The coins best grading service

NGC and PCGS are good, ANACs is pretty good as well

And I will add that Anacs does more variety/error coins than the others and has been in the business longer than both. Only downside
is that because of over grading by the two others, Anacs slabs go for less on the market. It's no longer just a hobby, it's big business now.

If you mean resale price, PCGS than NGC than ANACS then anything else.

I think NGC does more old coins than PCGS or at least used to.

Actually, the first grading company was ANACS (American Numismatic Association Certification Service) which started grading coins in the early '70's (1972?)

While ACG (AccuGrade) was the next grading company to open, collectors with extensive experience in graded/slabbed coins generally do not include ACG in the top three, or even consider the grades to be reliable. There have been numerous legal actions involving this company and known circulated and problem coins that were graded/encapsulated by ACG as uncirculated and problem-free coins. I have seen quite a few ACG coins in the past 10 years that were grossly overgraded.

If you are satisfied with ACG grading, that is fine, but most collectors only rank PCGS, ANACS, ICG, and NGC as the top respected third-party grading companies. On a side note, I have been very pleased with classic coins graded by SEGS, also.

PCGS and NGC have been slabbing problem coins for about three years now. Body bags are almost unheard of now.



While ANACS opened in 1972 they did not begin grading coins until 1979. And there were several other grading companies between ANACS and ACG. ACG's claim to fame was as the first US company to use sealed hard plastic slabs.



ACG did not win a settlement, ACG and the Defendants settled out of court.



There have been several legal actions involving ACG, but I don't know of any over them slabbing circ and problem coins as Unc and problem free.

Conder, thank you for the correction and clarification. I should have worded my post a little better and done some research. I was relying on my memory which is never a good idea.

While the legal action was not against ACG for their grading practices, their grading practices were the indirect cause of the lawsuit since ACG brought the suit against individuals, companies, and forum site owners to combat what they felt was slander. Discussions were rampant about the inaccuracy of ACG grading. The only reason that those discussions have ceased is that the company is no longer in business.

For what it's worth, out of the approximately 25 ACG graded coins that I have seen in-hand, around 15 of them were what I consider to be grossly over-graded (2 or more levels above the actual grade such as Fine instead of Good) and approximately 5 were overgraded to the next level. In my opinion, only five (20%) were accurately graded.

While I understand that grading is subjective, the difference between a circulated and uncirculated coin is pretty objective and two of the coins I looked at were clearly circulated yet were in uncirculated slabs. These were Indian head cents that were definitely not due to strike issues.

I think it is safe to say that knowledgeable people who are buying coins in ACG slabs are buying the coin, not the holder, and are paying the money for the true grade, not the grade assigned by ACG.

Since the OP wanted to know who "the most respected grading service" is, I feel that it is very important to make it clear that, in the opinion of the knowledgeable collectors, experts, and dealers that I know, ACG is not highly respected now and wasn't considered to be "top tier" when they were still in business.