PCGS or NGC or ICCS (#1 in Canada they grade world coins)

TheGoonies1985

Curious since it would be much faster and much cheaper since I live in Canada to use ICCS for raw coins my next option is NGC. Just curious would they still sell for market value if graded by ICCS I am guessing no but they truly have a great reputation. The very best since 1986. Most likely none of you have heard of ICCS unless you are Canadian.

Coins I will be having graded are fillers till I find and buy better. At least 90% of them unless rare varieties. You can also buy a binder with slip holders for I think 16 or 20 coins per page I am not sure and look at your coins like a book.

My other worry is having to pay taxes once my coins come back from NGC maybe I am wrong never sent coins for grading.

TheGoonies1985

https://iccscoin.ca/

They use specialty slips and not slabs.

TheGoonies1985

They have graded pretty much all Canadian coins and major rarities (some are PCGS and few NGC). For Canadian coins they bring top dollar.

They are known to be very tight on grading. Always have been that way.

bosox

Grading companies each have their strengths and weaknesses. It helps to know what they are for the series you collect. I collect Canadian large cents.

For my series, ICCS is more conservative from AU on down, i.e circulated cents. PCGS is more conservative on mint state cents. ICCS will net grade and holder problem coins with no comment, which is why I rarely buy ICCS coins without seeing them in hand. PCGS will body bag such coins.

ICCS has virtually no visibility in the world coin market. It is a tiny percentage of what they grade.

TheGoonies1985

@bosox said:
Grading companies each have their strengths and weaknesses. It helps to know what they are for the series you collect. I collect Canadian large cents.

For my series, ICCS is more conservative from AU on down, i.e circulated cents. PCGS is more conservative on mint state cents. ICCS will net grade and holder problem coins with no comment, which is why I rarely buy ICCS coins without seeing them in hand. PCGS will body bag such coins.

ICCS has virtually no visibility in the world coin market. It is a tiny percentage of what they grade.

Makes sens. Will most likely go with NGC.

1960NYGiants

What @bosox said. Plus, in my experience NGC does a better job with grading and attributing Canadian tokens. For business strikes and modern commems PCGS is more accepted than NGC.

bosox

Net grading the problem coins without comment is really problematic with ICCS. They do not just do it with lower value circulated coins, but also with high value coins as well.

One short story to illustrate the point. I was at the Cook auction in 2019, probably the most valuable Canadian collection to sell since Belzberg in 2003. Many of Cook's coins were cleaned, including many that were previously very valuable. When Heritage had them graded, PCGS body bagged most of them. Several Canadian dealers were at the auction buying body-bagged coins at pennies on the dollar. Since that auction, I have seen several of Cook's coins show up in new ICCS holders with no impairment comments.

The one the comes instantly to mind involved an 1859 specimen cent, which was in a PCGS SP-64 holder when Cook bought it. In the Cook sale, it sold for $780 in a PCGS body bag as cleaned. It is now in an ICCS holder at SP-65 with no comments.

TheGoonies1985

I will be sending them to NGC. Early in 2024 just putting a larger order together.

TomB

"Most likely none of you have heard of ICCS unless you are Canadian."

I'm surprised you would write that, especially within World & Ancient section of the PCGS boards since, you know, the internet goes across national borders. In my opinion, ICCS lost out on market share and penetration by staying analog while others went digital in that they no longer publish a population report (as far as I can determine), don't have a web-based cert lookup function (again, as far as I know) and have limited knowledge sharing articles. They might have been able to really keep PCGS and NGC at bay, but didn't expand their business offering.

I like ICCS and don't have an issue with the, but as others have mentioned there are differences in how ICCS grades vs how PCGS and NGC grade and, indeed, there are differences between PCGS and NGC, as well. Given the current state of the market I don't think ICCS is in a position to make up ground. I have purchased ICCS certified coins in the past, but typically send them in for crossover to make them more attractive and liquid for my US clients.

TheGoonies1985

Just figured unless one lives in Canada they probably never heard of ICCS. No disrespect to ICCS I know they are strict and grade well. They are #1 in Canada for a reason and have been at it foe decades. When I collected Canadian coins most were graded by them or PCGS. Never purchased Canadian coins graded by NGC back then I rarely ever saw Canadian coins graded by them and I imagine it is has not changed much.

Sapyx

People outside of Canada, particularly in the US, will have heard of ICCS if they collect Canadian coins. The point is, nobody outside of Canada would actually deliberately use ICCS to grade non-Canadian coins. If you're a collector in America and you have, say, an Australian coin, you'd instinctively think you have two options for slabbing it: PCGS/NGC, or an Australian grading company (on the theory that Australians know their own coins best). So you'd do the research, discover that there's no such thing as an "Australian grading company", and say "Oh well, guess I'm sending them to PCGS/NGC then".

It would never occur to someone in the US to send them to ICCS. "What would Canadians know about how to grade Australian coins?" would be the instinctive fist reaction to an American asked to consider the option. And yes, I know that Canadians probably would actually be pretty good at grading Australian coins (by the Canadian grading standard), and probably even better than American graders, because Canadian and Australian coins do share an obverse design so many of the grading rules of the two series are similar, but a typical American collector isn't likely to think that far through the plan.

I'm not certain about this, but I suspect that even most Canadians would prefer to send expensive non-Canadian coins down south to the US, rather than use ICCS. I suspect most of the non-Canadian coins in ICCS flips were made as part of bulk submissions of mixtures of Canadian and non-Canadian coins, rather than someone deliberately thinking "I'll get my foreign coins slabbed by ICCS".

And nobody outside of North America would think of using ICCS, because if you're going to spend lots of time and money sending a coin overseas to be graded, you might as well use the best and go for PCGS. Sorry NGC, but your market share outside the US is still pitifully small compared to PCGS. I know half a dozen PCGS fans here in Australia. I've never met an NGC fan, nor seen many NGC-slabbed coins. If NGC can't do very well here, then ICCS hasn't a hope.

I have bought one ICCS-graded Canadian coin, while I was visiting Canada a few months ago. One of those little "fish scale" silver 5 cents. Couldn't see the darn thing at all through the flip, and couldn't take it out of the flip to get a good look at it. Sorry, but not sorry - if I'm buying coins, I want to look at them. You can be sure as soon as I came back home to Australia, that ICCS flip was slashed open with the nearest available scissors.

Exbrit

@PillarDollarCollector said:
My other worry is having to pay taxes once my coins come back from NGC maybe I am wrong never sent coins for grading

Please expand a bit - what taxes are you talking about?

Exbrit

@Sapyx said:
And nobody outside of North America would think of using ICCS, because if you're going to spend lots of time and money sending a coin overseas to be graded, you might as well use the best and go for PCGS. Sorry NGC, but your market share outside the US is still pitifully small compared to PCGS. I know half a dozen PCGS fans here in Australia. I've never met an NGC fan, nor seen many NGC-slabbed coins. If NGC can't do very well here, then ICCS hasn't a hope.

I’m not sure the above is actually correct. PCGS is preferred in Australia, but I believe that NGC has a larger footprint worldwide (non-US). I also believe that the English are trending towards NGC. Of course it depends on the series, but it’s not as black and while as stated.

TheGoonies1985

@Exbrit said:

@PillarDollarCollector said:
My other worry is having to pay taxes once my coins come back from NGC maybe I am wrong never sent coins for grading

Please expand a bit - what taxes are you talking about?

I mean the value of the package declared at customs once NGC sends them back to me. It is not a purchase so maybe they put something in the custom declaration as to let them know it was a grading service for coins I already purchased and paid taxes on. Same when I send it to them how to label it on the customs form so they don't end up having to pay taxes on their end. I never did this before. I am in Canada so it will cross the border back and forth.

ELuis

I Have sent packages from coins that I sold, to Canada, one with10 and another with 12 coins on each package, no issues et-al,

Also have bought coins from Canada, delivered to USA and no issues too.

HTH

bosox

Coins coming from Canada to the U.S. are not subject to duty, so there rarely are problems. Coin from the U.S. to Canada are subject to GST. Usually, the addressee pays the tax at the post office to receive the package.

YQQ

There is NO duties on Canadian coins crossing the border back and forth if you declare these properly with an international tariff number.
However, there are fees for "the work done", like grading.
H

TheGoonies1985

So how do you label your package to insure the are no duties since this is not a sale or purchase but sending coins to be graded?