CCCS, ICCS, Or PCGS Pro And Cons Of Each Grading Services For First Time

ICCS is probably the quickest in getting your coins back (2 weeks). $12 per coin on a 2 week tier. Paper form. Personal cheque as payment.

CCCS can be slow (I've heard easily over a month). $10-$14 per coin (depending on volume). Paper form. Personal cheque for payment.

PCGS/NGC. Need a yearly membership (or submit through a dealer). About a month on an economy tier. #20-$25 USD per coin. Online or paper forms. CC payment.

As far as bills

BCS. Good turnaround. $10-$15 per note. Cheque only. Some complaints that the grading is unreasonable conservative.
PMG 30 days. $25-$40 per note. By far the biggest and most reputable. Probably holds most world notes. Expensive.

Keep in mind the exchange and shipping will add to your sost. Especially into the US.

The main thing to ask yourself is why are you wanting to pay someone else to tell you their opinion of a coin's grade? Reading online and in books can allow you to figure it out for yourself.

You also can get expert opinions here on this forum for FREE. Post the coin online with decent pics and there are more than enough experienced people who are willing to help. The thing is, that unlike the companies, you will be able to ask a CCF member why they graded the coin the way they did. TPGs will not. Part of their business model depends on them staying non-accountable.

If you want to slab to get a higher profit selling on ebay - then slabbing is the way to go b/c there is an artificial value assigned by the internet masses to slabbed coins. Why artificial? B/c if you crack a slabbed coin out of the plastic and resubmit it, you are never guaranteed it would come back the same grade.

Slabbing is non-essential to the hobby (just how many years were people collecting coins before it was thought someone needed to pay someone else to grade their coin?), and has become popular though the internet. It has been developed by taking advantage of the psychological desire of humans to have "expert" verification - valid or not.

Which grading service is best?

Although they all have their own followers and PCGS is typically seen as "best." However, its al part of the game.

Prove it?

How could there even exist a company now getting people to pay them for a CAC sticker? The CCAC sticker "better-than-TPGS experts" supposedly verify the "experts" at the TPGs were "expert" enough to do their job right!!

And of course, as is human nature, trends are now that the masses will pay more for the "expertly graded" and slabbed coin that has been "better expertly graded" by the guys making money by selling CAC stickers!


The saddest part is that when the slabbing self-proclaimed- experts first started our, the local collectors and I used to joke about opening a company that would ask people to pay to verify the slabbing company was doing their job right. What we actually said back then (please forgive as it sounds negative - but it IS what we joked) was that we knew "no one would ever be stupid enough to pay hard earned cash to someone saying they could 'grade' a graded slab!"

Believe it or not, a couple years ago, there was an upstart company who knew their "better better experts" could verify the CAC stickers! The public was not ready for it yet, but give them some time.

Where does it end?



Its all about marketing. They have built a way to divert money from collectors into their own coffers. The TPGS keep making up news ways of selling the product (different looking labels, having celebrities sign the labels - like the pawn stars guy who recently did, having people post pics of their slabbed collections online at PCGS to see who can have the best set, etc.).

Slabbing has actualy hurt the hobby b/c it used to be that every individual coin had its own value based upon its mintage and mint mark. Slabbing unintentionally put the focus of the hobby onto key coins of a series. The term "junk silver" now refers to any silver coin that is not a key - this is very, very sad and robs people of the fun we used to have with EVERY coin - not just keys.

I have other facts from former graders, etc. that I found while researching this thread's question for myself when I got back into the hobby five or so years ago after a ~25 year hiatus.

Being a former teacher I just like to make sure that people think and become a bit more educated about the facts outside of the marketing world.

I want to add though, if a person likes to collect slabs b/c they like the slabs and how they look - then good for them! Go for it and have a great time . A hobby is about what the individual desires to do for fun. Its your money to spend - so do with it what you like.

There are pros and cons for all three services (ICCS, CCCS, and PCGS) that you mention. There is an exhaustive amount of discussion on this topic in the forum, just try the CCF search engine and happy reading...

Also - there is no right answer here. We all have our own reasons and opinions for using the grading companies we each prefer.

ICCS and BCS both have very reasonable bulk pricing and overall turnaround. BCS is offering a summer special on a minimum of 10 notes and there are dealers who will regularly submit 100 coins or more at a time to ICCS and may let you piggyback off their order.

Although it's been debated before, 3rd party grading services should also be in the business of authenticating the item being submitted not just slapping a number on it and taking your money.

Obviously before you choose whom you're going to send your coins or banknotes to, you need to ask yourself 'does the collector value of the item warrant the expense?'

In most cases you can kiss your $8 to $15 goodbye as you'll never get that out of the selling price however buyers, particularly those with no grading skills will put more faith in graded rather than raw material.

I've never owned a raw coin valuable enough to consider submitting to ICCS but did not hesitate to have my replacement, radar and insert notes that I pulled from circultion certified by BCS.

They're not only protected but easier to identify and put a rough estimate on for whoever ends up looking after my estate when I'm gone.

Thanks to everyone who's contributing. I've learned alot such as ICCS slabs are not good for large coins.the names of a few other companies I need to research especially if I want to send bills and so much more (I've read this all in detail I'm just not gonna summarize it from my phone)

It made me think long and hard about why I wanted to slab them. I feel like my answer is not so great xD. It's a bit wasteful but I kind of want to go through with it for two reasons. One I want to test a bit of my skill I am comfortable grading most coins from ag-au but ms has eluded me a bit. I want to be able to hold one or two of my ms coins in my hands and be able to see the difference. Same with bills. The second reason was I wanted the experience of sending coins for grading so that I could learn all the ins and outs that are sometimes hard to learn through just reading. See the hidden costs.

But I have to say the one reason I wasn't expecting came up in our discussion is the ability for whoever inherits it after me to be able to get value out of it... or at least to preserve it. I love the idea of taking the coins and protecting the coins for the next generation to enjoy just like I did when I inherited them from my great aunt.

PCGS is very easy to use with the online forum. The best membership option is the one with the 8 coin voucher, it is more expensive upfront but it saves you money on the 8 coins when you use the secure plus regular service. I would renew my membership every submission if they would let me. PCGS or PMG for bills, never used either but do know that the turnaround time for bills is significantly slower.

The top TPGs aren't snakeoil salesman and never have been which is why their businesses grew to what they have and are as accepted as they have. I would highly recommend doing it yourself as opposed to using a dealer. The bigger dealers can get better rates but that can also mean they have slower turnaround times and they generally charge you a fee for doing so anyway so you really don't save much if anything. From the companies you listed the PCGS holder is by far the most protective being the sealed hard plastic case and their slabs now are waterproof as well. I wouldn't take a bath or go deep sea diving with them, but if you spill a drink on the slab you can just wipe it off and no damage should be done. There have been quite a few coins saved where the slab got destroyed but ate the damage the coin would have in a soft sleeve or 2x2.

okiecoiner wrote!




I agree 100% with okiecoiner!