PCGS Set Registry

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Your Set Registry Customer Service Staff
Email: setregistry@setregistry.com

BJ Searls
Manager

Cosetta Robbins
Assistant Manager

Gayle Kean
Coordinator

Michele Redmond
Coordinator

Jenny Vo
Coordinator

Set Registry News
Category Summary | Completion Summary | New Sets

"Show All" in My Collection: For large set composites, you now have the option when you are viewing your set in My Set Registry to show all the items in the set on one page instead of being forced to go from page to page.

Link to Collectors Corner: Collectors Corner, a Collectors Universe company, is a marketplace for coins, currency and trading cards. When you are in a set in My Sets, if an item that is being listed in Collectors Corner is available to fill a slot or upgrade an item in your set, there will be a link in the Action column. Clicking this link will take you directly to Collectors Corner where you can purchase the item from an authorized dealer. In My Preferences, you can elect to receive daily, weekly, or no emails at all from Collectors Corner whenever new items are listed which would upgrade your sets.

Report a cert that should match this composite: This is actually not a new feature, but one that we rolled out a few weeks ago which you might find useful. With PCGS's new variety program, many new coin numbers are being added to the database. Unfortunately, the sets in the Registry aren't automatically updated with these new numbers. If you find that you have a coin that is not displaying as being able to add to your set, use the Report a cert that should match this composite link which you will find just above the set composition in your set in My Sets. This information is automatically sent to us and the composite will be updated within one business day to enable you to update your set.

8/6/08
New Feature in My Preferences
If you are running an older computer system and are on a dial up, you can go to "My Preferences" and uncheck "Show Images on Sets." This will speed up the load time for large sets with images. You will still be able to view images by clicking on the camera icon.

7/23/08
PCGS Set Registry Award Winners Announced!
Congratulations to all of this years' winning sets and collections. For a list of all the winners, please click here. To view information about the 2008 PCGS Hall of Fame Inductee, click here.

7/17/08
Stewart Blay - David Hall Interview
In conjunction with the appearance of his legendary Red Copper Collection in the PCGS booth at the upcoming ANA convention in Baltimore, Stewart Blay was kind enough to spend a few minutes in conversation with PCGS founder David Hall. David is certainly a man who knows just what questions to ask Stewart about his amazing collection and coin collecting in general. We are sure you will find this interview insightful! Click here to view online.

3/31/08
PCGS Luncheon videos available for viewing online:
You will need Adobe Flash Player installed on your web browser in order to view these videos.
     January 2008 - The History of Grading presented by Ron Guth, Q&A Session with David Hall
     January 2006 - Grading Summit. Q. David Bowers, David Hall, Jim Halperin, Dr. Donald H. Kagin, Julian Leidman and Scott A. Travers participated in a panel discussion about the history of grading, the grading scale, and the future of grading which also included a discussion on whether or not the rare coin market should adopt a 100-point grading scale.
     January 2005 - The Good Old Days. Discussing “What Was the Coin Market like in the 1950s and 1960s?” was Q. David Bowers, David Hall, Art Kagin and Julian Leidman. This very entertaining video gives you a rare opportunity to hear the delightful stories of Art Kagin, who passed away in July, 2005.

10/29/07
New and Improved Set Listings Coming Soon!
As you know, PCGS launched its new variety attribution program last year. Consequently, we have many more varieties that we now recognize.   It’s time to re-examine the set compositions and make sure everything is logical and consistent. We may be adding some coins to various sets and we may remove some coins from certain sets. We are definitely going to add one class of sets we call the “Classic Set.” This will be the basic set with the major varieties that have been recognized for the past several decades. We will be checking with all of you who have variety sets before we make any major changes to any set. We’ll work together to make the Set Registry even better.

Here’s what things should look like when we’re done with the set composition re-vamp. If warranted, each series will have the following set compositions:

Date Set – The Date Set includes one coin for each year in the series. Any mintmark and any variety can be used as the “date” in your set. For example, a Morgan dollar Date Set could have an 1899-S, 1900-O/CC, and a 1901 for the 1899, 1900, and 1901 in the Date Set.

Basic Set (Date and Mintmark) – The Basic Set includes one of each date and mintmark in the series. For the most of the Basic Sets, varieties can be used in place of a non-variety coin.

Classic Set (Date, Mintmark, and Major Varieties) - The Classic Set includes one of each date, mintmark, and major variety, with the major varieties being those that have been recognized since the early 1970s. Examples of these long time recognized varieties would be the 3-legged Buffalo nickel, 1955 double die Lincoln cent, and the 1918/7-S Standing Liberty quarter. These sets are dated through 1964. The purpose of the Classic Set is to allow your current collection to be compared to the great collections of the past, such as the Louis Eliasberg collection, the only “complete” collection of U.S. coins ever assembled.

Major Variety Set (Date, Mintmark, and Major Varieties) – The Major Variety Set includes one of each date, mintmark, and major variety currently recognized by PCGS. Major varieties are defined as coins that are easily recognized as having major differences from other coins of the same design, type, date, and mint. Generally, major varieties are significant and can be easily seen with the naked eye. And where there are various “states” to a variety, the major variety is the state which is considered the strongest by the collecting community. For example, there are three states, or types, for the 1936 Double Die Obverse Lincoln cent. Only the Type 1, the strongest and most apparent of the three states, is considered a major variety and is included in the PCGS Major Variety Set for Lincoln cents.

Note that new varieties are recognized each year and the number of coins needed for a Major Variety Set may increase over time. Also note that it is possible for varieties to be “delisted,” i.e. removed from inclusion in the Major Variety set. Sometimes varieties are misattributed by the numismatic community. For example, for years the pricing guides listed an 1869/8 Indian cent. Experts now state that this is not a 9 over 8, but “recut 9,” or “9 over 9.’ This minor recutting is a much more common occurring variety and is not considered major.

Complete Variety Set (Date, Mintmark, and all Varieties) – The Complete Variety Set includes one of each date, mintmark, and all major and minor varieties recognized by PCGS. Using the example of the 1936 Double Die Obverse Lincoln cent mentioned under the Major Variety Set above, for the Major Variety Set, only the Type One 1936 DDO cent is allowed in and necessary for the set. However, in the Complete Variety Set, all three types of 1936 DDO Lincoln cents are required for the set. Note that for early series, such as Large cents, Bust half dollars, Half cents, etc., the Complete Variety Set includes all die varieties as listed in the most recognized reference books.

2/2/06
VAM Issues
When we launched the VAM sets last year, PCGS operations had not yet issued numbers for PL and DM VAMs. This means that those numbers are not in the VAM sets and we are adding them on a case-by-case basis. Should you attempt to add a VAM designated coin to one of your sets and you receive an error message, please contact setregistry@pcgs.com and we will immediately update the set with the missing number. Also, none of the VAM numbers were added to the non-VAM basic, variety, basic PL and variety PL sets. We are also adding those numbers as they come up.

8/21/02
Set Registry Weighting Policy
We have had many requests over the last year to explain what criteria is used when weighting sets. The Registry weighting is done by taking three things into account:

1. The overall rarity of the coin, i.e. the rarity in all grades
2. The rarity in the highest 2 or 3 grades
3. The price (because this is an indication of demand and importance to collectors)

The weighting steps are as follows. First, our expert (David Hall) makes a spreadsheet which summarizes these three factors for the entire series. Then he assigns the weights based on each factor, combines the weighted factors, and assigns a "total" weight. Next, the proposed weights are posted on the Set Registry News page. We then usually get feedback from the interested Registry participants. Finally, David Hall looks at the feedback and makes adjustments if appropriate. It's not 100% scientific, but we feel the weights accurately represent the relative rarity and importance of the individual coins.

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