Anybody ever heard of a grading company called "INS"?

Russ

1876 20 cent piece INS proof 64.

Russ, NCNE

braddick

Is that the old 'grading company' that was a subdivision of Heritage back in the late eighties?

a2labmom

Isn't that the Immigration and Naturalization Service's Coin grading leg?

But on a serious note, here's a link to an article on the PCGS site.

Placid

Here is a thread about it from earlier this week.

Link

Conder101

Braddick, the service that was a division of Heritage was NCI. INS was the second of the certification services beginning back in 1985. They have produced 7 varieties of holders and MAY still be in existence. I thought they had closed down back in 1992 but last week I found a new INS variety slab that dated from no earlier than 1997.

mnmcoin

I think they only grade Mexican coins...budump bump...sorry, couldn't resist.

mo <><

braddick

That's it! NCI. They weren't very repsected, even back then with their loose grading. They came out with an interesting book on grading though that showed color patches over coinage, indicating wear and such.
The concept was good, just poor execution.