What's The Difference Between PCGS And NGC Holders?

I have two problems with today's holders.

The first applies to both PCGS and NGC.
The "fingers" often get in the way of identifying some variety characteristics.

My second problem only applies to NGC holders.
Their white insert makes photographing coins considerably more difficult.

I don't have any interest in holders from other companies.

Information about NGC's holders can be found here: https://www.NGCcoin.com/coin-grading/holders/

About NGC's "board," I believe it is some sort of inert plastic. They don't say what the name of the plastic is, probably to keep it to themselves, but they do say it is the same they developed to hold the Smithsonian's coins, so I would think this means they are well-made and safe.

I think both NGC and PCGS holders are safe for long-term storage (I don't have experience with ANACS), as they were all designed to be inert and safe for the coins they hold. As for which is safer, I don't think there is a significant difference between the two under normal conditions within our lifetimes.

It's all in the cost. Ever go to a coin show and you'll almost always hear "of course it cost more, it's PCGS"

One thing I really don't like about the difference of PCGS and NGC plastic is NGC uses a shell casing that is highly shiny compared to PCGS. It highlights fingerprints and smudges terribly. I put a few morgans in the retro NGC black holders last year and I hate how shiny the plastic is with the black background. I'm a solid PCGS guy but even with my issues with NGC plastic I'll still use them for lower value errors sometimes as PCGS wants an arm and a leg and on a seperate submission with seperate shipping for errors.

I do not recall reading anything on PCGS' submission form alluding to an upgraded service such as this. Plus, one of my most recent PCGS-slabbed world coins came back to me with fine scratches on both sides:



PCGS requested close-up shots of both sides displaying the alleged anomaly. I just had to resubmit my slabbed coin to them using a pre-paid shipping label that they emailed me.

I attached a photo in this thread of how minor the scratches were just to emphasize that PCGS was more than willing to make things right no matter what the new scratches looked like.

My holder also had another odd phenomenon going on; check out the internally-located small piece of crescent-shaped discolored plastic; see the attached photo:



If a finger rubbed across both the obverse or reverse sides no undulations or roughness in the hard exterior slab cover could be felt above this internal half moon object. The scratches, on the other hand, could be detected by running a fingernail across the external surface...

Their rep. indicated that either issue would have justified a 100% PCGS-covered redo. I never received a 100% explanation on what actually happened and really didn't care since I'm sure my slab made them review their outgoing QC processes a bit more closely; plus my re-slabbed gold piece arrived immaculate the second time.

I speculate that most likely they were having some unique problems with their equipment at the World Coins site in order to have a double whammy like this one.

In summary, PCGS took care of everything politely and professionally including round-trip insurance, freight and any related processing fees.

I'm sure it did help expedite things, however, being that I notified them within 48 hours of receipt since it arrived to me on a Sat.

On a side note, the mark of any great company is their ability to quickly resolve unanticipated problems with minimal collateral damage to their reputation or to their customer's positive perception of the company.

The MSDS (https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media...tD7SSSSSS--) says it's a proprietary citrus extract. Guess that means don't eat oranges while sorting your PCGS coins.

Best guess then would be that PCGS uses polycarbonate (and a scratch resistant polycarbonate upgrade).

Polycarb or PC doesn't have great resistance to citric acid.

I always assumed it was PC with their scratch resistant PC and that NGC used PC as well but didn't have the scratch resistant material.

If the NGC's are more resistant to the same citric acid, this wouldn't seem to the be the case anymore.


On a side note, no excuse for Heritage to be using stickers leaving a sticky residue like that.

No reason you can't solve this problem within 30 days Heritage.

No reason other than lack of desire that is I guess.

Now that would be interesting.