Dubious Grading Services

According to the latest Numismatist, at the urging of the ANA, ebay will no longer accept coins as "certified" unless they're slabbed by one of the top four (PCGS, ANACS, NGC, and ICG). This does not preclude sellers from selling coins slabbed by non-rated companies; they merely cannot select "certified" in the description. I'm not sure when this new policy became effective nor how effective it will be nor have I tried to sell a slabbed coin to see how the new policy is executed in the listing process. However, it's a step in the right direction.

Fred

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I'm far more concerned about the bogus PCGS and NGC slabs that will soon be hitting the market from Asia. I've already seen questionable slabs out there, and given how the top-tier slabs command higher prices and almost blind trust, it's only a matter of time before forgery of these becomes rampant.

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Already happened. Fake ANACS slabs (small sized for problem coins with the blue logos on the front label) started showing up on ebay in July I believe. The first fake NGC slabs began showing up in September. If you search there are threads on them here in this forum.

To date we have not identified any new fake PCGS slabs, but that doesn't mean thet they aren't out there, just that we haven't recognized them yet. But if they have faked the other two, I'm sure PCGS won't be far behind.

As to the policy on ebay, it went into effect in September but without enforcement until Oct 1st. Even then it took a couple weeks for ebay to get going.

Under the policy the only coins that can have numerical grades mentioned in the title are coins slabbed by PCGS, NGC, ANACS, and NCS. Or currency graded by PCGS or PMG. Numeric grades can be mentioned in the description, but you can not mention the name of any but the services listed above even in the description.

ICG may have been added to the accepted list but I am not sure. SEGS is currently gathering signatures and petitioning to be allowed to have their name added to the group.

Another requirement of the new policy is that you must have front and back pictures of the entire slab in the auction. Many sellers have complained about this because of the time involved and having to pay for the extra picture of the back of the slab. This is not really a valid argument though since a good seller already makes images of both sides of the coin and if they don't like paying for an extra picture all they have to do is ether combine the two images into a single image, or host their pictures on a picture hosting site and then they can link them into the auction at no cost by putting the HTML link into the description. That also has the advantage of providing larger images withhout paying extra for that. (Hosting the images on ebay's server is silly the images posted are too small to really be useful.)

ebay does not do much active searching for auctions that violate these new rules (They do some though.), but they are not MUCH quicker at shutting down reported auctions that violate the rules. Especially if they are reported through the Selling-Coins fraud link and not the report this auction link at the bottom of every auction.

Hi all,

I'm not a coin collector, but Corey Brower recently posted an ad on Craigslist that he is looking for more ebay auction listers. The email address listed was. Keep an eye out for that email address now too! I spoke to him on the phone (he posted a phone number too), and he said all the listings would be done through MY account. This immediately set off an alarm in my head. I've done legit work for ebay sellers before, but it was done through Turbo Lister, and I never listed any auctions under MY account.

So, I decided to do some detective work, which ultimately led me here. I want to report this guy to the authorities and get him caught! I read articles about the GreatStone mortgage fraud before I came across this. I thought they could possibly be different people, but after reading the comments here, apparently they ARE the same person. Corey also told me on the phone that he and his wife were in the process of moving to Voorhees, NJ. Wonder if that's true?

I'm just really glad I trusted my gut instinct and didn't get involved with any of this! I would like to do SOMETHING though, to try to prevent others from being scammed! What can I do?

<<<Edited by Tights24 to remove email address from post. I understand it wasn't yours, but we try to keep all email addresses out of posts>>>

To clarify: When I said I compared the coins, I meant to other coins I alreaady owned at the time, not pictures off of ebay or any other website.

It is scary to read about NGC and PCGS counterfeits! I bought many slabs in the last one week just out of my trust in seeing their labels. I hope they design slabs in such a way that its authenticity can be verified, like may be a chip that has the encrypted surface scan of the coin embedded in the slab.

Shalom,

A question: Out of all the people who posted on this thread why direct your question to me? I found some information regarding what was being discussed earlier and posted it. Now to address your question. The fact that the judge handed down a lengthy prison sentence to the couple and the fact that they were the ones placing the coins and assigning the grades into these basement slabs is how this particular ponzi scheme affect the grading service they owned. Secondly I will address your comment about seeing no reason to return the coins you purchased because they were rated by this company. You may want to go back and read the entire thread again. No where in it did I request, suggest or demand you return your coins to anyone. Where you by your coins from and what you do with them is your business.

Probably used to work for HSN and I'm sure are seasoned Numismatists