NCS has been an enigma for me. they have done some great work with a cointhat was rare and truly the gretest heritage in my collection. they have also failed miserably with the 20 coins or so i sent them afterwards. so finally i decided to test them i sent a perfect coin ( no problems) i sent a rarity ( bagged by pcgs) i sent a good coin ( BB by NGC) and i sent a foreign coin ( also a nice one but scratched) they conserved the good coin ( give e a break) could do nothing with the rarity ( expected) fixed the stained coin ( finally they did some conservation) and of coirse nothing with the last one The whole takeaway is be careful what you send them and hope for mixed results i dont think they know what they are doing if the coins are not american. Just my 2 cents hope this will benefit some of you who are contemplating the use ( and please dont bother with coins less than 500$ worth ull just be burning your hands)
I've had trouble with NCS too. When I had my collection appraised, the appraiser mentioned that one of my gold coins had PVC residue on it. That won't bother the gold (I don't think), but will certainly work on the copper that is part of the alloy. I also decided to not tell NCS why I was submitting the coin to them. If they are as good as they're supposed to be, they'll spot the problem. Eventually I got the coin back in its original slab. Obviously nothing had been done. The comment associated with the box checked (generic response) was: "A probability exists that toning removal will diminish the overall attractiveness of the coin, and/or it's [sic] desireability and grade." In other words for some reason they did not spot the problem. And they're the experts!!!???
Were they older proofs , the reason I asked a lot of people say they do a better job on rarer more exspensive coins , and almost nothing on coins worth under $250 . rzage
How good of a job that NCS can do on a coin depends entirely on the individual coin and what is wrong with it. Some things can be helped, some cannot. The critical point is if you submitter can determine that.
In my case I have a gold coin, slabbed, cataloging at $1800, and with PVC contamination. That is a legitimately correctable problem. I choose not to do it myself because: -- I'm an amateur -- I want the job done professionally -- I want the coin re-slabbed I believe that gets me pass the "critical point". Too bad NCS isn't the professional organization they profess to be. But they took my money.
kanga do you think it is just possible that they do not think it is PVC ? And that's why they left the coin alone ?
I'm virtually 100% confident that there is PVC residue on the coin. Why? Because the appraiser identified it, and he's a former grader for one of the top TPGs. His statement was that there is PVC residue on the coin, but damage had not been done yet. That leads me to the conclusion that NCS didn't evaluate the coin all that thoroughly. I consider the statement about "toning removal" is essentially nonsense since gold coins only tone under extreme conditions, and then that's really because of the copper that it's alloyed with. And if that were the case PCGS wouldn't have slabbed it in the first place. Nope, I'm quite convinced that NCS didn't do their job.
Am I wrong on this? Can't you fix hazy proofs by a quick dip in acetone? I know that's what I've done with several of mine and it's worked great.
find a curator at a good museum and work with them. then just send the coins to ngc/ncs after them but you will have to guide the curator rather than the other way round. IMHO thats better than running after NCS
pcgs and ngc both slab PVC coins. yes it might be a shocker but they do it all depends on how much PVC is there on a coin and whether they think it will damage the coin in the future. before someone starts shouting blasphemy and quoting the rule book there is difference between theory and practice and what i tell you has happened to me and no i am not going to take names but i have discussed it at the top level with both of them
