Earlier this week, John Feigenbaum, President of David Lawrence Rare Coins announced that Dominion Grading Service, a new grading service started from DLRC’s purchase of PCI, is now accepting submissions for their opening on May 1.
It appears that after reviewing the recent reputation of PCI, DLRC decided that it was better to rebrand the service than try to repair its reputation. Feigenbaum was quoted as saying, “we had initially planned to keep the PCI brand name, but we quickly realized that it would be impossible to overcome the confusion that would ensue as we endeavor to recalibrate the [PCI] grading standards. Therefore, we have decided to discontinue the PCI brand in favor of an all-new grading company named Dominion Grading Service.”
DGS claims that it will use Photograde and the American Numismatic Association grading standards and has indicated that when submitting PCI encapsulated coins for cross-over grading may grade lower.
DGS will continue to use the old PCI slabs with a newly designed label. Included on the reverse of the new label will be an indication noting the coin was imaged and stored online. The service DGS calls AuthentiVIEW.™ AuthentiVIEW is a free imaging service for all coins DGS grades valued at over $100 that DGS will save on their site. The purpose is to help those trading DGS slabs identify the coin that is supposed to be in the slab. It is DGS’s attempt to fight the counterfeiting of grading holders.
Other services will be a Visual Population Report using the images from the AuthentiVIEW service and Net Grading of problem coins.
The capitalist in me notes that competition is good. Although AuthentiVIEW and their willingness to marry technology to the process, DGS has a long way to go to reach the reputation of the recognized second-tier services. I wish them luck and look forward to see how the industry receives their service.