Real Stinker Of An ICCS Grade. Anyone Else Ever Experienced This?

You're right, there is no email on their website that I could find. You can call them as they do answer the phone. Not sure what you can do though, besides verifying the code on the holder matches the denomination and grade.

yeah, certainly not an MS62..

Hi, I'm going to try to give ICCS the benefit of doubt with an explanation.

Victorian 5 cents are notoriously hard to grade since many were poorly struck. The coin is so small and light that often metal didn't flow into some of the high points like the braid and eyebrows on the obvs.

A weak strike can be difficult to differentiate from wear but the best indicator is remaining luster on the wear areas. However, weak strike luster will look different... Without the pressure of the strike this luster will look more fussy than cartwheel. From the video, that may explain the difference in color and reflection seen in the video.

Some of the hairlines look like they may be die polishing lines instead of hairlines.

Here is a picture from the video:



Die polishing is typically done with a rough polish and a following fine polish (think fineness like sandpaper). But it was inconsistent in the Victorian era. Since thy polishing is on the die and the coin as struck, it does not affect grade

You can differentiate die polishing from hair marks by seeing how the lines interact with the features of the coin.
- In that case of cleaning and hairlines on a coin, areas of the flat surface close to letters are protected so there is a slight halo effect (similar to how luster remains in these areas once a coin is AU) and cleaning marks go over the legends / letters
- die polishing lines go right up to the raised figures on the coin with no halo and do not go over them, since these are recessed on the die.

In the photo you can clearly see the lines going right up to the letters in CENTS and the date, but not over top of them. If this was cleaning, the lettering would be most affected not least. Although the portrait of Victoria is recessed on the die, it is wide and shallow enough recess for wire brush to polish those details.

I'm not 100% sure of this from the video taken but I think that may be an explanation of the grading.

Weak strikes and die polishing are a weird edge case for grading that always throws people off.

Maybe PCGS thought the colors were artificially done with chemicals and not natural aged toning. All the dark spots especially on reverse are probably environmental damage.

Maybe someone changed the coin's surface color after PCGS graded it, improved it's appearance, colored it to an all brown patina which could have improved the grade, it looks different in the ICCS photo. Or perhaps it's just the lighting. All the major grading companies sometimes get it wrong. I have a mislabled PCGS graded coin with the wrong year LOL

I don't know anything about ICCS so can't comment about them.

The PCGS TRUE VIEW photos are great for showing blemishes like the environmental damage on that large cent, but when you have the coin in (holder) in hand in might not be so apparent, which is I think what happens often when a PCGS or NGC coin with "details" gets cracked and submitted to other TPGs that don't have photo database. Unfortunately, it then becomes buyer beware when looking at the photos of a coin in a soft holder from ICCS or CCCS (Canadian TPGs). As previously mentioned, probably safe to stay away from a coin you can't return if you're not happy with it in hand. I will say though, IMO that that is still one hell of a coin...details or not, in that grade/condition. The store that coin is from in the ICCS holder (you can tell from the logo), is great. They accept returns if you aren't happy, and that's how all sellers should conduct business. I never hesitate to buy from them, even when the pictures might make me wonder...

There's a market reality to TPGs that exists whether we like it or not; they determine a marketable grade and until a coin is in a credible TPG holder, its marketability is diminished. In a perfect world, there would be no need for them but we live in this world where sadly, they're important to the marketability of the coin.

I believe ICCS may be (rapidly) diminishing as a credible grading entity, based on the grading standards the market now demands and some of their grading practices that have come to light.