Landon Collection Canada Large Cents

You have it mostly right Macdon . Use all that money you were going to give to the U.S. TPG s and treat yourself to some nice carefully selected ICCS graded pieces. Another strategy for copper rather than leaving the super choice ones in ICCS holders is to get them into CCCS hard holders as a cross grade. Of all the recent US TPG grading and results that I have seen ( many) it may come as a surprise but ANACS appears more conservative than either of NGC or PCGS lately. Speaking to more than a few dealers at both the Portland ANA and at the just completed Las Vegas show they concur.
I was offered an AU-53 1870 LCW half PCGS half in their so called Secure Holder that was maybe EF 40 ICCS or CCCS.
The whole grading scenario is quite amusing really. My advice buy nice coins with excellent eye appeal at your price, irregardless of whose opinion or type of plastic. When you master that task your coins will be easily sold when the time comes.
Buy the coin not the holder.

bosox & SPP...I do have to agree. Differences in Canadian coins graded by the two companies varies more with certain series than others. Nobody would know this better than you bosox when it comes to the Canadian large cents. I also prefer higher grade Canadian coins and have found most of them end up in holders by one of those two companies. Because sometimes there is differences in the two company's grading, it makes it more necessary than ever to see the coin before before making purchases.

@Pacificoin I think you and others are right about the " buy the coin and not the holder" Ive been resistant to that idea but I "see" what you mean, Landon collection kinda gave me a wakeup call to what truly is meant by eye appeal and I feel enlightened I truly do... I think I was getting sidetracked and forgetting why I like the hobby.

After buying hundreds of coins of all TPGs, my experience with Canadian Victorian material is this:

PCGS and ICCS generally agree up to VF20.

PCGS is a little weak in the VF30-AU53 range.

ICCS on the other hand, is extremely inconsistent in the VF20-EF40 range.

I've had ICCS VF20 coins look solid EF and cross-grade to PCGS EF40.
I've also had ICCS EF40 coins that looked no better than VF20.

By far the worst thing about ICCS is dealers hiding cleaned/retoned/hairlined/damaged coins in ICCS flips that would never pass PCGS.

To me, ICCS is not a respectable TPG company. If you grade and encapsulate damaged coins with no label to designate them as such, coins that would not pass ANY other TPG in the world (PCGS, NGC, ANACS, ICG), then you cannot call yourself a respectable TPG. I have far more respect and trust for ICG than ICCS.

And ICCS is CERTAINLY not the "standard" of Canadian coin grading, as someone said earlier.

Any Canadian collection of any worth, will never find itself housed in ICCS flips (Pittman, Belzberg, Norweb, etc).

The thousands of damaged coins that ICCS has turned a blind eye to, has damaged its reputation forever, certainly in the global marketplace.

With the Landon collection, I would not dare to buy ANY Landon coin unless closely examined in hand.

this has been a very informative discussion regarding the Landon Collection and more recently the grading by TPGs of Canadian material...The fact that ICCS was chosen to grade the Landon coins and, in particular to our discussion, the Large cent MS collection states the obvious that ICCS is a highly respected firm amongst the Canadian Numismatic Industry....Personally I find sending any coins to a PG agency a gamble and have been dissapointed by all of them at some time or another...I have examined quite a few Landon Large cents in the MS64 and 65 range and dont agree with ICCS on a few of them but I have confidence that ICCS has a bigger picture than I do...All these companies see the bigger picture in the vast ammount of material pouring into their hands for grading ...and we demand they give us a verdict and a protective vehicle for our rare coins.....Business is a product of demand and I will be curious to see if many of the Landon ICCS graded coins will be sent for cross grading to the USA or other Canada TPGs and how they will be labelled and treated.....