Wings (the CAC of world coins)

For those unfamiliar with the company, Wings Coins (http://wingscoins.com/) is a slabbed world coin quality verifying company. Basically they are like CAC for world coins and they use similar shaped Wings stickers, silver to indicate solid for the grade, and gold to indicate PQ.

I know slabbed world coins aren't nearly as popular as for US coins, but for those that do collect slabs or slab their world coins, what do you think about a coin with the Wings sticker? Does it matter to you? Has anyone here submitted to Wings, and if so, what was your experience? What kind of coins would you submit or not submit to Wings?

 

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Did someone just "wing it" or if I put my money on it, it flies away on wings...?

 

Seems like another way to squeeze more money out of coin collectors pockets.

 

It doesn't do much for me. I would have to explain it to a potential buyer just like you did here. That could be troublesome. They have been in business for eight years and I haven't run across any coins with their stickers yet. Jaelus, you can answer a six question survey and they will send you three free submissions. If your interested, give it a try.

 

At this point it doesn't matter to me. The major difference with WINGS and CAC is that at this point in time a lot of coins without a CAC sticker you can assume they had been rejected. However with WINGS they haven't seem the vast majority of coins still so it just doesn't matter and there is no assumption of rejection without the sticker.

That could change in the future but their prices are not as collector friendly as CAC which is ultimately going to do nothing but slow down their potential acceptance and growth.

 

I didn't know CAC rejected coins - I thought a different color bean was issued instead of green with an up or down grade from them?

 

Green sticker is good for the grade, Gold is basically under-graded and no sticker would be they saw it and rejected it. There is no database of rejected coins nor will they tell you, but they have a big enough presence that over a certain value with US coins you can just assume it has been reviewed especially if being sold by a large dealer.

WINGS is the same basic premise though they call their Gold sticker premium quality for the grade

 

I knew some kids that collected stickers when i was in elementary school.

 

my wife likes wings

 

Actually WINGS makes more sense to me than CAC...why? NGC/PCGS have both graded millions of US coins and I expect them to be more consistent with US coins than with coins from ANY other country, right? I've been looking at German Reich coins recently and there can be huge differences btw two coins of the same type and grade. I don't own a WINGS coin, but I really do like the idea...

 

I haven't seen WINGS approved, even gold beans, doing any significant premiums at auctions. Some dealers try to sell them retail at a large mark-up, but they don't seem to be selling as far as I've noticed.

 

I should say

Gold sticker means the coin is undergraded- OK thanks!!

 

Not necessarily undergraded, but a very nice example compared to others of the point grade. Basically like a star that the TPG did not add after the grade.

 

It's basically the same as CAC, but not as widely accepted. They have been around for a bit and do good work. Now may be the time to grab them up before the market catches up if you collect non US coins.

 

Then if it isn't undergraded and the original TPG's grading is correct why does CAC charge to tell what is already known?

 

For Wings yes, for CAC it means under-graded.

To put it in perspective with CAC for Liberty Seated Dimes in business strikes CAC has given out 63 gold stickers for all grades. For Green stickers they have given out 3,180 for all grades. That is about 2 percent of what they stickered in that series getting a Gold one. If they were just saying very nice for the grade with that the rate would be much higher

 

That's a good tip. I'll check it out. They have a booth at the Whitman Expo and I might drop by when I'm at the show to take advantage of that. I've got a couple especially nice top top world coins I wouldn't mind getting stickered for the right price, but they seem expensive compared to CAC, especially since they aren't well established. I've seen Wings stickered coins around here and there, but not very many.

 

I'm talking about WINGS as I don't really buy US coins. But I would be curious as to the proportion of grades with a star to those without and how it stacks up with the CAC green/gold bean ration.

 

Well, I think NGC is pretty consistent with world coins from what I've seen. PCGS frequently overgrades them. You bring up a very good point. But since Wings only deals with slabbed material and only sees a small fraction of it at that, they would be seeing even fewer world coins than the TPGs. Do they have the expertise to be as consistent as CAC? What they are attempting to do is more ambitious. Their silver and gold stickers are really equivalent to A/B quality of CAC green beans; something CAC doesn't even attempt to differentiate between.

 

IMO that is one of the things that really is just shooting themselves in the foot. CAC doesn't charge collector members anything for coins that don't sticker which gets them more coins and more collectors looking for them which means more dealers will submit to them. WINGS would be wise to copy that model while they build a name.

I would be curious to know too, but at the same time I feel like WINGS hasn't seen a large enough percentage of the coins to really make a meaningful comparison at this point.

I would be curious to hear others thoughts on that model, but IMO they should at least add a third sticker for undergraded. Part of the allure of the second opinion is hoping for that ever elusive undergraded sticker, with that off the table it can't be doing them any favors with building interest in the service