You should have your coins photographed by NGC

Well, I have been holding this story in for awhile and thought I would share it with you all. About 2 years ago, I sent in some Morgan dollars to NCS for conservation work and NGC for grading. I got back all of my coins in mint state except for an 1880-P which I got back as an AU58. I was floored. When I compared them to the other graded coins I had, the coin looked just as good as the others, if not better. I was disappointed in the grade and thought oh well, I will just send it back later to get it regraded.

A year later, I sent in more Morgan dollars just for grading and decided to send in the 1880-P for a regrade. I began to read though that sometimes it was easier to just crack them out of the case and resubmit the coin raw instead of submitting for a regrade. I decided to submit the coin raw and take my chance. After all, the coin had been reviewed by NCS and NGC before so, there shouldn't have been a problem. I cracked it out and had it sent to NGC with the other coins. 2 weeks later, I got the coins back and to my surprise, the 1880-P had come back in a body bag saying "Improperly cleaned". I called up NGC and explained what I had done and of course they came up with all the excuses they could think of to explain why it came back in a body bag. He said that there was no way to tell if that was the same coin from before. I went on to tell him that actually every coin is unique with its own flaws(bag marks, toning, etc). If I had had the coin photographed, the evidence would have supported me and my claim but, I did not do that. I told them that I had sent it to NCS and to NGC for conservation and grading and neither one of them said it was improperly cleaned. This begs to question, can NGC really tell the difference between proper conservation and improper cleaning or did both of them miss it? Not sure. I don't let this one incident prevent me from submitting coins in the future but, I will now think twice about having my coins photographed by NGC before they are returned to me in case this problem were to happen again.

The photo is of my latest purchase. Nice toning.

Happy Collecting