TSF's Official Grading Partner - Grading Service & TSF label - Prices & Submission form

[ChrisSilver 9,043]

Grading

We are proud to announce the official launch of COR's NGC grading service & The Silver Forum branded label. 

The Silver Forum have partnered with Coins of the Realm Ltd (@CoinsOfTheRealmAuctions) and NGC to provide members with an NGC grading service. Coins of the Realm are an NGC authorized dealer.  

TSF receive no commission from any of the services offered by COR. We have however secured discount vouchers for premium members buying at their auctions, and discounts for premium members selling at COR auctions. The full savings are passed directly onto members, as TSF supports itself through members choosing to upgrade to Premium Membership. Similarly, we have also secured some very attractive discounts for Premium Members wishing to grade coins with COR.

Grading Pricing 



How to work out the total:

Take the price from the applicable ‘Price inclusive of VAT’ column + TSF label fee (If applicable, label is optional) + The applicable COR grading fee - The applicable discount = Total grading cost per item (excluding shipping and any add ons)

Note that gold coins can be put into the Modern category if applicable, which has a lower fee.

You will notice above that there are discounts for Premium Members grading coins. With Platinum PLUS members saving £1 per coin graded, this can add up to a substantial saving for those grading a lot of coins. Feel free to upgrade your membership if you would like to take advantage of the higher discounts available. 

For the full price list including add ons, and submission form, as well as other important information, please click to download the following documents:

 

Price Table & COR Checklist.pdf

COINS OF THE REALM NGC SUBMISSION FORM v2.pdf

(You will need to be signed into your forum account to download these files)

TSF branded label 

Premium Members may choose an optional TSF branded label when grading with COR. This label is exclusive to those grading via COR, and is unavailable anywhere else. The TSF branded label is available only for Premium Members.

Any applicable TSF label fee that is charged, is passed on to TSF from COR. All TSF label fees received will go towards the $1000 label charge, any fees received after this will go directly into TSF's marketing costs. TSF relies heavily on Premium Members who support TSF, as such there are larger discounts available on the TSF label fee for higher tier Premium Members as well as FREE TSF labels available for Platinum and Platinum PLUS tier members.

The TSF label is currently available on standard size and double thick NGC holders. We may look at making a TSF label available for oversize holders if there is sufficient demand. 

Note that the red 'SAMPLE' text watermark will not appear on your label and is shown only for the above sample photo  

TSF label fee

Silver Premium Member - £6 per TSF label
Gold Premium Member - 50% discount (£3 per TSF label)
Platinum Premium Member - £FREE
Platinum PLUS Premium Member - £FREE

We hope that you like the TSF label design and we are looking forward to seeing it on your graded coins. You may wish to upgrade your membership to take advantage of the discounts.  There is no disadvantage to upgrade your membership mid billing cycle as the time paid on the current invoice is calculated. For help with upgrading and to know the upgrade cost please private message @ChrisSilver

Additional info

When submitting your item(s) for grading please do confirm with @CoinsOfTheRealmAuctions via the TSF messaging system that you have sent them an item. Contacting COR via the TSF messaging system may help to speed up the validation of the applicable discounts as they will be able to easily validate your membership status. Please also include your TSF member name on the submission form if possible. 

TSF members must hold the applicable membership level at the time of submitting their items and the time that they are invoiced from Coins of the Realm to take advantage of the discounts. 

Coins of the Realm Ltd are based in the UK. Import taxes and other applicable charges may apply if sending items from outside of the UK to Coins of the Realm. We currently do not have a partner in the EU or USA offering a grading service for members, however we hope that in the future as the forum grows that we can find a way to provide our members in these regions with a similar grading service and TSF label. 

Note that the grading service is provided by COR. Any contract for services is between the member/customer and COR. Note that the grading itself is done by NGC, although NGC try to minimise grading errors with the coins being checked by multiple graders it may however on occasion be possible that a coin may come back at a higher or lower grade than it should have been assigned. Coins graded by NGC are covered by their guarantee should they overgrazed the coin, please see here for further details. The NGC guarantee also covers items with the TSF label, to make a claim you would need to go direct to NGC, please see all of the details on the previous link.  

[ChrisSilver 9,043]

I'm also added this information below that has some useful information for members. Please also search the forum for other topics started by members who discuss how to self grade, as it may be an option for you.
 

Self Grading

Many members choose to grade themselves directly with NGC / PCGS, there is no need to necessarily use a company to grade for you. And it is a myth that you can receive a higher grade if grading via a 3rd party. 

Note that unfortunately the TSF label is not available if you grade directly with NGC and is only available via COR. Also note the £13 per form grading fee when self grading directly with NGC. So grading directly for smaller quantities of coins can work out more expensive than going via @CoinsOfTheRealmAuctions (who as well as being TSF's Official Grading partner are also an Authorised NGC dealer).

You can easily compare the costs of grading in the UK with NGC direct yourself by going to their website here: https://www.ngccoin.uk/submit/services-fees/ngc/ (again don't forget to also include that £13, as well as the NGC return shipping cost which is quite expensive if going direct to NGC, I think it was from around £36+ return shipping cost when I self graded in the past directly with NGC, although this obviously is not applicable if picking up direct from the NGC office) and you can compare to the grading fees with @CoinsOfTheRealmAuctions (discounts applicable for different Premium Member groups, pricing and info available here)

Pros of grading via Coins of the Realm
- Optional TSF branded label available for Premium Members (FREE for Platinum Premium Members, instead of £6 or £3 per label)
- Lower cost for small and medium quantities of coins submitted as no £13 per form charge.
- Discounts for different Premium Member groups.

Pros of grading direct with NGC UK
- If you live in or close to London and there is no or low cost travel expenses to get to the NGC office you can drop off and pick up in person to save shipping fees (especially the very high return charge from NGC).
- Can work out cheaper if you are submitting large quantities of coins, e.g. if you have 20 coins on the same sheet effectively reduces the £13 fee to just £0.65 per coin.


Note that TSF does not receive any money for members choosing to grade via COR. Unless however a chargeable fee for the TSF label is applicable, this is then passed onto TSF. TSF is not expecting to even break even on the $1000 label charge that we paid, however if members choose to get this label it will hopefully promote and advertise TSF in the long term. The TSF label was also designed to fit in nicely with other Standard NGC labels or standard NGC blue Early Releases / First Releases labels that members may have in their collection so that their TSF branded NGC graded coins go well in their collection. TSF supports itself via Premium Membership subscriptions and Platinum Premium Member groups receive optional FREE TSF branded labels when grading via COR this also will help to support the forum. 

In conclusion, members are free to grade directly with NGC or with TSF's official grading partner Coins of the Realm. As above it may be a lower cost to grade via COR so it is worth working out the costs and comparing the options. You may also like the TSF label and wish to grade via COR so you can get this. 

In regards to PCGS, I can't really say anything just yet, but I can say that TSF is working on something in relation to this and this will be announced in due course, again it will be a system set up whereby TSF does not receive a commission but does negotiate lower rates for Premium and/or Platinum Premium Members. More details on that to come sometime this year