Coin Certification or Grading

Early Releases Designation Expanded at NGC

December 19, 2010

Effective immediately, NGC is expanding the Early Releases designation. All US and World coins received by NGC or an NGC-approved depository within their first 30 days of issue will be eligible for the Early Releases designation. This includes bullion, currency and numismatic coinage issues. Previously, only US bullion coinage qualified… There is an additional eligibility [click to continue…]

Plus Graded Coins Seeing Better Premiums

November 26, 2010

PCGS Plus graded coins are being snapped up wherever they are offered and sometimes at a significant premium to regular grades. I talk to a lot of dealers and I’ve been made aware of many private transactions where a Plus graded coin has brought a large premium. To be completely objective and eliminate any doubt [click to continue…]

Coin Values Rise with CAC Stickers

November 12, 2010

After two+ years of being traded on the open market, I think few collectors and dealers would argue the statement that CAC stickering has added considerable value and liquidity to many types of United States gold coinage… One of the areas that CAC has added the greatest amount of value is in the St. Gaudens [click to continue…]

Coin Grading Coin Scale Explained

August 29, 2010

The Sheldon Scale is the primary system in use for determining the grade of a coin.  The possible grades range from Poor-1 to Mint State-70 (usually expressed as MS-70).  Every possible number in between is theoretically available for describing a coin’s state of preservation, but in practice only certain points of the scale are used [click to continue…]

Back where we started?

July 28, 2010

… Perhaps numismatics should be on a fiscal year ending Sept. 30 as the U.S. Mint is. One thing about 2011 that occurred to me was it will mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Professional Coin Grading Service. That event certainly revolutionized the hobby. At the time, it was a better mouse [click to continue…]

Tips from the Grading Room

July 27, 2010

Welcome to the second installment of “Tips from the Grading Room.” In the last issue, we took a look at what constituted a “Full Head” Standing Liberty Quarter. This time, we’ll examine another important qualifier – what must qualify for a Full Band Winged Liberty Head or “Mercury” dime, designated “FB” by PCGS. Full Bands [click to continue…]

Coin Gradeflation

July 2, 2010

No one can deny that third-party grading services have been a boon to our hobby; yet their contribution to the gradeflation that has occurred over time has been something less favorable to acknowledge. As a professional grader for over three decades and one who helped developed the strict technical grading standards used long ago, I [click to continue…]

Rare 1795 Reeded Edge Liberty Cap Cent Certified by NGC

June 23, 2010

Among early United States cents one of the rarest and most mysterious is Dr. William H. Sheldon’s variety number 79 having a reeded edge, an example of which has just been certified by Numismatic Guaranty Corporation. Only eight pieces are confirmed to exist, and this one has been off the market for some 30 years. [click to continue…]

NGC Grades 20 Millionth Coin

May 19, 2010

Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC), the most-preferred certification and grading company in numismatics, announced today it has reached an unprecedented industry milestone — 20 million coins graded. NGC is the first coin grading company to arrive at this historic number and it underscores NGC’s position as the industry leader and guardian of numismatic interests around the [click to continue…]

NGC Launches New Metallurgic Analysis Service

May 13, 2010

Metallic composition and weight can now be reported on the certification label. NGC is introducing a new service line to perform metal composition testing at the submitter’s request. Metallurgic analysis is available for pattern, essay, trial and mint error coins, as well as tokens and medals. The cost of this service is $75 in addition [click to continue…]

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