseen will skew everyone else's view of the numismatic markets. My interest is in other areas. MichaelANA R-162953[/QUOTE]