Every coin in Snowpack inventory is certified by PCGS, NGC or CACG (occasionally ANACS for the right piece) and sold in the original grading company holder. We back the authenticity of every coin we sell with a lifetime guarantee — no expiration, no fine print.
The commitment
If any coin you buy from Snowpack is ever determined by PCGS, NGC or CACG to be counterfeit, altered, or misattributed in a way the grading company will correct under their own guarantee, we will buy the coin back at the original sale price. Not credit. Not a discount on a future purchase. A refund to the payment method you used.
This guarantee runs in parallel with the grading services' own authenticity guarantees — PCGS, NGC and CACG each stand behind their slabs. They cover the coin. We cover you — the buyer — for the transaction. Between those two protections, you are fully insulated against authenticity risk.
Why slab-only
Counterfeit coins have gotten remarkably sophisticated in the last decade. Chinese fakes of everything from Morgan dollars to Bust halves now routinely pass visual inspection. The only reliable authentication at scale is the weight-metal-strike-device suite that PCGS, NGC and CACG run on every submission.
So we only sell coins that have cleared that suite. No raw coins. No "appears to be genuine" lots. No "details grade" coins sold as problem-free. If the coin isn't in a PCGS, NGC or CACG holder (or, occasionally, an ANACS holder for the right piece), it's not on Snowpack.
What voids the guarantee
- Cracking the slab. A coin removed from its original grading holder is no longer the coin we sold. The grading company's guarantee ends and so does ours. Keep the coin in the holder.
- Resubmission to a third service. Sending the coin to a different grading service (ICG or others) and receiving a different grade or determination doesn't void the original grader's guarantee, but our buyback runs against the service that graded it originally. If the original grading service still backs the coin, we still back the coin.
- Damage or alteration after delivery. Cleaning, polishing, or otherwise altering a coin after it leaves our hands.
Separate from returns
The authenticity guarantee is separate from our 14-day return policy, which covers change-of-mind returns for coins that are still in the original holder. Authenticity is permanent; returns are a grace window. Both stack — if a coin you returned years ago turns out to be counterfeit, the buyback still applies.
CAC — the extra layer
Coins marked CAC carry an additional sticker from the Certified Acceptance Corporation, which independently verifies the coin is at the high end of its assigned grade. CAC's own authenticity guarantee stacks on top of the grading service's. (CACG-graded coins are CAC-quality by design — the same standards baked into the slab itself.) When a CAC sticker or CACG holder is available on a coin we're acquiring, we lean toward those examples — but plenty of beautifully original coins don't carry the sticker either, and they're welcome here too. The standard is the coin in front of you, not the label on the slab.