I've never had a coin graded but understand it is around $20 to have it done, so I'm curious as to why coins that have a value of only a few dollars are sent in to be graded. I see coins selling for less than $20 on ebay raw and the same coins graded and slabbed selling for the same money. How do people justify it when a raw coin is the same grade as the TPG coin only missing the slab? Just curious.
Many dealers take advantage of the bulk submission rates and don't bother spending a lot of time examining the coins themselves. A few MS68's or better or a few PF70UCAM (DCAM) will more than make up for the added expense of the lower grades. Chris
This. Its a numbers game. Dealers submits tons of coins, and as long as a certain number come back with the high value grade, they make money. They sell the rest off on the cheap, but have already made their profit on the higher end pieces. The real sucker move is to assume there is "added value" of the slab for the lower grade coins. Having a modern proof in a slab graded PF69 is not adding one red cent of value to that coin. Effectively a 69 is a reject nowadays, and it is only slabbed because the dealer was hoping for a 70. Do't fall for this con, which some dealers try to pull, that this coin is now worth $20 more because of the slabbing costs. Its one of the newest "oldest tricks in the book".
I would even go one step further and say a slabbed 69 modern should actually have LESS value. As Chris has pointed out, a 69 is basically a reject. With somewhere around 40% of moderns getting a 70 grade why would you want to buy a a coin that a TPG has determined is NOT a 70 when you can buy a raw one that may very well be a 70. I'll buy the raw one everytime.
