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PCGS to grade ancient coins, finally
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“ At the ANA World's Fair of Money on August 26, we will share more about our impending launch of new ancient coin grading services in the US.”
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PCGS cannot keep up with current volumes.
And the bottleneck seems to be attribution and encapsulation, not grading.
How does this make things better?
Wrong priorities if you ask me.
Who said they’re trying to make things better?
The grading turnaround isn’t better.
The dismal Trueviews isn’t better.
The plastic slab prone to chipping isn’t better.
The rate of “mechanical error” isn’t better.
The customer service phone line isn’t better.
The Registry Sets rules changes isn’t better.
The registry set gallery view and digital albums that still don’t load all the coins selected isn’t better.
Their quarterly specials isn’t better.
Their magazine isn’t better.
The message board isn’t better.
The new grading fees effective 8/1 isn’t better.
Have I left anything out?
@atom
So… how many of the new PCGS red boxes can we put you down for?
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Nobody mentioned the new prices effective 01 August.
https://l.pcgs.com/coin-fees-forum
Two points that I dislike.
1) Walkthrough limit decreasing from $100k to $50k. So coins between $50-100k, the cost will now be $300 plus the 1% GP rather than the current $150 (so maximally up to $1150 extra for a $100k coin).
2) Low-priced world medals now need to go at a minimum of Regular at $42 rather than Economy or Modern/Modern Value.
You can take all the coins in China
Put it in a red box for me
Sail right around all the seven oceans
Drop it straight into the deep blue sea
Mentioned above:
The new grading fees effective 8/1 isn’t better.
NGC used to have red boxes (I presume for China). I bought a bunch and keep all my "do not sell" primary collection NGC coins in them. Maybe now I will do the same for my PCGS coins.
In August 2025, PCGS, with considerable hype, launched their "ancients grading service". To the considerable disappointment of the small minority of ancients collectors who actually wanted this, it turned out that this "ancients grading service" was somewhat restricted in scope:
- They would only accept Chinese cash coins, and only from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1850) - which is not a coin series that your typical ancients collector or even a typical Chinese cash coin collector would have considered truly "ancient". Ancient Greek, Roman, Celtic, Byzantine, Islamic, etc were not going to be accepted.
- They would be using their own bespoke 10-point grading scale, neither the Sheldon scale nor an NGC-Ancients-style multi-parameter grading matrix.
- They would only be operating this system out of the Shanghai office, so US-based collectors will have to pay for shipping to/from China.
Still, these people held out hope that perhaps this was merely the first stage in a multi-stage plan to launch fully comprehensive ancients grading. And so here we are, one year later, with a pending announcement for a US-based ancients service. I can only assume that this too will be another "baby step", rather than jumping in to grading every single type of ancient coin in existence.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Apparently I have been awarded the DPOTD twice.
I am willing to give it a try when more details are available.
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/gold/liberty-head-2-1-gold-major-sets/liberty-head-2-1-gold-basic-set-circulation-strikes-1840-1907-cac/alltimeset/268163
March of Time - 27 Centuries in Gold
https://coins.www.collectors-society.com/WCM/CoinCustomSetView.aspx?s=36590