ANA Authentication Bureau

[Tyrock]

I always find it amusing when I see something I've looked at for years and then discovered something new. I have a letter from the ANA which is dated 6/6/90. It details the sale of ANACS to Amos Press. What I've completely missed all these  years is the sentence that reads " ANA will retain its respected authentication service." I honestly missed that as I only paid attention to the part about the sale to Amos Press.  I researched it on the ANA's website and if I found the right information, they discontinued the service @ 2002.  I don't believe that it was very successful as the TPGS companies were also authenticating the coins they were grading.  Anyone remember it?

[LINCOLNMAN]

I can remember thinking at the time that retaining the authentication service seemed odd, but then in those days there may have been more people keeping their coins raw while making sure their purchases were authentic. I can see where there might still be a need, but obviously not a large one. I never thought about using the service as I was and am very interested in liquidity. Alas. 

[Conder101]

It was covered in the Slabbook. Due to a non-competition clause in the ANACS sale they were not able to start the service until a year after the sale.  ANAAB continued using photocertificates and never used slabs.  I have identified four different varieties of certificates used during their 11 year life.  From what I have seen they seemed to do mostly ancients and medieval coinage with some general world coinage (All areas that the "big guys" weren't willing to touch at that time.)

Their main problem, and what inevitably led to their demise was that they out of the mainstream items required extensive use of outside experts resulting in very slow turnaround.  Also the low volume made it difficult for them to retain the services of these experts.  Toward the end of the services life turnaround times were reaching as long as 8 months.  Finally the ANA shuttered the doors of ANAAB in Nov 2002.