Last month, the American Numismatic Association announced that they have partnered with Numismatic Guarantee Corporation (NGC) to launch the ANA Coin Registry.
According to the ANA press release, the ANA Registry will accept coins graded by NGC and Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS). The ANA Registry will be the only service that will allow both NGC and PCGS graded coins.
NGC has been a partner with the ANA for 25-years making it a natural choice to implement this program. Since NGC once allowed PCGS graded coins to count in their registry program, the facilities continue to exist for them to create a similar program for the ANA.
Participation is open to any collector. ANA members will receive a special icon of recognition next to their sets.
What is missing from the registry is the ability to include ANACS and ICG graded coins. Regardless of the opinion of these companies, they are competitive services to NGC and PCGS with a legitimate niche in the market.
By excluding ANACS and ICG, the ANA is telling the public that they decided who the best third-party grading services are. It is not the job of the ANA to pick market winners. Let the collecting public decide.
One advantage that ANACS and ICG has is that there are no memberships required to submit coins for grading. Anyone can directly submit coins to either company. Although ANA members can directly submit coins to NGC without an additional membership, only PCGS members can submit coins for grading.
Allowing open submission policies will allow for more people to participate. They can collect what they like and send it to ANACS and ICG without having to spend extra money or rely on a member. It will create greater access to casual collectors who might become more series if they can participate.
Could there be other reasons for not including ANACS and ICG? Since anyone can submit coins to ANACS and ICG, how will the dealers make money? If a collector buys a coin online or from another collector and sends their coins to ANACS or ICG for grading, how will the dealers make money?
Further, dealers have their own biases. They decided which grading service they like the best based on many factors, including perception and financial reasons. Whatever these reasons are should not be the policy of the ANA.
If the ANA is to fulfill its mission to encourage people to study and collect money and related items, then they cannot be picking market winners and losers. The ANA must revisit this policy and include the entire market without bias.
Loading ...