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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;sand, post: 7553125, member: 118540&quot;]I generally prefer certificates of authenticity (COAs) for ancients, versus slabs, if the COA has photos of the coin obverse and reverse.</p><p>However, I like the authentication benefits of NGC slabs, for ancients.</p><p>An NGC slab gives some assurance of authenticity, but as medoraman said, NGC states on their web site, that they don&#039;t guarantee authenticity for ancient coins.</p><p>&quot;NGC Ancients is committed to grading only genuine coins, but it does not guarantee authenticity, genuineness or attribution, nor is any guarantee of these aspects implied.&quot;</p><p>&quot;... with ancient coins NGC Ancients will only guarantee the grade.&quot;</p><p><a href="https://www.ngccoin.com/specialty-services/ancient-coins/guarantee.aspx" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.ngccoin.com/specialty-services/ancient-coins/guarantee.aspx" rel="nofollow">https://www.ngccoin.com/specialty-services/ancient-coins/guarantee.aspx</a></p><p>However, as far as I know, NGC seems to do a pretty good job, of authenticating the ancient coins they slab, although I imagine that, they are not infallible (therefore no guarantee of authenticity for ancients).</p><p>If I ever wanted to have a 3rd party check the authenticity of one of my ancient coins, I would probably choose to get a COA, rather than a slab, because that is my personal preference.</p><p>As J.T. Parker mentioned, David R. Sear, the author of the Sear books, has a COA service.</p><p><a href="https://www.davidrsear.com/certification.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.davidrsear.com/certification.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.davidrsear.com/certification.html</a></p><p>Does Sear &quot;guarantee&quot; his authentication? I don&#039;t know. But he is an expert, like the folks at NGC, therefore I would trust him, as much as I trust NGC.</p><p>The only down side of Sear, is that his web site doesn&#039;t seem to have a way to look up a coin that has a Sear COA, by serial number, with photos of the coin on the web site.&nbsp; Or maybe it does. I don&#039;t know. I haven&#039;t found such a thing, so far.</p><p>A COA could conceivably be faked, because it&#039;s a piece of paper. But a web site lookup by serial number, with photos of the coin on the web site, seems like it would very difficult to fake, because every ancient coin looks so different, from other ancient coins (different flan shape, different strike, different wear, etc). The web site photos are extremely reassuring, if you are thinking about buying a coin. And it helps, if you are selling the coin, to reassure potential buyers.</p><p>If there is no web site lookup by serial number with photos on the web site, then it seems to me, a COA is more valuable, if you get the COA directly from the COA company, after you ship your coin to the COA company. But if you want to buy a coin, and the seller happens to have a COA that the seller got from someone else, then the COA is less valuable, because of the possibility of a fake COA. On the other hand, if the seller is an expert, and if the seller offers his/her own COA, then that is valuable.</p><p>The NGC web site lookup service, by serial number, which has photos of the slabbed coins on the web site, is the most valuable part of the NGC slab service, to me.</p><p>I have bought coins in NGC slabs. For each of those coins, I wrote down the slab number, and took photos of the coin in the slab, so that I can still refer to the coin on the NGC web site, by serial number, and see the photos of the coin, on the NGC web site, which then functions as a COA. Then, I removed the coin from the slab.</p><p>I wish there was an authentication service, which offered COAs, with a web site lookup, by serial number, with photos of the coins on the web site. I don&#039;t know of any such services.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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