poker_prof_AA

sorry, seems like a dumb question but i'm new, what exactly is slabbing? , just protecting the coin with a case?

Bonedigger

Yep, just another gimmick to seperate the collector from his or her money. It's pure genius. You get to pay just as much or more as you did for the coin so somebody else can tell you what you already knew except it's put in plastic with a paper grade attached. A grade which will change every year or so and you've gotta go thru the whole process over again...

Right up there with the Drew Rosenhaus and other Sports Agents

__________________
A few things to remember, Certification and Attribution are Absolute and Definitive. Grading, on the other hand IS NOT. STRIKE is everything, be it strong or weak.
Capped Bust Half Dollars Identification Reference
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

AgCollector

As far as FS Errors go, do you typically get them graded too or just attributed? It seems like there's a price difference but I'm not sure if it's possible to just get something attributed and not graded.

poker_prof_AA

Slabbing seems expensive, doing it over and over again every so often, wouldn't it just be cheaper if one learned to grade coins, say buy a book or something and grade it yourself and write down the grading on the case?

Speedy

I really don't agree where Bone says that you have to do it every year....I think he meant that more of a joke?

You can learn to grade and be the best graders out there but sometimes when selling a coin a slab is worth alot more than your own word---people will buy coins sight un-seen if they are slabbed.

Speedy

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Bonedigger

Well maybe not every year But you know the standards change often depending on the series you collect and sometimes these changes are devestating to the collector who is also in it as an investment. True, the slabbed coin sells for more but it also costs more.

(These words are in stone. David Hall, PCGS)

"The Word is Out!!!
We've had a ten year honeymoon with the coin buying public, but we've betrayed their trust, and the word is out. The word is out in the financial planning community; in the hard money circuit; and to the coin investing public. Coin dealers are rip-off artists; the rare coin market is a trap.
For ten years, we've sold coins to the coin buying public as MS-65, only to tell them that the grading standards had changed and their coins graded MS-63 when it was time for them to sell.
For ten years, we've told them that rare coin prices have gone up and up and up and up, only to tell them that the buyers bidding those higher prices were very fussy, very selective, sight-seen buyers who bought only the coins that they liked and not the coins that the public owned.
For five years, we've supplied the telemarketers who have pounded the coin-buying public with Salomon Brothers fantasies while [selling them] viciously overgraded coins.
We are currently paying the consequences of the abuses of the past ten years. And frankly, we deserve it!"

David Hall, dealer and a principal in the Professional Coin Grading Service What he's saying in a nutshell is Your $600 MS-65 coin is now a $250 MS-63 coin...

Ben

__________________
A few things to remember, Certification and Attribution are Absolute and Definitive. Grading, on the other hand IS NOT. STRIKE is everything, be it strong or weak.
Capped Bust Half Dollars Identification Reference
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

GDJMSP

One question Bone - when did David say that ? I mean in what year.

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airedale

In a 1988 letter to coin dealers about past abuses and PCGS's new standard

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Chance Favors The Prepared Mind

GDJMSP

Which is exactly what I suspected and why I asked. PCGS didn't even exist until 1986. That letter and those comments were written as part of advertising campaign promoting the new service - PCGS.

You see, up until that time there were only two grading services - ACG ( Accu-Grade ) and the ANA Grading Service. The ANA service of course was based upon the official grading standards of the ANA which were first published in 1977. But in '86 the ANA Board decided to change the standards. They all agreed that the older standards were much to lenient and that they needed to be tightened up. So they changed them and made them more strict. Coins that had previously been graded by ANA standards and deemed to be MS65, overnight became MS63's.

That's how that letter came to be. It actually had very little, if anything to do with the standards in use by PCGS - it had to do with the standards established by the ANA, and then changed to be more strict. Quite the opposite of what most folks think of when they talk of changing grading standards.

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Bonedigger

I think the term "abuse" was used when another would have been more apropos for the situation at hand. Maybe something sounding less criminal, LOL

Ben

__________________
A few things to remember, Certification and Attribution are Absolute and Definitive. Grading, on the other hand IS NOT. STRIKE is everything, be it strong or weak.
Capped Bust Half Dollars Identification Reference
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

GDJMSP

Oh I dunno Bone, it was afterall about the same time that David Hall and PCGS got in some trouble with the SEC - had a huge lawsuit and paid out a bunch of money. Didn't quite make it to criminal though

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Bonedigger

The SEC, Good Lord??? Your not talking about the "Shopko Excellent Customer" program I take it, LOL

__________________
A few things to remember, Certification and Attribution are Absolute and Definitive. Grading, on the other hand IS NOT. STRIKE is everything, be it strong or weak.
Capped Bust Half Dollars Identification Reference
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

countrydanny

speaking of ngc with a grade of ms 70, concerning modern coins, i have seen what appears to be
a water spot on the obverse side of the coin,my question is ? is it possible for someone to replace
a coin , in a ngc holder with a differnt coin. if ms 70 represents a perfect coin, then the spot should
not have been there. please correct me if i am wrong, or let me go another way,is ms 70 just a
pile of H.S
thanks.

Speedy

Let me guess---the coin is an ASE??
If so that is something commom to happen to them and it will lower the grade to around MS68/9.
This is why PCGS will not give out 70's because they don't want this to happen---and that my friend is nuts.
Call NGC--I think if they grade a coin and it turns in the holder then they re-grade the coin and pay for the lost....they pay based on fair Market Values---that may not be what you paid for it

Speedy

__________________
Coin collecting is the only hobby in the world that you can spend all the money in the world and still have some left over

WINS - ANA - CONECA -

countrydanny

yes you are correct, it was a ASE that i was refering to,that was a hard one to figure out.
i was reading through some of the replys , and unless i overlooked it somewhere, i did not see
anything relating to mintages, does that not also play a part in the value of a coin, or is that
also misleading.i know that inb is a big joke and that they grade almost everything ms 70, and
my first experience with slabed coins were from inb,never again,but i have to say this the coins
looked extremely nice.i guess if somebody wanted some very nice coins to start a raw collection
they could buy these and bust em out .