You’ve heard us in our “Boos and Booyahs” page compliment Larry Fuller, veteran numismatist writing Proxibid descriptions for Silvertowne Auctions. One of his trademarks is putting a realistic grade on those MS66 holders that often encapsulate cleaned, lower grade, or silver melt Morgans.

Grades by PCGS and NGC are the most consistent. ANACS and ICG are also reliable. Second-tier holder companies include PCI, SEGS, Accugrade, and Dominion Grading Service. NumisTrust is less reliable but occasionally gets a grade right. National Numismatic Certification is even less consistent. All others that grade MS66 or MS67 on every coin are unreliable when compared with grading standards by the American Numismatic Association.

In general, a good rule to follow is tout the grade in the lot description only if the coin is holdered by PCGS, NGC, ANACS, ICG.

Here’s a series of lot descriptions from the past several Silvertowne auctions, so you can see how Larry Fuller does it. (Click to expand picture and read Larry’s description in the lower left corner.)

Proxiblog is an independent entity with no connection to the auction portal Proxibid. Our intent is to uphold basic numismatic standards as established by the American Numismatic Association and the National Auctioneer Association and to ensure a pleasurable bidding experience not only on Proxibid but also on similar portals such as iCollector and AuctionZip.