My First Certified Celtic Coin..ambiani Gold Stater Of 1st C

Chris Rudd always provides documentation with his coins . Have you actually seen any examples of faked ancients being certified by NGC?...Im sure it could happen but I doubt it.

NGC cover themselves very well when it comes to ancient coins, I recall seeing something a while back regarding some mix up but can't recall the details. Anyway, this is what NGC have to say about their slabbing of ancients :-
[NGC Ancients will not grade coins that are of an ineligible type, are altered, appear to be unstable (internally or on the surfaces), which cannot be verified as authentic, or which do not have sufficient design detail to allow a minimally acceptable attribution. In these cases, fees are assessed as handling costs and insurance expense have been incurred, and the graders have engaged in the normal examination process in order to determine that a coin must be returned ungraded.

Counterfeit Coins
NGC Ancients will only grade coins it believes to be genuine. Coins considered counterfeit will be returned ungraded with the note, "NOT GENUINE." Also, NGC Ancients will not grade coins if authenticity cannot be ascertained by our staff experts and/or our network of consultants. In such cases, coins will be returned with the comment "AUTHENTICITY UNVERIFIABLE." This latter category may include coins considered genuine by other experienced professionals in the field.

While we make every effort to rely on the best information available, due to the inconsistency of opinions on these matters in the marketplace, no guarantee is made or implied about the authenticity of coins graded by NGC Ancients.]

Your's looks like a really nice example of the type. I don't agree with the 'grading' they have put on it, It looks far better than they have suggested. It would look better out of the case too

Thanks for the correction, though not needed, I am fully aware who David Vagi is and his bio. Anyone that can make a living by talking the talk without having to walk the walk has to be intelligent.
I still think they graded the original posters coin too low, stick to generally modern coinage for slabbing, expanding the market to ancient coins is just not needed and a little bit greedy.

Now we are getting somewhere. This is not a new topic, the great debate it has been referred to is buzzing all over the place. Have you read his later articles or watched the videos of him plugging slabs?

Have a read up and get back to me on it, a new thread preferably so as not to take away from the original poster.

Yes, it is greedy, absolutely so. He knows that a fair portion of the US market are slab crazy and as already stated on another forum, if you sell a nice ancient on a certain site, the slabbers will pounce, buy it up, get it slabbed simply for re-sale.

Of course he has 'walked the walk'. He grew up without a penny to his name, had a poor education and had to sift through thousands of crumpy coins to get a nice one, right....?

I admire your affection for the guy, but I don't agree with a lot of the things he writes about and I don't agree with ancients being slabbed. If they are so hot they need to be slabbed, give them to a museum so everyone can see them.

So to sum things up. You are telling me that slabs are a good thing so that people can make more money from collectors, great, thanks for that. This is from a veteran collector of ancient coins on from another forum.

[The role of the slabber is to make it possible for the ignorant to sell coins to the ignorant. I'd prefer to patronize those who have put a life's work into understanding their subject and who will stand behind their items with a lifetime money back guarantee. Do all sellers do business this way? No, but the ones that someone ready to buy his first expensive coin should. There is no reason to pay a third party for a service that you should be getting for free just so you can buy coins out of the back of a pickup at a flea market.]

The rest is totally irrelevant, I don't agree with the NGC concept and as such I dismiss them totally when buying ancient coins, i.e. I do not buy any in slabs. I referred to them having less knowledge than myself and if you took that seriously then I have 'no comment'. But just as I posted that, you dismissed the possibility of me having knowledge without even knowing me.

I will stay in the 'anti slab' corner, even if I am alone, as usual.

There is no point me trying to explain what I mean by the walk the walk comment. You could probably think of a million reasons to not understand that.

The coin in the first post is a nice coin, vagi and company can't possibly use the US grading method on ancient coins, it simply does not work.

I have a funny way of expressing things. I am gaining knowledge day by day but due to a time limit, as well as starting a little late in life, I lack the resources to learn a tenth of what he knows about ancient coins.
I see what your saying about the profit margin, we both have valid points here. It just pains me to see coins that I love to hold stuck into plastic for profit, after all, it is the collectors that will ultimately foot the bill!
It's quite nice for collectors to have a secure feeling that what they have is the genuine article, but at the same time if a dealer is unsure about an item then they shouldn't sell the item on in the first place, not without a lifetime guarantee.
Just read an interesting post.. apparently, an NGC slabbed ancient coin that is not ancient will generally sell for twice the price of a genuine coin from a point of someone wanting to own an 'NGC mistake coin', how strange is that?

excellent debate here on the subject of slabbed ancients..Due to the large ammount of faked gold staters on ebay and the market I decided that I would get mine certified so I could sell it easier..The buyer can always crack it out and if I cant sell it slabbed then I can do the same and sell it raw...I glad NGC gives a good option for dealing with the problem of counterfeiting and I understand the cynicism in the ancient Coin World about grading these coins moist of which have been cleaned anyways....remember..you can always crack it out. The fact that NGC fakes sell for a premium does say something about their accuracy.