The Reiver Sale—were the coins first sent to NGC, then NCS (or vice-versa), and what controls were i

Longacre

I have some questions about the grading that took place as part of the recent Reiver sale. Does anyone know whether the coins were sent first to NGC, and if they could not be graded, then they were sent to NCS? Or was the process reversed in this case, and the coins were first sent to NCS because of the relative high incidence of coins that would not be able to be graded under NGC standards?

What controls were put in place so that the graders didn’t know that the coins were from the famed Reiver collection? I assume it would be hard for the graders not to know they were from this collection when the Brinks service started rolling in pallet after pallet of rare cents and other coins (I can just picture the grading room-- buzz among the graders when the coins show up…then the pit boss cracking the whip and yelling, “Silence! Get back to your grading cubicles immediately!!”). How could these coins remain anonymous, given their rarity? Were different body bag procedures used (e.g., “Graders, don’t bother wasting a body bag and providing a reason; just put it in that pile over there and it will get sent to NCS.”)? Were the coins given more or less scrutiny than normal?