PCI

They are now out of biz. I believe DGS bought them out and are now using their slabs with the DGS name. I want to say David Lawrence Rare Coins operates DGS.

I was debating whether or not to crack out a Morgan.She is now free!

I have a few coins in PCI slabs. One is a Morgan in an older green slab I bought many years ago, graded MS64 & easily makes that grade. The other ones are 3CNs in the gold PCI slabs that are all slightly over graded. Fortunately I paid for the coin & not the slab on those.

PCI was a very old company that began business back in 1986. At that time they were owned by Chattanooga Coin and they licensed their photoslab shells from Accugrade. There were four different varieties of photoslab and they were used until 1991. In 1991 HALLMARK grading service went out of business and they sold all of their slabbing shells and equipment to PCI. This began the rectangular slabs with the clipped corners and Green, Red, and blue labels. The green labels were for problem free coins, re labels for problem coins, and blue labels for non-US coins. (There was also a very short lived Signature series slab as well.) These slabs lasted for several years then the font on the labels changed and the serial numbers on the back went from 10 to 14 characters. The blue labels were done away with but the green and red labels continued. Unfortunately the grading standards slipped considerably.

In Sept of 2001 the company was sold to Leslie Slade and a major change was made to the labels. The green border was abandoned and a broad gold border was introduced for the problem free coins. The red border for problem coins was retained but it too changed over to a wide solid red border. The coins now had a 9 digit serial number and the grading got even worse.

In March of 2002 the company was sold yet again, this time to Brian Beardsley. This time there were no changes to te slabs, but the red bordered slabs were discontinued and now both problem free and problem coins were put in the gold border labeled slabs but with no mention of any problems. Needless to say, by now people were avoiding PCI slabs like the plague.

Around late 2006 Beardsley tried to revive PCI's reputation with the return of the Signature Series slabs. For a little extra your coins would be examined by recognized experts in the individual series, graded, varieties identified, and th label signed by the expert. In early 2007 J T Stanton was brought into the company to oversee the new program. Unfortunately Brian Beardsley died shortly there after and his wife took over control of the company. The company declined financially and they stopped paying the expert examiners and the Signature Series died with J T leaving in Sept 2007. By Nov the company folded. The assets of the company were originally scheduled for sale in Jan of 2008, later rescheduled to Feb where they were purchased by David Lawrence Rare Coins. They used the equipment and supplies to create a new grading service Dominion Grading Service.

PCI was definitely a legitimate TPG that accepted public submissions and generally had accurate grading for the green label slabs although they did become a bit liberal in later years. I would consider them a third tier TPG along with SEGS(not to be confused with SGS) and DGS(the successor to PCI) with ANACS and ICG in the second tier and PCGS and NGC in the first tier. There are bargains to be had in PCI slabs, plenty of nice coins still encased in them but with prices sometimes lower than average due to the lack of TPG name recognition/reputation.

No THIS is the link to the former PCI! Hard to believe that after three years their old website is still up and running.

http://www.sunsetcoins.com/

I want to Thank everyone for their insight. It was/is/and will be very helpful. I only have 1 PCI slab w/ gold border. I since cracked out the Morgan.