What's your opinion on ANACS?

[GoldCoinLover-migration]

I'm from the PCGS forum and noticed there are lots of members from that board, here . I recently got my problem coin slabbed by ANACS. I am a new collector and was obessed to see if it was fake or not. It was a british gold 1913 soverign, with no mintmark. I wasn't familiar with gold coins at the time, and I noticed it had a small, round red dot on one of the sides. I didn't know what this was so I was pretty startled. I got it from a reputable grading company, which was American Gold Exchange.

 

So I wondered why it had this dot. From the PCGS many people told me it was a copper dot, which happens when there is an uneven mixture of copper and gold within the coin. And they assured me it was not counterfeit. Before I asked though, I took out my butterfly knife and put a few small (but noticeable) scratchs on the dot. I scratched most of the dot off and noticed there was more gold underneath. It was a very costly mistake.

 

I submitted my coin to ANACS knowing it would get slabbed as a problem coin (But getting slabbed none-the-less), and they could autheticate it which would make me feel better. Recently I got the coin back, here is the results of it:

 

UNC DETAILS NET AU 55

1913 SOV 2602419

GR BRIT SCRATCHED

 

 

The scratch took the grade from an MS-60 at least, all the way down to AU 55.

 

Anyway, the coin is slabbed. and I love ANACS small holders. What do you all think of ANACS, do you like them/dislike them?

[TomB]

I think ANACS is a fine grading service. While PCGS and NGC are co-leaders, in my opinion, I think ANACS is equivalent to them in many ways. Where they get hurt, again in my opinion only, is that I think they are a bit more inconsistent than the other two. That inconsistency manifests itself in grading slightly more leniently and in putting problem-free coins in problem holders (coins such as a VF30 with a tiny circulation scratch that is noted on the holder and net graded to VF20).

 

In your case you are fortunate that they slab problem coins. I'm certain others have told you this, but, that was an expensive lesson to learn from.

 

Welcome to the boards.

[GoldCoinLover-migration]

I think ANACS is a fine grading service. While PCGS and NGC are co-leaders, in my opinion, I think ANACS is equivalent to them in many ways. Where they get hurt, again in my opinion only, is that I think they are a bit more inconsistent than the other two. That inconsistency manifests itself in grading slightly more leniently and in putting problem-free coins in problem holders (coins such as a VF30 with a tiny circulation scratch that is noted on the holder and net graded to VF20).

 

In your case you are fortunate that they slab problem coins. I'm certain others have told you this, but, that was an expensive lesson to learn from.

 

Welcome to the boards.

 

I'm sure your right. On PCGS everyone thinks PCGS and NGC is better than ANACS. People do say, like you said, ANACS is less consistant. Do you believe ANACS is part of the top 3 major grading services? (PCGS, NGC, and ANACS). I don't think it's right for any service to body bag any coin (unless its counterfeit). You pay alot of money to get it slabbed, and then to get it given back raw, not even slabbed nor graded and not even given a refund is wrong IMHO. Thanks for the welcome. It also seems like there are more people on the PCGS boards, I could be wrong though ..

[TomB]

I would put ANACS up in the top three, with ICG as the fourth grading service, though others might feel less comfortable with ICG. As you write, it is a shame to have a coin come back in a bag and then to lose the entire submission fee. The grading companies might do this in part so as to avoid the chance of people flooding them with deceptive coins, though my gut reaction to it is that the grading services are greedy.

 

You are correct in that the PCGS board has many more users and these users post at a higher velocity. Currently, at NGC, the volume of the posts reminds me of the way the PCGS boards were about three years ago, before they became so popular. In case you are wondering, I am one of the "old-time" PCGS posters but have since posted only at NGC for about a year.

[GoldCoinLover-migration]

In case you are wondering, I am one of the "old-time" PCGS posters but have since posted only at NGC for about a year.

 

Understandable.I'm guessing you switched because of the ennormous posting velocity of the US coin forums on PCGS. It's huge. On a normal day on the evening of that day, you have to go back 3 pages to see the same posts early that morning! There are far less people on the forign coin part, but many more interesting threads on the US coin forums. Many of them are "dud" threads, which is incredibly annoying. Posts that have NOTHING related to coin collecting and are just plain stupid. There are also no moderators, unlike here.

 

Edited: This really is different! So far your the only person who has greeted me on the boards! And you and I are the only poster on this thread! It's like a personal conversation between you and me

[chinook]

Welcome GCL,

 

I would have to agree with just about everything Tom said. Because ANACS is sometimes inconsistant they have become my favorite for cherrypicking. You can oftentimes buy correctly graded coins for 10-20% less -or more- than if they were graded by NGC or PCGS. I recently crossed 8 out of 10 Indian head cents from ANACS to NGC and realized a 15% profit on resale. I also like that they will not send your coins back in a bodybag.

 

Sometimes this board is called Sleepy Hollow, but only because of less traffic. You will find the members here to be very knowledgeable and eager to lend a helping hand.

[jtryka]

Welcome Gold Coin Lover! As you might guess, I like gold coins too! As for your experience, I am sorry that you learned an expensive lesson, but at least it wasn't a total loss. Gold coins can be very tricky, and I must admit a raised dot on any coin I have gives me heart palpitations almost immediately! As for ANACS, I agree with Tom, and I place them and ICG as the second tier to the NGC/PCGS top tier, though I think it's a very minor distinction. I agree that ANACS can be inconsistent, but the few coins I have tried to cross to NGC, only one was rejected. The really nice thing about ANACS is that they can authenticate and net grade for problem coins, which is especially helpful in early series (can anyone really know how many bust coins, or early gold hasn't been cleaned or otherwise "messed with?"). I have a couple clasic head half eagles that have been net graded by ANACS, and they are terrific coins, one was cleaned, but the other was "sea salvaged" which intimates stories that a raw coin could never tell!

 

Welcome again to the boards, I hope you enjoy it here!

[lazeroo]

ANAC'S IS WAY COOL!!!!

They are really good at problem coins. and should be considered any time a coin is cleaned or scratched or maybe has other problems.

 

rob.

[Here]

I like ANACS. If they are at a show you attend they will look at your coins for you and give you a their opinion on the spot. I have also had dealings with American Gold Exchange, if it's the one out of Austin, TX. I have found them to be very helpful and honest.

 

Were the spots you talked about on your gold coin, carbon spots? If you just wanted to get it slabbed and authenicated, couldn't NCS help? Well, I'm new on this board also, but it's been great so far. Jerry

[Wihlborg]

Welcome to the board goldcoinlover!

 

I pretty much agree with what everyone else has had to say about ANACS so far. IMO they round out the top three grading services, right behind NGC & PCGS. One thing I will say about them is that when I was putting my Lincoln cent collection together, I found some very nice Lincolns for my set in their holders. I have also bought some really nice ANACS graded Jefferson nickels and Morgan dollars.

 

Just remember that the old advice to ‘buy the coin and not the holder’ is true no matter what initials are on the plastic.

 

John

[Hoot]

Hi goldcoinlover and welcome! I'd agree with chinook that ANACS slabbed coins are good for cherrypicking, but also with Wihlborg that you should buy the coin, no matter the holder. And because of their inconsistencies (as Tom mentioned), I'm very cautious about buying ANACS graded coins sight-unseen and only do so with a solid return policy.

 

Hoot

[reid1836]

Welcome to the NGC boards GoldCoinLover.

I think ANACS has earned a good reputation in the market place. I would consider them to rank third among the grading services. I prefer coins that do not have any problems though. That is to say when purchasing a coin graded by ANACS I only look for for those coins that have not been net graded. But, I think that by still encapsulating even problem coins ANACS has provided a valuable service to the collecting community. As many rare coins have developed problems over the years in one form or another. I think should still be encapsulated in order to prevent further damage.

.

[jhollan2]

I totally agree with all the above postings. As a new collector, I sent off a large amount of coins to ICG and NGC. Quite a few came back as "no grades" for various reasons. ICG was nice enough to credit my account for the no grades and I do believe thats the right thing to do. NGC, however, sends them back in plastic with a pre-printed label that they check off as the problem. This has discouraged me from sending them the entire collection, I think I'll take the cut in value and send them to ANACS who will authenticate them for me and explain the problem.

 

I'd agree that ANACS would be placed third, and that ICG is a close fourth. ANACS' prices are a bit more reasonable on silver coins. To be honest, though, and not to slam NGC because I do trust their evaluations, I question the "independance" of any of these companies in light of the recent endorsement battle. (watch me get jumped on for that one). I just think that you shouldnt be able to buy an endorsement...kinda defeats the purpose...

 

As I was trying to figure out an understanding of my new "hobby" I subscribed to "coin world" and even watched the TV rip offs. I'm a little worried that NGC is so closely tied to them. Although one could argue that the networks use NGC because they are the best, there may be a more sinister problem. When one or two entities are submitted the bulk of their business (as was said on both networks quite proudly as they try and convince you to buy their coin because of grading fees), and setting the market by grading thousands or hundreds of thousands of coins, is there a temptation to "bend" consistency in favor of the hand that feeds you? They couldnt build a set of MS 69 silver dollars if there werent enough 69s...For that reason, I wonder if coinworld's ranking of ICG as most consistent grading company mights skew the rankings of "top companies".

 

Just a thought...

-Jill

[EZ_E]

re: I just think that you shouldnt be able to buy an endorsement...kinda defeats the purpose...

 

Amen!

 

Jill, my opinion about having the entire collection graded: I think that perhaps that is a little too enthusiastic. Based upon your aptitude, I'd learn a little more first in order minimize grading fees on junk/ordinary/common coins. *

 

If you insist upon sending in vast quantities, then I'd suggest ICG. They have wonderful holders and are somewhat respected.

 

If you have some keys or high quality coins then I would certainly recommend NGC or PCGS for obvious reasons.

 

* Yesterday, I just reviewed a fairly large collection. It belonged to a Radiologist's father who died in 1995 at the age of 91. He had a well organized collection of buffaloes, mercs, indian head cents, etc and they were all in 2X2 holders. However, disappointingly, his entire collection (which I saw although more is to come) were just common dates/grades. I think that the best coin that I saw was an 1899 Indian cent in AU that was red and had nice luster. He had four sets each of the 1960-1964 proof and mint sets. Unfortunately, there were no cameos in the bunch. Don't know if there were any full-step nickels since I didn't have a loop with me. Anyway, just because there is a vast collection does not necessarily justify the costs of a third party grading service.

 

Great post anyway, Jill. I've appreciated your prior posts and input.

 

Victor

[jhollan2]

Isnt there a benefit, though, in having them encapsulated so that they will be preserved?

 

-Jill

[airplanenut]

Isnt there a benefit, though, in having them encapsulated so that they will be preserved?

 

-Jill

You can buy holders such as Air-Tites or CoinWorld "slabs" that are much cheaper than grading

[TomB]

As Jeremy has pointed out, there are other ways to protect the coins without going through the rather extreme method of slabbing.

 

Like most of us here, I have many more raw coins than slabbed coins. Some of these coins are in albums such as Whitman Classic or Library of Coins (the Library of Coins albums are no longer made), some in Capital Plastics holders, others are in Kointain holders and some are in 2x2 cotton pouches that are then placed in Kraft envelopes. Many folks also like to keep coins in 2x2 mylar holders, 2x2 hard plastic Whitman holders or 2x2 flips.

 

Depending on the method, these methods of storage can be quite safe, can display your collection easily, are inexpensive, can take up relatively little space or can be easily transported. My advice to you would be to hold off on getting the bulk of your coins slabbed until you have a real feel for the value of the pieces as you might simply end up throwing your money into something that isn't needed.

[mhinchley-migration]

I think Anacs is "OK". However I rarely buy their coins because they often grade problem coins with a net grade without noting the problem. I prefer PCGS and NGC. I also rank them just below ICG (whom I feel is an under-rated company). I do believe that they are a solid company all in all though. I will buy their coins, just not sight unseen. I must be able to view them first. NOTE: as you did, and many others do as well..........I send my 'problem' coins to them for grading, since they are the only respected 3rd party who will grade them, rather than bag them.