Bitcoin Forum

Given the recent events with ANACS, I was wondering what the community was thinking. Long story short: ANACS has been the standard we have used since 2013 for grading and they clearly do not care about us. Some simple facts so far...

1) ANACS is the 3rd best grading company (NGC and PCGS are better, but will not grade our coins).
2) ICGS is considered the 4th best, but is willing to grade our coins.
3) ANACS decided to hold our coins hostage while not telling us so they can get new labels and also jacked the prices up.
4) ANACS made it pretty clear to multiple customers that we really do not matter based on their responses to us.

Why not just migrate over to ICGS?
The market for physicals is already quite niche and from my understanding, it’s not the regular coin collectors who are buying these graded physicals, but rather us collectors (mainly here). If that’s the case then why can’t we create our own (new) ranking/standard just using ICGS as the baseline.
It will be a bit of a pain to have ANACS coins regraded but we can create our own system of equivalents fro all ANACS graded coins prior to the switch over (which already exists to some degree ever since ANACS decided to bump all their grades).
Again, it’s just a thought, but if ICGS would show some interest and value our custom then perhaps it may be worth something to consider.

I like MJ's idea of "walking down the street" to one of the two and asking nicely..worth a shot right?

See the other thread about this subject.  Highly unlikely that PCGS or NGC will every grade cryptos.

If thats the case then use ICGS

Agreed..but you never know unless you try.  Unless I'm missing something and someone already did try.  I have followed the other thread for the most part.

a long time ago I did consider "grading" myself, I have the facility to produce and manufacture coins, and inspecting them would be a natural curve, but it was just not financially feasible at the time, plus I did not know the be all and end of all coins, and was not sure I would 100% pick up and non-manufactured flaws, if there is more call I can re-visit this option and mock up some grading cases?

Well, I was on the fence until I opened this batch of coins with the new slabs. Every hologram is messed up...almost like they grab them from the reject piles. Lets try ICGS and see how it goes...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2947570.msg30286268#msg30286268

I would suggest an entirely new service for grading.

An internal team made up of Trusted and Experienced members who have had years of hands on experience handling and viewing crypto coins.

There is no reason this can't happen, we have trusted forum escrows with exactly that type of experience.

Whatever criteria the old men at anacs have are not cutting it, especially with their new crappy look.

There could be an easy way to set this up which may entail getting certified as a coin grader, as well as having built in escrow to handle the start to finish job of receiving and then verifying and slabbing and reshipping. I would put my trust in that over some old drooling guy at a coin show with a fold out table and a yellow piece of paper saying "coin grading" :)

Thanks!

Does my feline nose smell a upcoming "Mantis Coin Grading Service"? :D

I would say bring another grading company in, maybe if there is another company willing to do it at one point maybe the better companies will start to accept them, i.e. more exposure isnt a bad thing.

Would be great to have more options IMO, however ANACS has been the standard for a few years now.
I think there's another place in the UK that also grades physical btc, CGS: http://www.coingradingservices.co.uk/ I have one Casascius graded by them which I bought already graded. Not sure how active they are, site looks pretty basic.

I think US-based people would prefer a local grading service of course, but seen you guys are talking about alternatives I just wanted to share this.

When I find the CGS graded coin I have I will post a pic.

A couple years ago, it was considered highly unlikely APMEX would ever deign to accept Bitcoin.

But then Gainesville/JMbullion/Silvergoldbull/Silverround.com etc. started eating their lunch, and they bend their formerly proud Buttcoiner knees like good little thoroughly cucked nocoiners.

There are only so many Boomers left to keep the Big Two's duopoly in business until they have to deal with the noveau riche cryptorati.

The longer they hold out, the sweeter the taste of their eventual surrender and our inevitable victory.

Physical letters from PCGS/NCG saying they will never accept crypto collectibles will then become highly collectible... :P

If a new grading service is established, I hope that it grades the placement/orientation of holograms and inserts. ANACS ignored several qualities of coins that we look for in their assessments of crypto tokens.

I am undecided

The advantage of a single grading company should be consistency. Split use of multiple agencies could lead to greater difficulties when comparing graded coins between them

Since the ANACS 'scale shift' of a few years back when they started their '+2' across the board they have been relatively consistent, save for the odd clanger

If this recent ANACS performance is just a bump in the road, while they changed slabs, then I may stay with them. If this becomes the level of service moving forwards, then I will change

I have a batch I need to get done, and I will give ANACS another try. They fuck up, I fuck off.

My real annoyance is some older graded coins I have, that I planned to resubmit , as they were graded before their 'uplift'. If I did that now, I would be changing the type of slab they get wrapped in. I would clearly want the grades they have coming into line with more recent gradings ... but dont know if the current annoyance with the new slabs will be permanent

I am guessing that the love for ANACS will come back if they sort their shit out, and the hate for the new slab will subside with time ... as long as they dont carry on giving out reject holos

Watching....

Collectively we should start tracking ANACS and keeping them to account. Likewise being open about the service levels received from ICGS. (plus how coin grades compare between the 2 ... I seem to recall previously ICGS were a grade more generous ... ? MJ didnt you look at that once ?)