Would you use a PCGS Ancient coin grading service?

KOYNGUY

NGC has been operating one for around 17 years. Dave Vagi has done an incredible job there.
PCGS has hinted that it is considering it in a recent blog., Perhaps, testing the waters.
Would it have to be opinion only like NGC, or would it carry the normal authentication, attribution, grade
guarantees? The potential liability and rewards are high. ANACS counterfeit buybacks were less than a quarter of 1% in volume and value, . The time to authenticate, attribute, grade, would be higher but somewhat offset by hoards that can be done more quickly. Coins requiring research can be priced accordingly. I have spent hours on some coins and in a few cases sent them back as unreferenced.
How many numismatists would you need to cover Greek, Roman, Byzantine and medieval series? Reference library? I have retired the ANACS Ancient program due to my cutting back my time there. What would you pay? Value based? $20, $50, $100 per coin? Any thoughts on this? J.P.

lermish

My thought is that there is little to no chance that PCGS actually does this.

SimonW

I don’t think PCGS will, but I hope they do.

I think any service that can accurately grade, sufficiently research, and appropriately track Ancient coins could do very well in the market. I also think a registry would be amazing! I would start small with about ten really popular sets, and add more and more with time. I find it odd that NGC doesn’t do anything with Ancients registry. For example:
-One per emperor, Roman imperial
-Travels of Hadrian set
-The “good emperors” set
-Type set (different type sets based on different time periods)
-20 most popular Roman coins
-20 most popular Ancient Greek
100 greatest ancient coins
-Coins of the Bible
-Jewish coins

This would drive coin sales like crazy, the average person doesn’t know much about ancients, there’s too much to fully understand. If someone can create a “box” that would help people create sets that make sense, it would help a lot. NGC has a lot of research and materials that that don’t use except in-house. Imagine if they used that to create network and lattice of understanding for collectors. Would be so great!

SimonW

To answer your question, yes, I would use it.

coinkat

I would have to start collecting Ancients first... doubtful that will happen.

messydesk

Since I don't collect ancients at present, my answer doesn't really matter, but I'll provide one nevertheless.

PCGS would have to make a case for being able to be #1 in a market that NGC has had to themselves for a Long Time. They'd have to adopt the multidimensional grades that NGC is having success with. They'd have to have the same or better expertise in house. Grading ancients couldn't compromise the other services they offer. If PCGS can do all of that without making people see a new dumpster fire, then they should go for it. If they try and miss, they probably won't get a second chance, and they'll bruise the brand in the process across all services they offer.

SmEagle1795

NGC has been doing a great job but there's much room to improve. I've personally shamelessly cracked out dozens upon dozens of coins from NGC holders and many other collectors do the same. However, there is merit to third party grading and an impartial opinion on coins and NGC has an unfair monopoly at the moment.

The question of whether PCGS would be able to find sufficiently credible experts is an important one but there would be value to it if they could pull it off.

KOYNGUY

If you build it, they will come.

Unknown

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SimonW

Yes

Exbrit

No - it until they prove themselves.

John Conduitt

The only service worth paying for is authentication. With NGC this isn't guaranteed, but still a useful opinion, and having a photo of the coin on their website is valuable. Proving an ancient coin is or isn't authentic can be very tricky, which is why NGC doesn't guarantee authenticity. But how would anyone prove a slabbed coin is a fake? It's almost impossible. A guarantee might therefore be empty but looks good for very limited risk.

Grading ancients is pointless. Its only use is if you're about to auction a coin in the US market, when suddenly people might pay anything for a meaningless number and so it's worth a punt. But Heritage/NGC already have that covered.

More than very general attribution is also pointless (although you should know what coin you bought anyway). To start with, the label has very limited information on it, which misses all the important nuances. Secondly, TPGs are poor at attribution. This isn't surprising, given even the references are very often wrong or out of date. The specialist knowledge to attribute correctly is therefore near unobtainable. Then you have future research and discovery, which changes the attrubition anyway. This happens even with hammered coins in the modern era, but is widespread with ancients.

So a slab would only be needed when authenticity is questioned, or, for example, if there were no photos of a hoard's coins on the PAS website and so the slab served as evidence of provenance. In either case, the price would have to relate to the price of the coin, which might be $10,000 but is in the majority of cases under $200. But if all the TPG was doing was saying whether they believed it was genuine, not messing about trying to grade it or attribute it in detail, then expertise could be more transferrable and the cost needn't be high.

samscoinsheavymetal

Why do some people feel the need to reply to a specific thread (or in many cases, every thread), when they themselves have nothing to offer on the topic. Responses such as IDK, or I don't collect those, why even comment at all? Maybe it's the look at me mentality of 2025; posting/checking in to every errand, updating "statuses" on every menial chore and tracking the number of breaths consumed and footseps taken in a day