Anyone got the skinny on Global Certification Svcs.?

Askari

A newbie who's beginning to see the Darkness nevertheless hasn't gotten slabbing out of his system and was inquiring about GCS. Anybody familiar with their service and grading standards?

lathmach

One of the owners is Tom Mulvaney. Tom is a professional photographer and owns an auction service. He conducts coin auctions right along.
I'd guess he's the one who'll be doing the photos for the slabs.
He's a long time member of the Liberty Seated Collectors Club and provides free Photographing of coins for members, that are to appear in the Gobrecht Journal.
I've used him several times, and the quality is excellent.
Now as for the grading, I'll have to pass on an opinion there as I've had no experience with their slabs.

Ray

Askari

I know of Tom's work and it is indeed top-quality. Personally, I don't see the value of having a photo slabbed with the coin; I'd rather have it separate for insurance records.

The other principals appear to be well-known in the auction world, but I'm no habitué of that collecting venue so the names do no more than vaguely ring a bell for me.

shylock

Some additional info. Ron Guth, president of Coinfacts.com, writes the text on many of the slabs. There's a link to Global's website at the bottom of the page where quite a few sample slabs can be found.

Conder101

Although the press release is dated January 2002, the service actually began production slabbing in November of 2001 and distribution of samples in Sept 2001. I don't make judgements on grading ability, sorry.

Askari

Thanks, Shylock, I do know Ron Guth, but not Jeff Garrett, the President, nor Robert Paul, the Vice-President. Anybody do business with them?

Thanks for the info, Conder! What do you think of their product in general?

Conder101

I don't debate a companies grading ability since it is all a matter of opinion anyway but other than that:



<< <i>. Unlike other services, Global grades and certifies coins and places them in specially designed, sealed, hard plastic holders, which includes both a photograph and description of the coin. This unique holder is called the “Info-Slab” or “The Holder that Communicates”. >>



Their "specially designed" holder is the EXACT same holder that Alan Hagar pioneered back in 1984 and later licensed to half a dozen companies. It is even from the same molds used by INS and PCI, among others. The only real difference is that the other services used the back side to tell you about themselves while Global tells you something about the coin. The photography seems to be a little better on the Global slabs but frankly I'm a little disappointed with it. Tom Mulvaney usually does much better photograghy than that. One feature that could be very handy though is that for varieties it is possible to get an enlarged photo of the key diagnostic area. I really think they should stress that point more and show GOOD examples of it.