ICG Changes

Hello ND,
I saw it on the ICG site:

http://icgcoin.com/p050714.htm

It said he is no longer with ICG

Very interesting indeed. I met Mr. Taylor at the F.U.N. show in Florida as well as the last Palm Beach show in West Palm Beach. His enthusiasm about the ICG product/service was one of the reasons I gave ICG a second look. I submitted coins for grading and was very pleased with the service/product as grades for some of my semi-key date Lincolns were right in line. Grey Sheets have ranked ICG ahead of PCGS and NGC:

http://www.greysheet.com/

This is NOT a fluke as ICG has been running even with, and mostly ahead of PCGS and NGC.

Also, Mr Taylor believed that the ICG slab with the Intercept Shield was the ultimate in slab protection and presentation for your coin. Couple that with the company rule that none of the employees can buy/sell coins really impressed me about ICG.

Now...he is going to a competitor. Personally, I had opportunties to work for my competition, but I refused as I knew that I would have to go back to my customers and convince them that everything I used to say was "no good" and that they should now change gears. I felt my integrity would have been damaged.

I couldn't do it and I wonder if Mr Taylor is going to have the same enthusiasm for ANACS as he had for ICG. ANACS sure could use help in customer service. 120 days for services to be rendered (after they IMMEDIATELY cash your check/credit your VISA) is ridiculous. No email or feedback that your coins were received is another pet-peeve I have with ANACS. Their slabs may be smaller, but are they as good as PCGS, NGC or ICG for protection and all? In my opinion, they are not as tough and as good as the other top 3 TPG's.

So I wish Mr. Taylor well and I sure I will see him at the Palm Beach show later this year. I am sure something must have happened as we will find out what REALLY caused him to leave for ANACS.

Interesting indeed...

Hello Mike,
I for one have had a few problems with ANACS lately. I send all of my Indian cent Varieties to ANACS for attribution and holdering. The last two 5 day sevices have taken at least 18 days each, when asked about them, they tell me they received them 4 or 5 days later than the Postal receipts show. I don't mind things being a little late sometimes, but when they sign for something one day and tell me they received it 4 days later, that angers me.I've talked to James numerous times at shows, and he also belongs to our Fly-In club talk forum. He seems to be a fair person and very dedicated to the hobby, I think he can and will make ANACS a better service. It was a bit of a shock to see he's moved, and I only have his old ICG email address, thought someone here might know what position he was given at ANACS. I'll let you know if he post anything about it on the FIC board.



Later,

Mike...

Let's put grading aside for a minute. My beef with ANACS is that their customer service and response is poor and slow. Just because I sent in coins under economy service doesn't mean they should take nearly 4 months to render their services. They immediately deposited my check, only to play with "my" money for 4 months! I never received an email with a trackng number or "something" that showed they actually received my coins. When I called, their attitude was, "What do you expect for economy service?". Not deterred, I tried them again and this time it took "only" 107 days (in house) for them to complete their service.

I have heard from a number of collectors about issues that "daveyn" experienced...5 day (in house) service that took 18 days to complete. That's not acceptable and if your services are clearly advertised, you need to deliver. If you don't, then you should receive a voucher or something. Customer service is rewarded when you think of it. Remember Dominoe's Pizza when they first came out? Your pizza was delivered in 30 minutes or less...if not, your pizza was FREE. Maybe they don't have the best pizza, but customers loved their service!

In the above example, ANACS tried to claim the coins were "in the mail" when most of us that submit coins can easily track shipments and see to the minute when it was received. Their excuse was just that, another excuse for poor service.

As for their slabs...one of the main reasons why we slab other than authentication and grade opinion is protection and presentation of the coin. An ANACS slab doesn't offer nearly the protection like PCGS, NGC or ICG. ICG has it right with the Intercept Shield. NGC has recently started using air-tight sealed slabs. Try busting open a recent NGC slab, their slabs are built like a tank! Busting open an ANACS slab is relatively easy and you think they could of upgraded their slab as others have done.

Back to grading. I agree that ICG is more "liberal" with the modern proofs and modern coins (MS67 or better) and believe they should watch this area of their business closely. ANACS is NOT ranked very high in the grey sheets and when it comes to prices realized for auctions, their slabs fall behind NGC who is way behind PCGS. At least their prices obtained are better than ICG, but ICG has only been around for less than 10 years. ANACS has been around long enough to perfect their product, so why hasn't it? Poor marketing? Poor sales? Poor customer service?

So maybe James Taylor can "whip" their customer service into shape. They sure need it, otherwise, they will loose business just like any other business that takes their customers for granted.

Zakgold, have you ever called customer service? I called them today to enquire about a special on gold grading and brought up daveyn's allegation. I was told that on gaurenteed service, for any coin that took beyond the five days a free voucher should have been issued. Call 1-800-888-1861 and present these issues to Customer Service. Please call them as I am dying to here how they handle it. I have had nothing but positive experiences with contacting them.

PCGS is the king of crap when it comes to delaying orders. Anything is an excuse not to deliver on time for twice the money. Again, can you point out some ANAC'S slabbed coins that have suffered from poor packaging? Or are just judging them by how hard they are to open? Post an e-mail after you call them with these complaints and tell us how they were handled.

I can't answer for economy service, but charging your card 107 days early sounds like a mistake and is totally out of line. 107 days turnaround sounds like "lost" to me! What time estimate were you given on economy? There are saying 6-7 weeks right now, about the same as PCGS......Mike

For what it's worth, I have sent in 3 coins in the past month to ANACS. I called to find out how long their economy service turnaround was and was told 6 weeks, so I used the 5-day. The coins were back to me within 9 days. Since I sent them First Class Mail and they FedEx overnighted back, that makes exactly 5 days in their facility.

I have been very pleased with them and am impressed by their grading. I have not seen one yet that I disagree with (which is a lot more than I can say for PCGS and NGC). I love their grading standards and the fact that they will net grade. I am also comfortable with the fact that I could break out these coins and send them back and get exactly the same grade from ANACS (something else that can't be said for PCGS or NGC).

To be honest, I haven't seen much of ICG and don't have an opinion as to their grading. Out of the approximately 20 that I've seen, the grading seemed okay and I really liked their slabs.

Personally, these days, I'm leaning very heavily towards ANACS. NGC has sold itself to ebay and PCGS is selling itself to the highest bidder (in my opinion). Yes, coins in these slabs will get more money, but I'm much more interested in selling an accurately represented coin.

Hello Everyone,
now don't get me wrong here, I know it doesn't sound like it, but ANACS is still my choice of services. I too like the fact that they will net grade a coin, I never went along with the idea that a coin could just be a nothing. I know some people would never buy a net graded coin,the stigma of "cleaned" "whizzed" or "recolored" really turns them off. I collect for the variety, and some of the coins I find may have been dipped once, but as long as it's not too severe it's OK with me. I will give them a call to discuss the 5 day submissions, I just assumed it was a result of the changing of ownership, and thought no more of it until this thread. I really do think the addition of James Taylor to ANACS was a great move on their part, and a great benefit for those of us who use AMNACS.

Later,