Buy The Slab, Not The Coin!

I went to the website.

I assume universalgrading.com. If you type that in, what you get pretty much tells the story of the company.

Yea round
Does it grade MS64 Crazyb0
John1

And here I was all prepared to drop a bomb on someone.

Just Crazy...

I like that. I've never seen that slab before either.

There are two other companies that use the same style of a slab and the same kinds of promotional "made in the USA" language.

I have about 6-10 styles of these in my collection.

UGS
NGS (NuGrade)

6tttttttttttttttttttttttuyyyyyyyyyyj7 <-- had to run upstairs to get my bucket and one of the cats is trying to help

TruGrade

Interestingly most of the coins in these slabs are NOT the typical Morgans and Peace dollars of other older slabs. Don't know whether they were all cracked out or this was just a less expensive grading company for less expensive coins...

Actually, a nice slab - hard polycarbonate plastic, nice square design, stacks well. (Polycarb, also know as Lexan is used in bulletproof windows)



Your UGS' cert#s fit between my 0006697 and 0015767.
I also have a 51718 (no leading zeros) where the label background is white not gray - this is a 1995 Atlanta Olympics basketball half.

So they were in business at least post 1995



NuGrade - I have two styles and several of them are 2004 50SQ. Certs I have go up to over 37K.

www.nugrade.com is in the Internet archive from 2004-2006. In 2009 it was captured out of service and by 2011 it appears to be some kind of web auction referral page.

This capture from 2005 describes the service: https://web.archive.org/web/20050303215458/http://www.nugrade.com:80/ and submission form (PA addresss): https://web.archive.org/web/20041023104342/http://nugrade.com:80/form.pdf


UniversalGrading.com is in the internet archive only for 2006 and then again in 2016. Both the 1st and last captures are IIS7 (!) initial setup pages. There is a 2006 capture: https://web.archive.org/web/20060809233804/http://universalgrading.com:80/ and their rates page tells the story: $3/coin. New Jersey PO box and phone #.


For TruGrade, I find them more frequently than the other two.

Three styles of obverse label (with two color varieties of one).

The earliest (I have cert#s from 359 -> 41681) is (left side) a Blue box with "TruGradeSERVICE" in it, coin information underneath. (Right side) Grade.

Two varieties of reverse label (359 -> just over 10K) with the coin description, the blue name box and the certification number. Somewhere around cert# 6K they added ".com" after the blue box.

Somewhere around cert# 15K, they changed the reverse to an American flag and the "Parts manufactured in the USA".

I have one of these without a grade, with an American flag and wording about "no certification number or grade" assigned.

Between 41K and 43K they changed the left side of the front label, putting the blue box at the bottom and the coin description at the top. Same flag reverse label.

I then have a 49K cert# which has a blue "TruGrade(TM) service LLC" on the obverse label (unboxed).The reverse label is a flapping American flag with the same kind of wording as before.

The oddity has a cert# over 100K! It has the 49K style label but the logo is red. This may be their version of "details" as it is an 1825 G4 Dime noted as "Damage".


TruGrade appears from 2003-2008 in the Wayback machine, with a PA address.

https://web.archive.org/web/20030618173327/http://www.trugradeservice.com:80/

https://web.archive.org/web/20080509072142/http://www.trugradeservice.com/ (this shows the flaping flag reverse label)

$6/coin: https://web.archive.org/web/20061019143533/http://trugradeservice.com:80/rates.html


So if I had to guess, NuGrade created the slab, and manufactured it for others (TGS and UGS maybe the same company).


Face value of TruGrade "collection": $6.95
Oldest 1825 Bust Dime
Newest 2003P Arkansas 50SQ

So they were certainly in business in 2003


Face value of NGS "collection": $2.75
Oldest 1971 Ike
Newest 2004S Clad 50SQ

Face value of UGS "collection": $0.80
Oldest 1955D Jeff
Newest 1995S Basketball commem

Thanks for the rundown!

I would be inclined to trust TruGrade more if they spelled it correctly.

Crazy: TruGrade, NuGrade, and UGS are long gone by the time the Chinese counterfeiting wagon really gets started up. All gone by 2007.

However, the websites are still up - that's because people buy up old sites to use for hosting scripts and things, leveraging the apparent age of the site. An older website is seen as a signal, absurd as it may be of 'quality'. Maybe if it's had just one owner, but not if it's sat dormant for 10 years...