Third Party Grading-PCGS' Secure Plus

One of the leaders in coin certification has just released a new service that that has the possibility to change the face of the certified coin market. On March 25, 2010 PCGS, Professional Coin Grading Service, announced the liberation of their self proclaimed “Big One” which turns out to be their new Secure Plus service. Coins submitted under the new service will laser scanned and the surface of the coin will be documented to detect any attempts of tampering with the appearance of the coin, such as artificially toned or puttied. The new service allows everything about the coin to be stored in a database, from its given grade to pictures of the obverse and reverse. If the coin is ever stolen and re submitted to PCGS, all of its information would pop up in the PCGS database and the coin will be returned to the rightful owner.



In this modern grading system that is used today, there are sometimes huge gaps in the price of coin from one grade to the next. A coin graded Mint State 62 could be worth thousands of dollars less than the same coin graded at Mint State 63. The new Secure Plus service offered by PCGS hopes to eliminate the discrepancies between similarly graded coins by bestowing a “+” on the holder of a coin considered superior for its grade. So what justifies a coin receiving a “+”? A coin that possesses multiple characteristics that place it in the top 10-15% of all coins in its grade will receive the coveted “+”.


What does this new service mean for the certified coin industry? Well I feel that coins that receive the “+” will be highly coveted because they will be seen as the best of the best. The new Secure Plus grading service seems to me as the transition of coin collecting from a hobby to strictly a business, where consumers will only be buying coins that were deemed superior to all the rest. Secure Plus can be a blessing for the vast majority of collectors out there who buy a coin, not based on the grade on its holder but by the character it possesses. I feel that many “high end” collectors will only be buying Secure Plus coins and in turn, prices for coins in normal holders will plummet leaving some golden opportunities open for the “little guys” out there.