PCGS - a treasure for coin collectors and investors!

This gem is for coin collectors - but it might also be for investors!

PCGS is the Professional Coin Grading Service, one of a few specialized coin grading services that have been around since the 1980's. PCGS puts the coins it grades into "slabs", which are tamper-proof sealed plastic slabs that contain the coin and a slip stating the grade and identity of the coin. This is hugely valuable for collectors and investors who are buying top-grade material, where a 1 point difference in grade can mean thousands of dollars. And lest you think this is only about rare or really old coins, I should point out that a 1963 Lincoln penny (not a rare coin at all) goes for $5,000 in an MS-67 grade slab (and yes, the MS-67 grade IS rare). The top services include NGC, PCI, and ANACS as well, but the gold standard of coin grading these days is PCGS, partly because they have historically had very tough grading standards. Because of those tough standards, coin dealers all over the world will buy a PCGS slab sight unseen, knowing they can trust the grade that is on the slab. Investment advisors generally tell their clients to ALWAYS buy slabbed coins, and they do, in fact, make superior investments.

One of the other reasons PCGS is so popular is the PCGS registry, which is a listing of the best registered collections of slabbed coins. The set registry is also a useful way of keeping track of the value of your US coins, because PCGS kindly updates the pricing on these daily, and actually gives you reports on the total value of your registered inventory. To do this, PCGS also has a full-blown price guide on their site, which is a very handy reference, indeed, if you are buying or selling coins online through, say, eBay. I tumbled to this site when I was trying to find a good guide to coin prices so I could make a smart eBay bid a few months ago, but the registry part of the site really got me hooked.

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