Dan DJ

Thanks so much for this reply Sandon! I hope to go to one of the big shows in the somewhat near future, so I will probably wait like you suggested. I also want to meet people like you that are serious and experienced collectors. I love old coppers!

In real life the obverse of the coin looks untouched by NCS; the reverse shows signs of some debris being removed in 2 or 3 areas, but they left the green alone. It graded as Environmental Damage, VF details, and I hoped that the minimal amount of green being located in the planchette voids combined with the nearly 250 year age and circulated condition would have seen that as normal/minimal damage. My suspicion is that the many planchette flaws were observed as being corrosion by the grader, who I suspect is not a colonial coin expert since they didn’t catch the error on coin classification. Will never know for sure though. It would be nice if the invoice included notes from the grader to understand the reasoning for their grades. Thanks for the post!

From another post, it was determined that the Miller designation is not offered for the labels. Thanks!

I got this coin back from being graded by NGC and thought I would report back to this helpful forum community. Indeed the majority of you were correct in that it came back as being cleaned, and it is authentic. It is a bummer I couldn’t get the Miller designation on the label, because that correlates with the rarity and therefore the value. The “internet imaging” photo does not capture the true colors or details IMO, but I like how holdering the coin shows the significant rotation of this coin, nearly 45 degrees. Although I paid for NCS service, I am glad there is no discernible differences, especially since it is designed as cleaned anyway. Below shows the reverse NGC provided photo: I think my photos are better; what do you all think? Thanks everyone!

Well, I got the coin back now after submitting it to NCS/NGC (first submission ever) and I am reporting back as I said I would. Overall I am very disappointed with the grading service, and I doubt I will trust them again with my business. I don’t trust they properly graded my coin for several reasons. The main one is that they categorized it wrong (entered it as a 4 Cinq Pointed Rays Fugio, which it obviously is not) as soon as they unpackaged it, even though I had a detailed and correct description in my submission paperwork. I caught that right away and reached out, and then I was reassured that the actual grader will correct the error, but if they didn’t then I could contact service and get they would correct it before shipping, however all 3 layers of the service failed me, then they shipped the coin to me anyway. I now have to ship/submit it again to get it corrected. Although they will pay for to have it reholdered with the correct label I am told, I still need to fill out the paperwork again, pay for shipping again, plus wait another month to get it back. I also paid for the optional imaging services, but that too is disappointing, as the coin details and natural colors were not captured at all. My first attempt from my phone camera is way better IMO, as you can judge below yourself. All of that lack of detail/quality in their grading process makes me believe they did not grade it accurately either, which is my instinct for other reasons. NGC photo: My phone’s first photo attempt: The NGC photo makes it look too red as if it is water damaged copper, but in reality it is mostly a milk chocolate brown color. Now I have to decide what to do next; send it back or skip it and send it to the “other” big grading company. My worry about that 2nd option is they will claim it is cleaned (by NCS). Lessons learned I guess. :-(

Could you elaborate on what post-processing means please? Thanks!

My first coin submission is two colonial coins and I selected NCS. After they got entered into the system, I checked online and one of them has a wrong coin description, even though my form has the correct description. Should I be worried, or will this be corrected later in the process when it is actually graded?

FYI- I finally sent this coin into NCS, so we shall see what they can do if anything before grading it. I will post the result here when I get it back.

Phil, Thanks for that info. It is a real bummer that there is no reasonable way to get the Miller Number designation. I have seen lots of NGC coins with the designation, so I am confused as to why it is no longer reasonable to get that factored in. The coin value varies greatly when factoring in the Miller variety, so you would think NGC would want to charge more for the higher valued varieties.

Thanks for the post. This idea of environmental damage would make the most sense to me, because it was in a really old tin can with a ton of random old coins that were never cleaned. ALL: Despite the pictures, it does not look pink so much as orange; just the sun reflecting off of them changes the color to be lighter; it is really brown when not in the sunlight. I was trying to show the luster, not the color by putting it in direct sunlight. Thanks for all the feedback!

I hope you are right on all your points, thanks for the reply! I am likely to send in with NCS conservation.

Another coin I was lucky to acquire at a farmer estate years ago, and I will keep in my collection, is this1787 Fugio Cent (Round Club Rays - Newman 3-D). I am worried that the small spots of verdigris on the obverse are growing; if I submit it to NCS, will that conservation service stop the spread? Is this amount of verdigris enough to make it ungradable you think?

My photos don’t represent the color well; it is more of an orange color in sunlight. You make a really good point about the long history and the various parties that possessed it; I bought it from a farmers estate about 20 years ago in an antique tin can along with about 50 other coins; all of them are from the civil war (many tokens) and as far back as mid-1700s and some of those coins did have original coin luster, but this one does look different than the rest. Thanks!

Help! This is a 1787 Connecticut Colonial copper. I know this is a Miller 37.6-k.4 and it is a VERY late state die pair and, as is typical of the period, the planchet has many flaws too. I believe it will grade high, but before I submit it I would like to know if the apparent luster is from a cleaning or if it could be original. Knowing how I acquired it, it seems unlikely it would have been cleaned, and even if I am wrong, what type of cleaning would cause luster like this? Any thoughts are appreciated!

That sounds great, thanks for explaining!