Grading Company To Avoid

You could probably add ICG to the John1 List.
These are the only four that are recognized by ebay as reliable graders.
All the rest are known as basement slabbers and there are dozens of them out there.

Agree with John , above comment
and JimmyD comment as well.

Over the last year , we have used NGC , ANACS , and ICCS.
Believe it or not ANACS , value wise has been really excellent .
They have tightened their grading standards on Morgan/ Peace
dollars and on US Type to a realistic somewhat Conservative level .
Also their service , prices and turnaround times are top notch .

Just buy the coin not the holder, any of the PCGS or NGC coins at least add some what of a value, ANACS as well. But it's the coin that matters, and if you can't grade, or know Counterfeit Detection, then at least the big three PCGS, NGC and ANACS back their coins up with guarantees. PCGS has paid back millions over the years for poorly graded coins, or ones that slipped through their generally high standards (I cna't speak for NGC or ANACS).

Personally I could care less about a slab 98% of the time, but that's me, I've spent years learning about coins and looking at tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of coins, and taking classes from some of the top and best teachers in the business.

PCGS and NGC are the top tier. They house most of the top coins. Look at any decent to high end auction house and you will mostly see their slabs.

ANACS is in there too. They might not carry a value premium like PCGS/NGC, but their fees are much more affordable and are a really good option if slabbing your collection for in-house purposes like safety, variety attribution, or preparation to hand down as inheritance.

ICS gets a note because they have met the criteria for ebay.

You might see SEGS from time to time. Not sure if still in business though. But lots of folk like their labels and solid cases. Enough variability in their grading that some got burned with an over-grade and others cherrypicked gems of undergraded. Be the cherrypicker.