SEGS
Scott Snyder
Grading Service?
I am not familiar with this grading service.
See ebay auction:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310902073
Scott Snyder
Joe Sewell
<scot...@mediaone.net> wrote:
>Can anyone shed some light on what is SEGS - The Sovereign Entities
>Grading Service?
>I am not familiar with this grading service.
SEGS is one of the more recent entries into the grading service industry.
Larry Briggs, a coin dealer in Lima, OH, is the main man behind the
company, with Adrian Pitt his right-hand woman (and the one probably
running the day-to-day operations at Lookout Mountain, GA, where the
service is located). SEGS boasts a superior holder, a claim with which I
agree; their holders stack perfectly, offer a good view of the coin, plus
the label wraps around the top of the holder, allowing you to see what
coin is what in a stack. I've found no significant disagreements with
their grading quality; from talking with Larry & Adrian, I can tell they
are committed to quality, not just popularity.
One thing they do that I like, though others do not, can be seen in the
auction you cited. They do NOT "body bag" a coin; for those who don't
know what that means, it means they will not return a coin in a flip due
to problems, like some other services do. (Some of those services, I'm
told, don't even refund your money when they do this.) SEGS will grade &
slab it anyhow, with a notation of the problem, e.g., "Stained" or
"Lightly cleaned." They offer error/variety confirmation (i.e., you tell
them what you think the error/variety is) at no extra charge, or they can
do the research for you for a small fee.
Oh, and they accept direct submissions. In fact, as far as I know, they
don't go with the "member dealer" concept at all.
I've talked by email and phone with Larry & Adrian, and I met them at the
last FUN show. I get a much better feeling from them as far as integrity
is concerned than I do from PCGS or ICG.
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Steven Preston
>The Sovereign Entities Grading Service?
>I am not familiar with this grading service.
SEGS is a relatively new slabbing service that is not (at least as yet)
as widely known as the other "major" services (PCGS, NGC, ANACS, ICG,
and PCI in no particular order :-) Generally, the market perception is
that SEGS overgrades, does not always list problems, and that the grade
on the holder isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Those comments are
paraphrased from various dealers I've dealt with both locally and at the
Baltimore show. For now, SEGS is definitely a "pariah slab", a least to
most dealers. Now, as far as the SEGS coins I've seen, a lot are either
low end or obviously overgraded by sometimes 2 levels (an EF-40 being
slabbed as an AU-50). However, I have an 1881-S Morgan SEGS slabbed
MS-65, and it is exactly that. As always, buy the coin, not the holder
(though many people like the fact that SEGS lists the coin and the grade
on the top of the slab). If you're usure about your grading skills (and
we all were at one time or perhaps still are), SEGS coins present more
of a risk of getting a "problem" coin (such as a light cleaning not
noted on the holder) or a coin that most (or possibly all) dealers will
discount very heavily or not want at all. All in my opinion, and as much
as I'd like to think it's the only one that matters ;-) others might
actually care to disagree. Be careful, have fun, and good luck.
-Steve
JSTONE9352
>Can anyone shed some light on what is SEGS - The Sovereign Entities
>Grading Service?
>I am not familiar with this grading service.
>
>http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310902073
>
>Scott Snyder
>
>
>
years ago (?). They have their fans
and detractors like all of the other grading
services.
>
>
TinCan
You may contact us at: 1-888-768-7261
We will be glad to forward you a sample holder and submittal information.
Adrian
A Pitt
CCT1A wrote:
> >As operations manager for SEGS your comments are the absolute "first of
> >their kind" that I have heard... period!
>
> Now that we've got your attention, maybe you
> can give us the lowdown and the nodown on
> why your slabs are not accepted by Teletrade?
>
> There's been a lot of talk about it, but so far
> nobody has offered an explanation more
> illuminating than "politix."
CCT1A
MoneyLA
more importantly -- Fair. I know my coins will be graded and won't be
arbitrarily body-bagged. Alan Mendelson
Bruce Hickmott
TinCan <SE...@bellsouth.net> writes:
|>
|>--------------0D544C439B411E4455E18C1D
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|>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
|>
|>Dear Steve:
|>
|>As operations manager for SEGS your comments are the absolute "first of
|>their kind" that I have heard... period!
|>the most recent start-up grading service and not SEGS.
|>
Greetings and welcome, SEGS! SEGS has kinda popped up and vanished a couple times in RCC, hopefully you'll stick around this time and let your voices be heard. To catch you up, ALL grading services take a lot of flack here so don't take it personally.
|>SEGS coins are not net graded and we are conservative. We do not down grade
|>or discount a coin. We do not net grade a coin by a point or two and
|>encapsulate a "cleaned" coin and never mention the word "cleaned".
|>
I've probably looked at 100 or so SEGS slabs. Most were liberty 5c in grades AU50-MS65. I probably agreed with better than 90% of your grades, and most of the disagreements were MS60-62 slabs that I felt were AU58. That's pretty good (ask me what i think of PCGS ms60-62 slabs sometime), but I think there are some people here who'd like to discuss some of your PR70 coins. :-)
|>It is fair that the buyer and seller exercise their absolute right to
|>bargain price for a problem coin by taking the true grade and the problem
|>into consideration. Problem coins at SEGS are authenticated, graded,
|>finalized, and encapsulated with the problem "CLEARLY" stated on the SEGS
|>capsule label: cleaned, scratched, artificial toning, over dipped, repaired,
|>holed, plugged, etc. The end consumer of an SEGS product can rest assured
|>that they have purchased a certified coin that has been scrutinized and more
|>honestly evaluated than an extremely high percentage of any other certified
|>product on the market.
|>
I have not yet seen a cleaned coin in a SEGS slab that has not been labeled as such.
|>SEGS slabs are selling consistent to levels of NGC & PCGS and over ANACS,
|>PCI, and ICG.
|>
Well, comments in the group would put you about the level of ANACS but below PCGS/NGC. Some folks have provided some fairly hard data to support this, though admittedly I took those statements at face value and did not check sources. Data showing otherwise would be of great interest to many.
|> I would like to address some of the topics that stem from your "so freely
|>posted" comments and opinions concerning SEGS on rec.collecting. SEGS will
|>be attending several major shows (as always) please feel free to drop by...
|>visit us ... I would love to continue this discussion.
At the three shows I've been to where you were, the crowd around your table was 2-3 deep every time I looked. Does Larry Briggs ever get time to sit behind his own table anymore? :-)
But why not continue the discussion here in RCC? Grading services are a hot topic here and we don't often get to grill^H^H^H^H^H discuss issues with folks who can speak for the services.
If you were so keenly
|>interested in SEGS it seems odd that I do not remember speaking with you in
|>Baltimore. Perhaps the "pariah" of your statement is the uninformed,
|>uneducated an or perhaps a competitor. What kind of business did you say
|>you are in???
|>
Read the posts in the newsgroup about SEGS on www.dejanews.com. And about the other services. One does NOT have to a competitor of yours or uneducated to have formed a negative opinion of any of the grading services. Defenders of the grading services seem badly outnumbered. EVERYBODY has a slab horror story to tell.
Good communication is the beginning of good customer relations. We may not always agree with you. Heck, start a thread on PR70's and you'll likely get flamed medium well. But we'll listen to your side, regardless.
Adrian, again welcome to RCC!
Bruce Hickmott
ANA 162074
EAC3606
CM15
TinCan
You are obviously a very perceptive man...
ap
A Pitt
Everbody has to be somewhere.
Teletrade has their own thing going on...
SEGS was given a promise of the "open" slot at Teletrade (perhaps the old
"Hallmark" slot) if we conformed to certain guidelines set by Ms. Abrams. We
fulfilled her guidelines and the open slot was given to ICG. We haven't
obtained a straight answer since. I don't have an answer and I don't know....
Just for the record...
Sovereign: Superior, leading, excellent, ultimate, elite, specialist
Entities: Entity, oneness, integrity, entirety, essential part
By the way we are nice people.
CCT1A wrote:
> Maybe I'm weird, but when I hear "Sovereign
> Entities Grading Service" and I see they are down
> south somewhere, I think of States' Rights. It
> really seems to stand for "South East Grading
> Service."
>
> This suspicion is reinforced by the "attitude."
> I ask a simple question about why their meeting
> with Teletrade did not produce results, and
> the smart-aleck answer is, "Maybe you know."
>
> Of course, I'm probably wrong. They could be
> VERY nice people.
CCT1A
Aram H. Haroutunian
=====================
gbtjom
I haven't been in this newsgroup much so forgive me. But I have a question
for you. Are you the same Bruce Hickmott that was in the Compuserve coin
collectors area at one time? I dumped CS in 1995 and got a regular
provider and I just happen to stumble into this newsgroup and saw your
name. If so, how ya doing? I was a subscriber for Compuserve (and a coin
forumer) way back then. In fact, I met you at the Anahiem ANA show in the
get together the group had there. What ever happen to that forum anyways?
I'm just wondering what happen to some of the forumers such as Bijan (don't
remember his last name but he was a dentist or some such), or Marc Appel
(he was a $5 Indian collector). When I was new new collector you guys
helped a lot with some of library info (you have a good write up on toning,
as I recall). Anyways, I hope you see my note here....good luck. Maybe
I'll come on by here more often...
John Mortensen
Bruce Hickmott
Hi John!
Yep, it's me. I had to leave CI$ suddenly when it looked like my company was going to make an attempt to buy them. There was much concern about perceived conflict of interest. So I ended up here in RCC and I've been here ever since.
I have not heard from Bijan Anvar in years. I don't even know if he has net access, but he's probably still hoarding busties. Haven't heard word one from Marc that I'm aware of, but there's a lot of people on the net who do not post under their real name. He may be around and I just haven't noticed.
I haven't a clue what happened to the coin section after I left. I know that Dave Cunningham is still heavily involved in the collectors forum and that he posts here occasionally, but that's it. When my company decided they weren't interested in CI$, I thought I'd go back but the level of spam that CI$ saw fit to dump in my inbox made CI$ basically unusable for me.
You'll find this group just as helpful as the coin section, but the signal to noise ratio is not as good.
How's your collection going? I'm up to 61 half cent varieties, all either AU or Condition Census. So I've been having fun. I did FINALLY find the 1802 C2 that I was always whining about. :-)
Bruce