 So, hi. Welcome to this special webinar, which is part of the Festival of Coins event running on allaboutcoins.co.uk. I'm Matthew Hill. I'm the editor of the All About Coins website and also CoinCollector magazine. I'd like to thank you all for coming today. We're hosting the second of two webinars today from our festival partners, NGC. You can actually view the first one that we did yesterday over on our website. If you'd like to ask any questions, please use the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen. And following the presentation, we'll be putting these to David. So, I'd like to welcome David Kiermeier. David's an authority on mint areas and modern minting technology. And he's speaking to us today from NGC's World headquarters in Sarasota in Florida. So, without further ado, here's David. I'll give you the floor to discuss certification of your collectible coins, tokens, and medals. Great. Thank you, Matt. And welcome, everyone. Like Matt said, I'm Dave Kiermeier. I work here at NGC. I am a grader and finalizer and also the president of NCS. So, I'd like to just go through a little bit about what NGC is, how coins are graded, and their impact on the markets. So, basically, we want to go over why would someone use third-party certification and why someone would choose NGC for this service. Basically, when any collector or any dealer and you go to buy a coin, basically, there's many steps you have to take in order to buy that coin. First of all, you want to make sure the coin is real, authentic, that the coin has not been altered in any way, that maybe it doesn't have any residue or anything that prevents it from being graded. You want to look at the grade of the coin. Is the coin worn? How much? Where is it? Is it aesthetically appealing? Next, you have to look at the coin and you have to figure out what is the coin? What's the denomination? Is there a variety with the coin? Et cetera. And then the next thing you have to figure out is, if I purchase this coin, how am I going to store this coin for long-term use and for long-term care? And along with that is also as far as value and insuring it. If you buy a coin, obviously, it has value and you want to make sure that that coin maintains its value and if it's ever lost or stolen, there's a way to retrieve it easily, hopefully. Authenticity. Awesome. Excuse me. So, whether a coin, the authenticity. The authenticity, especially when it comes to older coins or rarer coins, in this case, this is an 1875 CC US 20. So, it's very important that a collector know that the coin is real, that the mint mark is not added, that the coin maybe has not been tooled or anything done to it that would affect whether the coin is real or not. And that's real important because, like this coin for instance, the 75 CC, this coin, if it's real, could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on what grade it is. But you have to make sure that the mint mark is correct, the mint mark hasn't been altered, and that the coin is truly what it is. And again, with certification, we take that all away because when it comes here, we have specialists in all different areas that will look at the coin and determine that the coin is indeed authentic. Grading a coin. Grading a coin basically involves looking at the coin and determining first of all how much wear is on the coin, has the coin circulated. So, if we take, for instance, classic coins, the amount of wear in the coin or whether it has any scratches on it or any defects will determine what the grade is. And also, again, we look at any alterations. A lot of times a rare date coin will have the date altered, such as the coin you see here, this 1981. So, what we determine is, we determine that again, that the coin is original, that it hasn't been altered in any state, that the coin's of the right metallic composition. And this, and when we do this, we do it on a non-bias level. So, when we're looking at this coin, we're using all our expertise to determine that the coin itself is real. And then when it comes to actually arriving at a grade, again, we're totally neutral. And that when we look at a coin, we're taken into account all the different scenarios with the coin we're making sure we're looking at the luster, we're looking at the toning, we're looking at the edge of the coin, we're looking at the front, the back of the coin, we're tilting the coin, we're making sure that we examine this coin thoroughly to determine, again, with a classic coin, how much wear does the coin have. And when you have coins independently graded, it just gives the comfort that this is the coin and this is the grade. And you can be assured that a number of experts have looked at this, and it's based on a wide population of coins that we've seen in the past, and the scale that we use, which is the Sheldon scale that we'll get to. Now, as far as grading, it basically falls into two categories, your classic coins and your Mardin coins, say from the 1960s on. So, basically, all use the same thing. It's the Sheldon scale, which is a scale developed in the early part of the 1940s that basically attributes wear to a grade. And it also gives it a description. So, if you start the very basics, if you had a coin that you found that was extremely worn, but you could determine what it is. If you didn't have a date, you could barely see any descriptions on it, that would be considered like a poor coin. And others, you can still tell what it is, but it's fairly worn. And then we work up from there. Then we have a coin with good details, which means you can see all the details of the coin, although it has been circulated and it's heavily worn. And this goes all the way up to where you get to your almost uncirculated and uncirculated coins. So, an almost uncirculated coin would be a coin that very circulated, very little, has most of its original luster or it might be toned. And then there is very little wear in the coin. If you look at the high points of the coin, you will just see a little bit of rubber surface wear. Other than that, you would fall into the uncirculated category. And this is where it gets very particular nowadays, especially when it comes to Martin coin. So, basically from 60 to 70 is an uncirculated coin, with 70 being a coin that has no visible flaws under flat power magnification after it was struck. And again, for any classic coin, basically, you're looking at grades, maybe to the mid level, maybe of the min state to 65, maybe 66, but for the most part, it's a lot can attribute to a lot of lower grade coins just because they circulated. Whereas when you get to modern coins, stuff that the mint are made by the mints currently, you'll most likely only have coins that are, say, 7, 8, 9 and 70, just because, again, it's the way they're manufactured and the care taken now in order to get these coins to the collectors. What is a 70? That's a question that's asked a lot and everybody thinks that a 70 is a perfect coin. It's technically a perfect one if you would have just looked at it with your naked eyes and actually studied a while. And again, it just can't have any post production imperfections on the five power, which means that it can't have any visible hair lines in the fields or visible marks or anything that you could readily see basically with an untrained eye. And as far as a 70 grade, a 70 grade key to be a coin that is min state or a coin for circulation, or a coin that's minted as a proof or a special coin struck for collectors nowadays and the proofs can be either regular proof, reverse proof or enhance proof. There's many variations or specimen coins now. But basically, the grade 70 means that the coin doesn't have any visible marks on it. Now with grade, what's really great for the collectors, and you never had it when you were first shutting off when I did, is the fact that now we have many designations that we can use to assist a collector. And this a lot of this is based on our experience and all the millions of coins that we've graded here in NGC since we started. A perfect coin that's up on your screen right now is this coin that has a plus and a star. Well, first of all, the coin is beautifully toned. It's, it's absolutely pristine and it has exceptional eye appeal. So a star designation means exactly that it's a coin we come across that could be rainbow tone that's absolutely beautiful. It's a one in a million coin. It could be a coin that is proof like that normally doesn't come proof like that maybe it's an early strike from the dyes that it just stands out from anything else for that data denomination. You know, it could be a coin if it's a proof that normally doesn't come really ultra cameo. And this is a black and white super ultra cameo. So basically, what we're saying is if you see a star in there, this is a coin that's just exceptional eye appeal. And it's just special from all the coins out there. And this is aside from what the grade of the coin is. The next thing do you see on this coin on your screen is the plus. So we use plus mostly for classic coins. And what that means is so this coin is very, very close in the next grade. It's a really, really premium coin. It's not in this case an eight, but it's, you know, it's right there. It's premium. It's again, in the top percentage of all the coins for that grade, if you do go out and search for these coins or look in the population and find them, the coins with the plus are just these coins that separate themselves from that group and that grade, but just don't quite make the next grade. The next big thing when it comes to coins is description. And what that is is that especially, and when it comes to varieties or minners or world coins, there are several different varieties. There's different types. And all this attributes to the value of a coin. And also nowadays, there's many, many different books and publications that find all sorts of varieties. And it's continued to this day for have new varieties added. A lot of people like to collect coins by varieties. So you get people who collect a large data small day, they'll collect it with a large letters, small letters, some coins may be interesting that they have an overdate maybe in one year, they punched the data in the next year, they decided to use that die again, but you know, stamp the last date with the digit of the current year. So you get those varieties people collect. And also with varieties, there is value. There's a lot of varieties, whether it's a double die or a repunch mint mark, or again, a coin missing a mint mark that adds an incredible amount of value to the coin. So when you submit a coin to NGC, you have the option to check off whether you want it looked at for a variety. All the major varieties that are widely accepted and listed in books, such maybe as a 1922, no Dnickel or no estimate mark, those are attributed automatically. But if you go to the NGC website, you can see a list of the ones that you would be charged for. But for the most part, you'd want to be charged because those are great varieties that you'd want to have your coins attributed. But again, there's a great research online. You can go and you can also learn about different varieties. When people assemble sets, a lot of people will assemble the collection and decide, Oh, wow, you know, there's a, you know, a small launch date. I think I'm going to, I want to go into the small launch date too. So basically, the variety in the description is in a great enhancement. And it's a great attribute to be able to put on your coin. The next, the next absolute great thing about encapsulation and NGC is actually the holders are in too many coins. I've seen over the years, you know, people have put them in little plastic flips and over time they've got PVC on them, or they've put them in paper flips or, you know, it's, it's been something that has evolved over time, but basically went probably from the 70s, having little cardboard flips. The 80s and 90s, you started with all the plastic and the PVC. And then it was growing concern of what the PVC does because we can all see that little representation. I can see how you tilt it just right. You can see the coins all green or on a lot of the original packaging, like on this Franklin half, the coin has a haze on it. And that's due to the original packaging that it was in the plastic packaging. Over time, it degrades and goes in the coin. So the beauty of being able to get a coin encapsulated is two things. One, it's protection. Once it's sonically sealed in this holder, you literally, if you drop the coin and pick it up, it's not going to hurt it. You can take the coin. If it's a valuable coin, you can hand it to someone now who, you know, would like to look at it with no fear that, you know, they could damage the coin by maybe squeezing it or scratching it. It's contained in this holder. It's we use all inert materials of the highest quality. It's clear so you can see through it, see the beauty of your coin. We have scratch resistant protection if you need it. So you can just wipe it off like you do on your glasses. And there's tons of tamper evident that's in the holder itself. From the edge of the coin that has a looks like a reading, same as a coin to prevent any tampering. You got the label. The label has all the attributes we talked about as well as a lot of anti counterfeiting devices in there. And basically all this is for, again, not only being able to have security, but you know that, you know, that coin holder's been tampered with. And you could be assured that that coin in there is going to stay in there to be well protected. And if you put it in a place that's proper for that coin after encapsulation, then you're going to have a coin that's going to stay beautiful for the life of the coin. And if you want to hand it down. The next thing is NGC. We help hold us for virtually every coin made. We're talking from like a little tenth of an ounce coin all the way up to the new giant 10 kilo gold coins that they're making today. This one you see in the photo right now is a five kilo coin that we just recently did. So again, you get the great protection of it. You get to show it to someone. And then you know that no one can tamper with that once it's been graded encapsulated and once it's been fully attributed. And we just touched upon briefly is about insurance. So if you would have just buy a coin like in the old days and you had it in a flip or you had in a little package and you take that coin and you put it in your safe and then some something happens or you just want to sell the coin. The thing about it is or if it gets lost, it's well, how do you value the coin? Well, first of all, if you know there's no gray that it's hard to determine and the next thing if it was stolen, I mean, one coin may look like just any other coin out there. So how do you determine it? Well, again, if your coins were certified, if they were encapsulated, they get a unique serial number as you see on the coin displayed right now. And again, so now if you know you can simply give the certain number to the police or to anybody to look for the coin and you have the piece of my knowing that there's a way to actually trace these coins, which is incredibly helpful. And also, if it was ever stolen, it's very easy with all the resources out there right now to actually find a price for your coin. It's been attributed, it's been graded. Everything they need to do to find value is there. All you need to do is find a proper price guide and there you have it. So why choose NGC to certify your coins? NGC with the largest third-party grading service. We've been doing this since 1987. We've graded over 45 million coins. We have a full staff and a special custom building here at our headquarters in Sarasota. We have security in our building. We have vaults in our building to secure everything once it's here. And in addition to that, we're very sensitive of what's been going on around the world as far as collecting coins. So although we started off in the U.S., now we have a presence all over the world, whether it be London, Munich, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and we also have offices around the World Submission Centers to drop off your coin. Because we know now, because of the internet, because of what's being collected, it's a world-wide community and people are collecting coins worldwide. So we are now not only have our main office with all our experts and expertise and security, we also have offices around the world. NGC has also grown as a company where we started off just being a coin company. Next, we expanded into conservation, which I'm the president of, because we saw the need out there for so many people not knowing what to do if a coin has BBC on it, not to know what to do if a coin has residue or unsightly toning or dip residue. So most people would try to do it themselves and that usually ended in disaster. So we established a professional coin conservation company that someone now has the peace of mind, just like they have the peace of mind to send coins for grading, that they can send a coin in, that the coin will be conserved so that it'll maintain its originality but also it'll be protected so that once it's graded and put into an NGC holder, it will maintain that security and that look for years to come. After that we've added several other companies as the need arose. So we have paper money, we have comics, we have stamps, and the list just keeps growing. NCS, conservation. So as you can see by the coin we have on the screen and the coin that I showed you, which was this Franklin Half, a lot of these coins, when they come in their original packaging, are in plastic or had been plastic, had been in plastic in the past and most of the plastic in the past, again since it was new, had a lot of PVC and the PVC interacted with the coin and with the environment. A lot of these environments, especially if you go to, say, Asia or any of the humid parts of the world or even here in Florida, humidity in coins, you know, they don't mix. What happens is you get many chemical reactions, you have this PVC that gets laid upon the coin, you get PVC that interacts with the metals, it can severely damage it, can permanently damage it. So what we do at NCS is we're able to use chemicals and treatments that allow us to take all this PVC off the coin, take residue, and what we're left with is a coin that has, again, the original surfaces again and the coin is now neutral. So again, now not only is all the grind taken off the coin, but it also aesthetically will look better and a lot of times this will cause it to obviously grade better. So, and it's a flawless process we have. It's the same as submitting a coin very easily to NGC. You can submit them now on the same invoice. The coins you can dictate them that they go first to conservation. So we'll have our evaluators, including myself, we'll look at the coin and we'll decide what, if anything, needs to be done to the coin and then not only that, then we'll put a technique to use as far as what we're going to use to actually take off this residue and then once the conservation's done, once the residues are taken off the coin, once the coin is neutralized, we seamlessly transfer that for you to NGC for grading. So basically, you adjust, you have no worry, you submit your coins, you let us decide what coins need conservation. They're conserved and they're gone to grading, they're graded, attributed, everything's done to them, they're put in the holder, so now you have a complete package. So now when you get your coin back, you have a coin you can look at, preserve, sell, whatever you want to do, but you know it's in the best condition possible from when you sent it in. Why should you trust NGC? Well, NGC, again, we give the buyer and the seller, we give collectors, we just give peace of mind to all the collecting community, since they know that the coin on the, that the coin they're getting, again, was properly attributed, it's a real coin, it's properly graded. And then once it's in the holder now, since NGC is recognized worldwide and it's traded worldwide, it's very easy for the collector or the dealer to be able to buy, sell, or trade that coin. Because again, it has everything the unique, unique serial numbers, tamper proof case on it, the coins fully described, high resolution photo with it so you can see what your coin's going to look like. It just makes it very easy now for, and it also makes it super easy now, if you're a collector and you're going to buy a coin, you know, right away again, what you're looking, what you're paying for, what you're buying, and really the only thing left right now is to find out in the marketplace what the coins were. We did most of the work for you. You're buying a coin, you know, that's genuine, you know what the grade is, it has been attributed, and now it resides in a holder that's tamper proof that no one can switch a coin or tamper with it when you've got to purchase it. Selling again, we don't sell coins, we just certify coins, we leave that up to the marketplace as far as the price of pricing of the coins, but as you would understand in this day and age too, there aren't too many coins, especially in the U.S., that tend to trade raw or what we call, you know, uncertified. And one of the reasons is, is because again, of the, think of the lengthy process you have to do if you're a buyer and you go out there, you have to be knowledgeable as far as your expertise in being able to tell if a coin is real or counterfeit, what the grade is, so buying it off your rep, it will deal that if you do buy the coin and it's not real, can you return the coin. So we take all that out right now, and basically all you have to be concerned about is the price of the coin, whether you're buying or whether you're selling the coin. Expertise, again we test upon this, so here in NGC we have 20 full-time graders, but not only do we have 20 full-time graders, we have many experts in their field, my expertise happens to be in min errors in the minning process and how modern coins are made. We have people, senior graders here, a lot of us, you know, have 20-25 years experience grading. We have graders here who specialize whether it be in silver dollars that might be specialists in sovereign coins, I'm also specialist in a world modern Chinese coins, so basically all these specialists have graded literally millions of coins, they're familiar with all the different types of coins, the little idyllic secrecy that comes from each one, how to tell approved from a min state when sometimes it's very tricky, seeing most of all the rarities, you know, we consider ourselves like a funnel here, all the coins around the world eventually come here, so we're in your lifetime, you might see one great rararian person, we've probably graded all the great rarities, so we really have a great baseline to not only determine a coin's authenticity, but again when it comes to the grading of the coin, we have a wider range of coins that we've looked at that we can use as a measure for the coins that we grade every day, and lastly about grading is that we we're a team, so it's not just one person in law, although I'm a finalizer, yes you get, you get to say the final say, most of the time you'd be surprised, I mean we're always really really close, although you know coins are graded basically as you saw one point difference, MS63 and MS64 or plus, grading so long and have so much expertise, most of us in there can actually be kind of grade like, you know, this is like a 63.1, we talk when we talk to each other about grading or a .2, so we can actually, when we look at a coin, actually in our minds determine between say a three and a four each grade, actually where this coin kind of fits in there, so we've actually, because our expertise have really become very, we've become very not only experts, but we fine-tune it in such that, you know, every coin we see you can be assured that it is what it is. Another interesting aspect that we have now that we can use for expertise is we use all the modern day technology, so in the past, you know, you could weigh a coin, you could do different tests on it to see whether it was real and nowadays we get added devices such as we use an x-ray fluorescence test which actually tests the actual surface of the coin non- evasively and it'll basically tell you what the surface of the coin is, so that's incredibly helpful sometimes because when it gets to say pattern or prototype coins, a lot of times the reason it's a pattern or prototype or a dye trial is because these mints have tested out different alloys and in the old days by doing maybe a specific gravity or doing some rudimentary testing, we were able to determine for the most part, yes, this coin is brass or copper or it's aluminum, but since we have more sophisticated equipment, we can actually find out the percentage of this or maybe a coin that looks brass is actually bronze, but it allows us to be even more specific in our determination when we get these coins in and it also is very helpful when it comes to fakes because it also gives you a heads up as to how they're making these fakes, are they taking a base metal coin and plating it, what type of dyes are they using and etc, so these are very helpful tools to allow us to determine you know the basics of whether a coin is genuine or not. The NGC guarantee is probably the strongest in the industry right now and basically what it is it gives you a guarantee basically of what we said that then you know the coin is authentic, it tells you and the grade and as far as the grade is to is we guarantee that we don't overgrade the coin, which means if you get a coin that you think the grade is too high you can submit it to us under review and we'll examine that for you and again if there is a problem or for some reason there was a mistake made it will be corrected and the with this being corrected a lot of times it's a monetary value and again there's no preset limit so it's not like we look at any specific coin and say oh this coin is too expensive we review every coin in its own merits and the guarantee is that when you get a coin graded by us it'll be as stated on the holder and another great thing about NGC coins the guarantee is that it's transferable meaning that holder when you buy that coin if you assemble a great collection and you leave it for your kids you can know that everything about that coin is the same as when you bought it when you transfer to your kids it's still guaranteed that that coin is real that the grade is real it has the cert number on there and it's tamper proof so when you go to sell that coin you know it's just again it's a very easy situation we have a large group of great representatives not only here but around the world that are more than happy to answer your questions when you call in to assist you whether it's about submitting whether maybe it's about a variety or any question you have I mean NGC has always been a company that has a long-term outlook most of us started as collectors continue to be collectors so we think long term we want to create new collectors we want to keep advancing the hobby keep the hobby going so the best way to do that is to have a resources and we have we try to have more and more of them like this seminar in order to assist people at answering their questions and helping them to you know make it easier to collect and answer their questions so we have a large staff of customer service representatives that if they can't if they don't know the answer right away they'll get back to you and they'll ask us or we'll be happy to again to make sure that you you're collecting is a fun experience and that you when you deal with NGC it'll also be a great experience you'll want to come back more and more and certify your coins um also what I haven't touched upon yet is we also aside from this COVID pandemic right now NGC grays and attends most major coin shows not only in the US but around the world now and we do we have done in the past and continue once this is cleared up onsite grating around the world so at major shows you can have your coins actually graded onsite when the show is being run and also we go to certain cities at certain times and we do onsite grating to assist the dealers and the collectors so there's a quicker turnaround so that the coins can get back into the dealers and collectors hands and we also have all these major shows we set up and we have great customer service there again to also assist you whether it's how to how do I submit a coin where do I put the mint mark on the submission form questions about grading anything like that we're always there to help and support the dealers and the collector community I touch upon it briefly and again you can go online and look because this is certainly not my expertise but nowadays there's just a plethora of online resources they can use you can go online now if if you're a novice or whether you're just starting off or whether you're a season collector and you buy a coin you submit it and you get it back as a 65 and you want to say what's my coin worth how many you know how many have they graded in MS65 now it's it's a great research you just go to ngc.com online you go to the proper area and there you have a population report and it lists on there again everything we talk about it lists a grade it lists the amount of them that we have graded under each one of those a total population so if you want to know you know how many coins save a rare data we graded in all grades and then how many we graded min state how many fours four stars four pluses and this leads to just a lot of different areas and a lot of possibilities obviously if you're a dealer it's a great resource in trying to price your coin as a collector it's a great way to start collecting coins you may look online under the proper point and say wow there's not too many fives but there's a lot of fours maybe i'll collect this series in four because you know that's more attainable or you want a super challenge and you like now i want the best coins in this whole series so i'm going to shoot for the best possible grades on these coins so again there's a tremendous amount of online resources there's also a price guide associated with so if you want to know you know what is my coin worth you obviously can go online also to a different section and it will give you your coin price guide again it's a great guide it's not exact but you know there are so many ways now online to tell what the value of your coin is but NGC gives a nice synopsis there when you get a coin maybe you inherit a coin or you're new to collecting you get it great and certified you want to know what it is there's a great resource there to find out then we come to the coolest part of all is the actual registry set so when i was younger and we started collecting coins of course everybody knew everybody who had you know a fantastic collection of you know he owns the best sovereigns that or he collects morgan dollars or he collects minaris and so everybody knew of the person who collected a specific group of coins or an interesting group of coins but as time went on and became a worldwide collecting now when it's done worldwide it becomes harder and harder to interact or get to know some of these people so now it's interesting you can do this online by doing these these sets so you basically can sign up and you can start doing it set yourself collecting coins putting it online showing what you have for coins and then of course you can compete with other people and then it's also a way to socially interact because you can you can you know interact with these people and say you know you have this collection i do too where you have an appeal i have an dpl or you collect proofs and i collect minstates so it's a great way also to interact with other collectors and also to formulate collections be able to tell people hey go online you look and you know that's me that's my collection and it's it's just really fun and this age of covid too it's just something that can if you really get into it take up a lot of your time but a lot of fun online also when we talked about security and the features and why ngc you also have the resource now because everybody has a smartphone it's just to scan that coin in on your smartphone and it'll pull up all the descriptions of the coin it'll ensure too that the coin you're holding is the actual coin that was certified so it just gives you this extra protection in order to see that yes that is the coin that that's being scanned and also again you get access to the database so once you scan in the coin you can also find hey you know this coin what's the population of it how many they certified et cetera so it's a great resource also if you'd go to ngc.com you'll get all the latest announcements news everything so if you want to know what's happening around the world if you want to know hey that auction just went by you know there was some really interesting ngc coins and they you know what did they realize what's the trend right now worldwide china coins still hot you know the european coins right now and people still collecting you know coins from great britain from the olympics or have they gone to you know anything else it seems to be a trend right now everything's on there maybe something sold for a record price you know maybe a rare shaman just went that there's only a few now and so it's it's a great way and you know also it's a great resource to find out what's happening as far as you know if there will be future coins or if there's not coin shows is there going to be anything interactive than i need to look into are there any new coins coming up right now are there any new designs that the mints have come out with what is ngc doing around the world are they going to be in my area sooner they get a great soon as they're going to be a seminar so again it's a great resource i use it all the time myself to see what's going on click on it every day and see what's going on so basically again we've gone over you know why should i even use a certification company you know why should i certify my my coin what are the benefits why should i submit to ncs what are the benefits of conservation why should it be ngc what did they offer what are all the resources that are available to me through ngc and basically everything you need to know is on our website again and you definitely should check it out go through it just like anything search around go to the different areas you want to say hey who are some of the graders go to that what is you know well i may have a few paper money notes it while the great paper money what's that about so again it's just an interesting resource and you'll also probably learn a lot um so we've had quite a lot of questions actually from attendees so i'll go through those in a moment one question i had is about the registry set seems like a really a good way to kind of build the community of coin collectors around the world so how do you actually start that you know is it just a case of going on the website okay um i believe it is again um if they go on to the ngc website they look at that up i mean that's not something i've personally done so i'm not sure of exactly how that's done but that's something i could get an answer to you for sure okay yeah i believe um you just basically go online you can sign up i think you can create a name for yourself or whoever you want to be on that you can go from there excellent okay that sounds good i'm going to check that out um so let's start with the questions so the first one how does certification of my coins help with the legacy of the collection so i guess this is kind of meaning for future generations if people are leaving their coins well there's two things really as far as legacy what's really interesting nowadays is when we first started what we call petergating a coin which means you put a a name on the holder representative who the owner was when we first started out we did it because it was extremely important for major collections meaning if you got you know collections like the aliasbergs who you know some of they literally had one of every coin ever and they had some of the finest collection collections that you know people collected for 50 years basically it was done that way but then over time of course once these great collections are split up and other people right now continue to collect and add to it and you know maybe take a certain section of it and create a whole not a subsection like I said maybe you collect and complete Morgan dollars but now someone's take of that and make an complete collection of varieties with Morgan dollars yeah so basically what happens is you're now able to put on that holder whatever name you want within reason but you know say alias you were to put if you're Smith a Smith collection so what happens that would actually be in all the coins that you collected Smith collection so it's interesting if you wanted to pass them down again that just adds you know a little more to the collection knowing that listen this was pedigree to my father to my grandfather and again having your name on something you know it could be brought down so if you in the past if you were to take you know say a coin that's certified with nothing on it you could say well this was my grandfather so if you show it to collect you know hey my grandfather collected look Smith collection and now you know you can as as maybe the son of the grandson you could add to that collection and continue to have that Smith on the label and you know if someone most collectors is really passionate and again if they should ever want to exhibit it you know you there you go you know you want to be proud look at this great set of complete sovereigns that I put together you know and a lot of times you know a person maybe because they're a collector over many years becomes very well known as yeah a collector of sovereigns and so now when you go to sell it actually can add value because oh yeah he was known you know he had the best collection he had a great eye for sovereigns so it's multi-dimensional as far as you know why someone put it on there but basically yeah if you if you know you put the pedigree on it it's it's you know it really says something about the collector and again it's about the whole thing when people do collect and they having a collection you know they want to be known for you know this was my collection yeah and I guess it's it's also helpful for you know family members often find collections that have been left behind and don't know much about them they may you know take them down to the to the thrift store or something like that so having this certification just kind of cancels that out isn't it well none of that yet at a great point too because sometimes as you read it's rare nowadays but occasionally you know a super rare coin will find up in someone's drawer or you know and so what happens is you know that sometimes will only add you know to the value of the coin and add and also it adds to the you know the whole provenance and the mystery of it you know you know like if if it's well just if so it's a smith again and like maybe you said you know they happen to come across this in their drawer their grandfather had some old sovereigns and stuff come to find out one super rare well again it's now the whole history can be tracked because this is the coin whereas if you just have a generic coin certified the only really thing you know about this is what's on the hold of the grade you don't know any of the history behind it but if you do have smith or smith collection on there you know you can look into that well what was the smith collection I've been like wow you didn't know about that they found that in a draw and you know it just it just and maybe and then a lot of people also like to have it on there because it also denotes sometimes the authenticity if you know this coin has been in this draw for 50 or 100 years it only adds to you know people just find it even more credible that it's been there for so long yeah yeah excellent okay so the next question we have should the coins be stored in special rooms etc even if it's in the certification capsule yes obviously you always want to store anything in the most ideal collection so basically we say just store it in something that's low heat and low humidity I mean you don't have to go absurd but you know what some people may not realize it's like I'll go store it in a safety deposit box or somewhere and you know nowadays do you know they have control is it something that could be you know just left to room temperature and heated up and the safe doors left open all day you're really unsure but basically if it's low humidity and low temperature it'll be fine again you know it's protected being in hermetically sealed holder but of course just like anything it is plastic so there is a certain degree of it's porous and you know you do everything you can so that you'll maintain the integrity of that coin so just by putting it in you know a safe place and I think just use some common sense you know you go to a coin show us something you you know you make sure that you know you don't leave your coins in the car in the way they are for too long in the heat or you don't leave your coin in the sun or you know you and I are outside having a drink and I'll bring my coin outside to you in the heat and show you don't want to do stuff like that you mean you want to keep stuff in a you know reasonable environment but with that said again you get the peace of mind that during transportation or if it does happen to be you know a wet place and you drop the coin then you know you can wipe it off and again you're going to protect it from the elements yeah yeah okay that's great what can conservation do to the value of my collection well certainly it could make your collection not only it could make it first of all aesthetically look more pleasing so in other words if you decide that you're like you said they find it in a drawer and it's a copper or silver coin and it has accumulated over the years you may be you know a lot of dust and just because of the way coins are manufactured with oil and grease maybe you know it has a film on the coin or something like that so unless it's something that's still active like a green spot like PVC we will still grade the coin in NGC however it may receive a lower grade because you know maybe the original surfaces again are deterred by the haze in the coin maybe it's a proof coin and you really can't see the cameo from the mirrored field so by conserving the coin you're going to not only remove this neutralizer but you know by making it aesthetically appealing a lot of times it causes the grade to go up sometimes it could be substantial in one of my coins like when you have like a coin that came out of an original holder that maybe is all toned over you know with the light film and you can't see that he even has a cameo not only is the grade important but maybe the attribution that it becomes an ultra cameo maybe it's really rare as an ultra cameo so you take anything that's hidden on the coin by conserving it it makes it now come to light and a lot of times obviously by increasing the grade of the coin and the aesthetics of it it'll make the coin worth more money yeah yeah that makes sense okay um the next one is from another mat do auction trends influence how you grade them? again not at all that's why I said when it comes to grading guaranteed we look at every coin uniquely but with that said what we do is is we compare those coins with the known set that we've graded so like I said if you get I think say there's only six known of one coin and three have been graded it really doesn't matter if that fourth coin comes in whether you know the first three coins were valued at 100,000 this one's going to be a million dollars because of the marketplace those coins that coin is going to be graded on its own merits you know you know you know first of all is it authentic you know does it have any marks on it whatever we're gonna grade that coin just like we would you know any other coin every coin is graded on its own merits and basically it's graded based on a comparison of coins of the exact same type so yes that coin will get compared to other rarities like I said if there's you know a few known will compare it to the ones that are known and how we graded those coins to establish a baseline and also by having graded so many millions of coins when you grade tens of thousands of sovereigns we have a better baseline to know how a coin falls in that grade whereas if you just have one coin it'll be pretty hard you'd have to take it and try to yourself hey where does that fit in you know the grading line here but since we do it a lot it becomes fairly easy for us and people kind of laugh at us we're like you know how quickly do you arrive at a grade and most of it's like when we take a coin we look at the all the like the front the back to side whatever literally in seconds we have a baseline grade now of course after that we have to make sure that you know there's no hidden scratches but it's it's pretty much a pretty quick thing that we do yeah excellent okay this is a one that I'm sure lots of collectors have asked you before how can I find out what my coin is worth again the best resources you can go to our website you can go you know download the app as far as you know has all the price guides on it another great thing too is I mean there's a million auctions nowadays I mean like you just mentioned you just heard that a coin sold for wrecking them on in the last auction well you can also go back and look at every single coin that's sold on an auction to really give you an idea and with the internet nowadays you have eBay auction companies you have coin pricing guides NJC pricing guides there's a plot for stuff out there right now and there's no shortage nowadays to find out what my coin is worth obviously eventually it's going to be between the buyer and the seller and again it helps nowadays when you have a grade and maybe a star or a plus to also help you out because maybe it's a novice you don't know wow this is not only a 63 but it's a star this is exceptional for any 63 so the NJC gives you all the tools as far as determining you know the grade and actually the value as far as what the actual value is as a monetary unit there's plenty of places to go nowadays yeah yeah okay how common a fakes in your experience do you come across many all the time all the time I mean as you know China there's lots of fakes that come out from China right now it used to be that most of the time fakes were made because the coin was rare it was extremely valuable so people would make it because there was a lot of monetary value to be had but nowadays unfortunately with the internet with ebay with auction companies it's very easy to be anonymous selling a coin now so what happens is there's counterfeiting of everything and modern coins now and like I mentioned to you you know now we have Boeing coins a kilo five kilo 10 kilo gold coins 10 kilo gold coins probably melts for a 350,000 so you can imagine that now the counterfeiters have an additional not only may the coin not be rare it just has a high value due to you know the metal that it's made out of so there's a lot of modern day forgeries unfortunately because of modern technology it's become easier and easier to create fakes because again of digitalization there's ways to create coins digitally so digital process to make the physical coin so it becomes easier and easier and more and more fakes we see however again we based on we have a large database of photographs of images of technical specifications that we've done you know every coin we photograph that comes out of here if it's something that's rare we do additional photography that has all the diagnostics the characteristics that can allow us to tell the real from the fake and you know aside from that also again it's the knowledge of everybody we have here that's been working here for all these years it's really funny but for the most part you know a lot of fake coins we don't have to do any tests we simply hold our hands we laugh oh look at this fake now if Matt if you were to tell me you know why is the coin fake we can obviously go through the breakdown you know wrong metal the dyes are wrong except we can give you all but for the most part with our trained eyes it's pretty easy for us with that said a lot of the classic coins the difficulty in determined authenticity what if you have a very worn coin which is typically done to try to erase a lot of the imperfections maybe and making it or the diagnostic so it becomes a little more difficult but again by seeing the large amount of coins we have and having a big database in order to go through when we also maybe we also take advantage of all the experts worldwide you know we will we will talk to people who maybe are foremost experts in Mexican coins or whatever and get their opinion on it so I mean we do everything we can to make you feel 100 countable that when we say it's real or fake it's real or fake yeah okay so what I mean what tips would you give to someone who's perhaps wanting to buy something online and they're not sure if it's fake or real well again and that's a beauty of us what I started collecting you know it's funny because you know when you first get into it as a pure novice first of all you have to even just you know go through the rudimentary basics it says what's the sovereign look like what are the different types because you don't even know then within each types you know well are there different mints different min mark so it's a large amount of information that you first have to learn and then you have to learn do I even know to tell whether this coin is real or fake then what are our greatest so there's a lot of variables so I say if you're a novice nowadays unless you know it's fun if you want to take some try to buy some raw coins inexpensive and maybe try to grade them yourself for fun if they're real and then submit them after to see how you've done yeah that's a great learning process because again education is not free you have to learn one way or the other we learn the hard way in the old days because you know we bought a counterfeit coin or an altered coin or a coin that was overgraded so we learned but nowadays it's so great to go that route and there's also you know many seminars that'll teach you how to grade and you can go there and learn but if someone wants to start off I mean I'd say that's fine but if you're going to do anything and you're not an expert in it and it involves you know large dollar amounts obviously the safest way almost like insurance is just buy a certified coin yeah because then all the variables are taken out and the only variable you have left is what I want to pay for the coin exactly yeah okay yeah that sounds great so I think this is probably the last question we we've got time for what do I have to do to submit a coin to NGC well there's a couple ways again I'm not the expert you can go online and look at this but I know you can subscribe to be a collector society member so that allows you to a lot of the stuff that's online as well as being able to submit directly to NGC and then a lot of people do is you go through a authorized deal which is probably the best way so these are dealers that you know we've checked out their credentials and they meet all our criteria to work with NGC and you simply can go to one of those drop off your coins they'll take care of all the paperwork for you they'll write up the submission and basically they'll if you're from the UK they'll submit it to us we'll get it here in the states we'll grade it conserve it and send it right back to that submission center and you can just go there pick it up or I think you know they can send it back to the mail so it's a really easy process if you want to do a collector society as great as if you're collecting you're really you know going to start collecting yourself you want to do the registry you want to take advantage everything then it's probably best to go that route and be a collector society but again the interesting thing is by going with the submission center you also get to meet you know submission centers dealers people who've collected in and he gives you another resource to just do in collecting yeah okay I think we've probably got time for just one more how long does it take to have coins conserved? well basically I believe we have like a 30 day turnaround but that's again it's just it's it's just that we have an approximation because it's the same it's even tougher than when grading coins is when we conserve coins basically it's there's not a certain amount of time it's whatever is needed to take to conserve that coin so whether it's a simple three-step process or a 15-step process the coins are going to go through that process that it needs to to be properly conserved so why we try to stay in a timeline again that can vary I mean if it takes a little more time then it will but basically then after it's conserved it has to go to grading go through that too but basically we take however much times needed to conserve the coin properly so although most coins have the same process used because it's pretty rudimentary there are times when it takes a long time to do a coin and again we're just going to take as long as we need to to do it but very rarely would you get past 30 days unless in the current situation now with COVID where you have all the stuff from around the world coming here because we're not doing any shows you know there may be a backlog because there's just a lot of coins and by people staying at home they tend to go through their collections and now hey you know I might as well submit this now now's a good time so we actually have a large influx of coins right now so but again it's something feel free contact customer service they'd be more than happy to tell you what the current turnaround times are of course with our submissions there's different tiers which is different turnaround time so listen if you need a quicker you know if you pay an additional fee to have it expedited I'm sure it can be done we do the same with conservation if you really need to have it back you know we can put your coin to the head of the line head of line doesn't mean that it can be done in a certain amount of time again just you'll get to the head of the line yeah yeah sure okay that sounds great well yeah I think we're just about out of time so thank you so much David for your time and for your you're welcome Matt it was a pleasure as you can see there there are contact details here on the screen so the web address and the email if anyone else has any other questions the festival of coins runs until the 16th of October so do come on over to all about coins.co.uk there's lots of video guides and things there also enough in an hour or two we'll have a recording of this webinar so in case you missed the start or anything you can have a look at it there and that's it so thank you so much for your time David and have a great day you're welcome it's been a pleasure