Topic: [INFORMATION] ICG GRADING (Read 971 times)

I prefer the holo on the reverse too. Show me only silver or gold (or copper) on the front.


Agreed! Thank you for being here, Ryan.

Regards,
Chris

Extremely happy to have you here Ryan! It is very refreshing to see such an approach by a company like yours. Also big shout out to anonymousminer and coblee for making things happen .

Good evening all. As anonymousminer has said, we will be placing the hologram on the "reverse" side of the slab unless requested otherwise by the customer. We have many customers who we have slabbed the reverse side as the obverse for many types of coins due to better eye appeal. We are happy to meet any customer requests. The label layout itself will be consistent moving forward and will match Charlie's auctioned examples. If you have coins already slabbed by us you may send them back and we will update your labels and put whichever side on the coin up as you like. All we ask is that you cover the shipping costs and we will cover all the materials. We are developing a new label for crypto coins so you may want to wait on any corrections to existing coins until we release the label.

The only way that could happen was if the creator was there to sign.  No labels leave the building.  I asked for one of the extras as a keepsake.  The answer was a firm “no”...... understandably.

Edit:
The extras were if Charlie had messed up a signature on those Lealana signature series.... all extras were destroyed.

Holo front, holo back, depends on personal preference TBH.

However, what I think might be sweet (and very hard to do) is to offer the option to have them hand signed - where applicable - like in Charlie's case. (clicky)
Be it coin and/or currency creator.

Then you can flip it over?    Just messing w/ya!  I hear ya though, it's personal preference. I just think it makes sense to put the front of the coin with the front of the slab.

I agree. That's just stupid. The holo side is ALWAYS on the front, now they are going to change that? 

I guess to each his own.  The obverse of many of these coins are far less compelling than the hologram side.  But...I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 

The people at ICG did say that if you request hologram facing forward, they will do it. But they agreed with me that the obverse should face the front normally.

It’ll be the way Charlie’s were done going forward. (Unless requested by the customer) Front of the coin, front of the slab.  The hologram should not face the front.

I'm sure each has a preference, but I think by and large most do want the hologram showing on the front.  Regardless ICG needs to pick one way and stick to it.

I think most would argue it should be the other way around.

Hi Ryan:

I have had a number of coins slabbed by you guys over the years.  For cryptos, can you guys make sure to put the hologram side on the front of the slab?  I get half back one way and half back the other.  Need to have better consistency here in the slabbing room.  The hologram is the key feature of cryptos, so they should go on the front/obverse side.

Ryan great to see the interest here.  Physical crypto coins is a growing sector and appreciate you and the IGC take it as serious as we do.  I will be using IGC for my coins exclusively now.  Cheers

Ryan, welcome to the forums. I'm glad you and your company are taking this sector so seriously. I have one of your newer crypto slabbed coins and was very pleased how it turned out. Keep up the good work 👍

PS, I bought one of Charlie's today that you'd slabbed for him, very nice too

Ryan, after chatting to anonymousminer & coblee in person this weekend at the New York MCC, I shall definitely be getting in touch with you re slabbing a whole bunch of coins and possible custom labelling on my next visit State-side early-ish next year most likely.

Thanks for the useful info my man, nice to see such an open attitude from them.
Indeed, like someone mentioned earlier, maybe it's time to move from the ANACS era. Happy to see that they are interested in "our" coins.

Later edit: thanks Ryan!

Hello all. My name is Ryan Barnhardt. I have been a customer service representative for ICG for 11 years and am also a licensed pharmacist. I wanted to join the forum and piggyback on what anonymousminer and Charlie have said in their posts. After working with Charlie for a couple of days, we want to be the leader in encapsulating cryptocurrency physical tokens. We have been in business for over 20 years and our grading staff has a combined 150+ years of grading experience in US and foreign coins. Members of our staff have worked for NGC and ANACS. Our senior grader is known for being one of the top 3 experts in the world in Morgan silver dollars.

I wanted to address a concern brought up by a poster about the grading services and how we stack up in the US coin marketplace. There are only 4 grading services accepted in the industry and are the only ones allowed to be used on selling sites such as Ebay and various auction houses. PCGS and NGC are considered tier 1. US coins that are valued at $5,000 and higher typically are seen in their slabs due to higher realized auction prices. The reason behind their higher sale prices is mostly due to politics and inner-workings of the coin industry which I will not go into here.

ICG and ANACS are considered tier 2. High-Dollar coins will sell for a lower price in our holders, but that only makes up a very small fraction of the marketplace. A $100 coin in a PCGS holder may sell for $90 in an ICG or ANACS, but you will pay significantly more money to use their services. Both NGC and PCGS charge yearly membership fees and we do not. PCGS charges $65 for their tokens, NGC starts at $35. We plan to keep our current token rate at $19.

In addition to better pricing, you will have lightning fast turnaround times, better customer service, and a team of people who want to adapt their brand to better serve your needs. We are developing a label design specifically for cryptocurrency using feedback from collectors. We want the collectors to have say in our label formatting and overall design.

Overall, at ICG we want to be the authority for cryptocurrency tokens and we take your industry very seriously. By using us you can be assured that you have a team dedicated to the needs of your marketplace and will not value your coins any less than standard US coin submissions that we receive. You will find that our top two competitors have no current desire to be in this space. As a matter of fact, if you google "pcgs cryptocurrency" this is the first page you will come up with straight from their website.

https://www.pcgs.com/news/bitcoin-deserves-lump-of-coal-for-christmas

Please reach out to me here or thru our website with any questions!

"buy the coin not the slab"