Best Place To Grade Coins In The Uk?

NGC HAS A London office in the same building as Spinks
On 69 Southampton Row near Russell Square .

Bit cheeky perhaps but, I'm curious why you'd want to get coins slabbed and graded Alun?

Few British collectors are bothered (most of the people I know just break the slabs open on receipt), you can get opinions of whether a coin is genuine or not quite easily online, and for things like hammered coinage, US TPGS (and the majority are American) still don't have the knowledge or experience to grade (or even identify) to UK standards.

Not to say there aren't good reasons to get coins slabbed. Just it costs money and it's worth considering whether it's worth it.

I used to be firmly in the I don't need a third party to charge me for what I already know camp. But history shows Slabbed coins give a much better return than raw coins at auction should the time come to release your prize coins. Also it will easily negate the cost of the entombing. And whilst not immune from pre slabbing problems at least they are free from any unfortunate damage

Well, Third Party Grading and slabs were introduced to allow dealers to trade in the days before images were easily available on the internet, so that makes sense jecz.

And I don't think British collectors mistrust or shun the coins in slabs. It's just that most TPGS grade to the Sheldon scale, which wasn't designed for British coinage and is sometimes carried out by people who don't have the knowledge or experience of the coins they're slabbing to say anything useful! In particular early milled or hammered coinage often have qualities that don't translate well to a strict numeric scale. And slabs can make it difficult to see the edges (or even outlines!) of coins, which can be important to UK collectors.

There is an increasing market for encapsulated coins in the UK. However it's more for the more modern pieces. And sometimes applied to items that I don't feel benefit from it. What's the point of a 'top pop' grade for a series that's all struck to proof standard and not intended for circulation?

I think the British view is still 'buy the coin, not the slab'. I'm sure we've all seen things that, technically, are uncirculated, but spoilt by odd toning or some other defect that takes away the 'eye appeal' but not the grade. Similarly, coins that, due to striking techniques of the time, lack the crispness of a modern issue and are subsequently 'penalised' with a lower grade, even though they are better than average examples for the type.

I worry that the trend to slab everything is like shoehorning round pegs into square holes. TP Grading has it's place. I just hope that British collectors and dealers continue to understand that it's not appropriate for everything. In some cases it's just a waste of money.