Michael Philip Acosta

I just received my coin back from NGC  after a so called metallurgical analysis. The paperwork received gives the "XRF Elemental Analysis" separately for the obverse and reverse of the coin. It has a disclaimer at the bottom that results are based on "surface analysis only and do not reflect the composition of the core, which may be of different alloy." The two "Report of Analysis" documents, along with the web-based description of the Metsllurgic Analysis services imply that the entirety of the surface is scanned in the analysis, which is the only thing that would be useful and remotely worth the $75.00 service fee. However, in an email from NGC regarding my submission, NGC admits that only a "spot" on each side is scanned, which renders the conclusion meaningless in terms of overall surface composition, both because the measurement of the spot scan is undefined and because different spots could be entirely different. The service therefore useless and quite frankly false advertising. In my case, I was told that the reverse of my 1945 S Lincoln penny was 82% copper, 13% silver, and 4.5% zinc and the obverse was the no normal 95% copper and 5% zinc. These results can't be accurate, as the High Definition photos I paid NGC to take clearly show to the naked eye that the surface of the reverse is more than 13% silver and the obverse surface contains something amount of silver. NGC response to this was that only a "spot" on each side of the coin was tested. NGC refused to grade this coin by stating that it's NGCs position that the reverse had been electroplated with silver after leaving the mint. Even ignoring the silver bleeding through the obverse side, which appears to be the opposite (copper electroplated over silver), still how can NGC state that anything has been electroplated if it doesn't analyze the core? I did receive a partial refund, which I appreciate, but I am disappointed in NGC's shoddy analytical methodology of "spot" testing and its unfounded conclusions regarding electroplating without any core analysis. I am in possession of over 40 Lincoln pennies which have privately tested positive for silver content and was hoping to use NGCs metallurgical services to verify the exact composition, even if only for the surfaces. Now knowing that NGCs results would not be meaningful at all, I have to find a real lab to give me an accurate, meaningful, and therefore useful analysis of the surfaces or entirety of my pennies. NGC needs to either put the "spot analysis" disclaimer on its web description or commit to giving an entire surface scan so that these percentages are useful to people. NGCs metallurgic analysis service is a waste of time and money as currently configured.