With the rare coin market exceeding $3 billion, product authentication technology has swiftly become a necessity to prevent counterfeit coins and banknotes without compromising the encapsulation or condition of the collectibles. Collectors Universe first launched HID Trusted Tag Services with approximately 100,000 coins and received overwhelmingly positive feedback from customers. The company has purchased an additional two million HID Trusted NFC Tags to embed into broader segments of the PCGS inventory.

“HID Trusted Tag Services is the single biggest leap forward for third-party grading since the inception of the collectibles market. I hope that every third-party grading service in the industry considers integrating similar technology into their product lines as well. It’s simply that important for the hobby as a whole,” said Brett Charville, President of Professional Coin Grading Service.

HID Trusted NFC tags are embedded into PCGS’s coin and banknote holders using discreet wet inlays. Collectors just tap their phone to a holder to authenticate their collectible through the HID Cloud Authentication service. Each tap generates a unique one-time URL that automatically launches Collectors Universe’s proprietary PCGS Cert Verification app or opens a web browser to display information about the collectible’s authenticity. The single-use URLs help prevent spoofing or other attempts to circumvent the HID Trusted Tag Services.

“With the HID solution, Collectors Universe is the first in the numismatic industry and among the first in any of the collectibles fields to utilise this type of anti-counterfeiting technology at scale,” said Collectors Universe Chief Information Officer John Nelson. “The technology provides peace of mind to customers who seek reassurance that their investment is going toward a verifiable collectable.”

“HID Trusted Tag Services was specifically designed for Internet of Things use cases that benefit from combining our trusted NFC technology and cloud authentication services to enable new, convenient experiences for customers,” said Mark Robinton, vice president of IoT Services with HID Global. “Product authentication and brand protection are some of the many applications we automate by leveraging smartphones to streamline and simplify processes that were previously manual and paper-based.”