Do slab collectors even want one of these in their collection? I have several nice coins in these holders and plan to send them to PCGS as raw. What would you do? This is an example. ACG gave it PR-64.
What would I do as a novice coin submitter? I would send them as raw as well to PCGS if the fees are somewhat cheap to do. WHY? I would do this because ACG is no longer in business and PCGS is a more reputable company.
I have a huge collection of them - it's my addiction. I'm always in the market for them if they're inexpensive. Especially Barber coins. Why, given I hate the Barber series? Well, that's a story... There was a local dealer (I think I've posted this before, but) of the type who never sold anything (He made his money trading pre-33 gold coins). He would set up at local shows with four cases, with the same coins in exactly the same sequence, show after show after show. He never sold anything because he wanted full PCGS/NGC retail regardless of the company that slabbed the coin. If he happened to sell something you could tell because the entire sequence would change. He had a nice buffalo in ACG plastic that he wanted $### for. As he neared (semi-)retirement he finally started making a few deals. I asked about the buff and he gave me the standard $###. I told him I couldn't do that. He finally said, I'm into it for $### make me an offer. So I made him an offer that would cover his cost plus about 10 years of simple interest at 4%. And he took it. Later at the same show, I found a Trade$ in ACG and grabbed it. On my second pass, I sit and talk to the first dealer and tell him he missed the Trade$. He says to me "What are you going to do with all those ACGs you have? You should give them to me to sell." I said no, but then went and looked at my accumulation of ACG plastic and put together a 20th-century type-set, a 21st-century type-set (up to when ACG stopped slabbing), and even a little bit of a 19th-century type-set. I've never bought Barber coins - I dislike the entire series. But now I find myself looking for them because of the holes.
Perhaps there are those who collect slab company products who are interested in these pieces, but this company left a lot of bad feelings among collectors because of the lawsuits it brought against those who did not care for their product.
Nothing PCGS is cheap. PCGS' price guide for @ldhair 's coin is $325 / $450 / $775 (PR63, 64, 65) Regular submission (limit on economy tier is $300) is $40 plus $27 return shipping & insurance, and the $10/invoice handling fee. And Larry pays shipping/insurance to PCGS. Submitting it won't leave much from $100. He can probably sell it as is for around $300. In today's grading, it probably IS PR-65. But are you feeling lucky? Either way, it's definitely not a coin I'd kick out of the collection, even if she ate crackers in bed.
If you have not joined one of the PCGS introductory offers where you get some coins graded for free, you might try that. The threshold for getting a coin or piece of paper money graded used to be $200. I think that it's more like $400 or more given the high costs of the grading and the higher shipping costs, which you must pay both ways. The last work I had done was for some Confederate paper money. I had one note that was worth over $3,000. I paid the going rate, which was over $100, plus the cost of joining their program and the shipping. I get it back in less than a month. It was in a grade higher than I expected. I had some other notes that were in the $400 to $600 range. I sent them in economy. It took over four months and still cost more than 10% more than the value of the pieces. Four items came back in the grades I expected. One came in less than I expected. I was talking to a currency dealer a couple of days ago. He had a large stack of notes he was getting graded under the economy plan. He told me it would take about five months. My conclusion was, if you want something certified, buy it certified. Getting things certified is great a dealers. I know from experience you can make more money if you can buy the item at the wholesale levels. As a collector, who has to pay retail, certification is an expensive hassle. One other thing to remember about NGC is that they drop their guarantee on copper coins after a certain of time. In other words, you can spend all that money, and in a few years, you have a bit more than nothing, but not that much.
There are no free gradings. If you join their club for $249, they give you a voucher for grading 8 coins at their regular tier (i.e. worth upto $300 each).
