Earliest / Lowest NGC Cert Number?

USARarities

I was looking at the NGC Black Holder census list on this forum and noticed the lowest cert number is 121036-004, which holds a 1837 Seated Liberty Dime in MS-65. There are two other coins with the same "121036" prefix number, which I presume resulted from all of those coins being submitted together on the same grading invoice.

I recently acquired an 1881-S Morgan in NGC MS65 with cert number 121025-002 in a 3rd generation holder (pictured below). I believe the original NGC cert numbers were generated off the invoice (please correct me if I am wrong), so am wondering if my coin was just submitted with one of the first invoices generated by NGC, but not delivered to NGC until a few months later (after the black holders and plain white labels were changed out). Or... perhaps the coin was one of the first graded at NGC, but then resubmitted for re-grading later. Anyone have thoughts/insight on this?

**Does anyone know what the earliest/lowest NGC cert number is? ** And I'm not talking about the later NGC cert numbers with leading 0's that reflect a different invoicing period and numbering scheme. I presume NGC started grading with invoice number 121001. Is that correct?

Dug13

I think you pulled your car into the wrong parking lot . I would check with the people across the street.

USARarities

Didn't find anything over there... and the people on this board always seem to be in the know. But thanks.

TomB

My recollection is that the NGC submission forms came with pre-printed invoice numbers on them. In my experience, it wasn't all that uncommon to have an unused form sit on the bottom of a stack of papers or tucked away in a drawer or simply put off to the side and then submitted well after later invoice numbers.

pursuitofliberty

@TomB said:
My recollection is that the NGC submission forms came with pre-printed invoice numbers on them. In my experience, it wasn't all that uncommon to have an unused form sit on the bottom of a stack of papers or tucked away in a drawer or simply put off to the side and then submitted well after later invoice numbers.

If Tom is correct, which I would suspect he probably is (sharp as a tack), that would skew numbers.

However the earliest submissions are not in white holders. The old black "no line fatty's" were before the NGC white holders, and so those should be the source of the earliest numbers.

Peace_dollar88

@coinkid855 has a wealth of knowledge on these. If you are lucky he might even be abke to tell you the submission date of your coin.

nencoin

Edited to add: Oops. I didn't pay enough attention and realized that you were not asking about older invoices with leading zeroes. Apologies! I'll see if we have anything closer to what you're asking for in our database.

nencoin

When we sold this coin back in 2006, it was in an old thick holder, though I do not know the generation:
https://www.ngccoin.com/certlookup/101629-004/62/

And the lowest six-digit serial number we've handled:
https://www.ngccoin.com/certlookup/100016-033/69/

USARarities

Still looking for answers to the basic questions:
1) When NGC started grading back in Sept '87, what number did they start with?
2) What was the source of that number... invoice? or did they just start with 121xxx, which is the number on all of the black holders?
3) My coin, cert number 121025-002 is in a 3rd generation holder which was produced from December '87 on. I am speculating the coin was either regraded/reholdered or was just submitted a few months after grading started with one of the first invoices printed (presuming the cert numbers were generated from invoice numbers). Thoughts?

And just to be clear, I am not talking about lowest cert numbers produced after the early gen holders. I know the later cert numbers have nothing to do with submission sequence/timing? Thanks all.