I was looking at coins on ebay and found this. http://www.ebay.com/itm/140686011923?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649 Its the first time I have seen such a slab from PCGS. Is it legit?
Yes. I got some $20s back in those new holders. Personally, I believe the saying "if it's not broken don't fix it". The new holder shows more edge.
IMO PCGS just recreated the same problem that the NGC 'finger' holders created. The 'fingers' will intrude on images when taking pictures. The end result will be a bit less than before. ANd there's always the possibility that the 'fingers' will hide a rim problem.
These "edge viewable" PCGS holders have been around since the Presidential Dollars were first released back in 2007. They have been used almost exclusively on world coins for a couple years, particularly those coins being holdered by PCGS in their Paris office. I have started to see them as the default holder used for US coins in the past couple months. They are quite different from the NGC EdgeView holders. They have only 3 points of hold instead of the 4 that NGC uses. However, the tabs are much wider than the ones used by NGC. The tabs are transparent whereas those from NGC are opaque white (though NGC has used some transparent ones for the hockey puck 5oz silver slabs). The tabs allow you to view the edge of coins, but they cover up the rims. For PCGS, this is a trade off, as the little rubber gaskets PCGS used in their other slabs used to creep out and cover up the rims of the coins also (more often that they would probably care to admit). All in all, even though the little PCGS tabs are transparent, you can't really see much of anything underneath them, and the PCGS tabs (even though there are only 3) cover up more real-estate of the rim than the 4 smaller footprint NGC tabs.
thanks guys, I had just never seen one and didn't see any press release that they had changed so i had to ask. I'm not sure if I am a fan, but I would have to see one in hand before I pass judgement.
For the most part, they are unobtrusive for large dollars and for half dollars. When you start to see cents and dimes in the holders, it doesn't matter if it's an NGC or PCGS tabbed holder, they both cover up a fair part of the rims of the coin. I personally prefer the older NGC holders. They didn't have the rubber gasket problems of PCGS holders, and they didn't have little tabs covering up the rim of the coin.
I got a coin back from PCGS a few months ago in these holders. It was the first I had seen and I really like it. I thought the insert had a gold shield that said "PCGS" but I guess not.
I like the new edgeview holders since I like to see the rims and edges of the coins in most cases... but especially on coins with edge lettering or with cool edge designs like the St. Gaudens $20 or the $10 Indian. I know many complain about the tabs ruining photos and how they cover too much of the rims, but PCGS holders for the past 20+ years have covered part of the rims. The first generation rattler slabs covered no part of the rims and the coin was held in place by a few nubs that pressed right up against the edge. But soon after the PCGS rattlers were phased out, the gasket used inside of the slab changed and the gasket did cover a small portion of the rim (of most coins) all the way around the coin. Sure, you don't notice it in your cropped photos too much because you can crop that covered portion out evenly around the entire coin. It would be hard to measure, but I would guess that more of the rims are visible in the new edgeview holders than were visible with the previous gaskets used, especially on smaller coins. And of course, now that you can see at least 1/2 of the edge of the coin I think the new holders are an improvement. For example, here's a pic of a matte proof Lincoln Cent I used to have... as you may know, the rims of a matte proof Lincoln are well defined and fairly wide. Here in the PCGS slab, the gasket covers almost the entire rim of the coin (which you can see under the gasket)...
