okay just to 180 my previous posts I'll now DEFEND slabbing with some pros...
Authenticity...someone else actually thinks "yup that's a coin"
Grade...someone else telling you approx. how much that coin is worth
Plastic...my kid will hopefully have a harder time spending my silver on icecream
Hey, why don't we go opposite and encase all our coins in plastic? then you could get MS-60 coins in change everytime you pay for something in cash. Or we could make the coins out of plastic. Oh wait they already have credit cards.
Now seriously...If I'm going to pony up and buy that trade dollar I've wanted for my type collection, I'm looking at a three to four figure transaction...and there are ALOT of replicas out there. I'd definately want tpg backing on that transaction, either pcgs or ngc. I'm just not familiar enough with the coin to buy raw and get, well, a RAW deal. But I wants it, its my precious, yesh.
Or I could pay $5-10 and get a replica. I don't do replicas. They do nothing for me.
Slabbing moderns like Statehood quarters to me is a waste of time and money. It's very speculative and I just don't see the value. I'll compare it to baseball cards. Back in the 80's everyone was doing baseball cards. Almost all the cards from the 80's have depriciated from the prices they had in their heyday. However if you bought the RIGHT cards from the 50's you still have a fairly respectable investment.
If you are slabbing you are concerned to some degree about value, as you can preserve coins just fine at a cheaper price and in a more attractive manner. I don't see the value in slabbing modern clads. Maybe silver statehoods because of the relatively low mintage. But then you add the value of the metal used as well.
I don't see guys rushing out to slab their holographic colorized Obama tribute Kennedy halves, so I'm guessing you know it's what you slab, not the slab itself.
Alot of my collection is straight from circulation. I'm constantly upgrading coins and working on my grading eye, but they just go in used blue Whitmans I got cheap. Why do I collect from circulation? It's my lottery, it's fun and exciting to me, and it doesn't really cost anything.
To me it is more about treasure hunting, not hoarding. I'd love to find a lincoln 55 dd, or an indian, or better. I realize that down the line I'm going to have to pay to get the coins I really want, but I'm still figuring out what those are.
Just because it's in a slab doesn't mean it's worth buying. There are plenty of nice morgans out there, and they will stay nice in their plastic, but they won't appriciate nearly as fast as you hope. If you're buying the coin and not the slab, do you really need the slab?
