I consider myself a new collector still I started out enjoying the idea of collecting sets and putting them in albums. I enjoy the idea of flipping through the pages of a Dansco or Whitman and viewing an entire set and showing my album sets to friends and family. I currently am working on 3 half dollar sets. I need 7 coins for Franklin set. I need around a dozen Kennedy's. I'm just over halfway to a Walker set. I hope I can explain my delima. So some of the 1950's Franklin proofs I need are a bit pricey and are in graded slabs. Is there anything weird or wrong with buying a needed proof and breaking it out of the slab and placing in an album? If so, how else can a person display a set? It seems pointless to have an entire set with some in slabs and others in flips just hanging out in a box somewhere in a dark closet. Hope this makes sense. Please help me understand.
The dilemma of the OCD coin collector. Brother, I feel your pain! I have a Merc dime book that appears complete. I do have the 16-D (key to the series) but it is in a slab. I actually purchased a counterfeit 16-D to plug the hole with. Not a solution I would recommend to folks though. I also have a three cent nickel set complete and three of those are slabbed. The holes in the book drove me so crazy that I plugged them with wrong dates. Again, not a solution I would encourage. They tell me that there are "faux" hole plug coins out there on the web but I have never researched them. But here's what I am thinking. All the Franklins can be had at reasonable prices. Perhaps you could plug the holes with "average" specimens and leave your slabbed coins slabbed? I have also seen folks photograph their slabbed coin and use that to plug the hole.... Frankly, I do not see the harm in cracking open a slab to plug a hole but you may regret that years down the road when you want to sell the coin.
Every collection gets to your dilemma. My solution is a leather 3-ring binder with a zipper. The picture doesn’t show the unslab pages. This is an example for my British Empire. These binders are easily bought online for around 50$.
Lighthouse makes nice albums with pages like this that hold 9 slabs per page. The large sized one can hold four pages like pictured above, so you can just fit a full Franklin half set of slabs in one. You may need multiple albums. I wouldn't crack out anything to put in a regular album unless it was very common.
Thanks for the great ideas! I really like the tidiness of a Dansco but not crazy about busting slabs open. Although I dont actually have very many in graded slabs. It's just a decision I will have to make. On the other hand. The leather binder with pages of slabbed coins is a great option. Even though I prefer the appearance of the danscos over the leather binder, the binder is a great solution for slabs. So, since not a lot of my coins are in graded slabs I suppose I could purchase "coin slabs" meaning slabs for coins even if not graded slabs. Decisions, decisions... Thanks again.
One could also take a quality photo of a slabbed coin, resize the image to be the diameter size of the actual coin, paste the obverse/reverse image onto a wooden slug and place THAT into an album slot. That way, the image of the coin is the one you actually own and you can back that up by showing off the actual coin in its slab. What I did with my Frankenstein Dansco blank binder sets was to simply buy duplicates (some from slabs) and put those in the albums. I tape the TPG inserts from the busted-out coins onto the inside back cover. More expensive, but that way you have a full binder AND graded coins.
I would not break out a proof and put it into an album. As soon as you do that proof coin becomes an impaired proof and the value is lowered substantially. Proofs are not needed to complete a set of any type.
My album for the Franklin has spots for the proofs as well. That would drive me bonkers not have the proof spots filled.
I’d think about buying a nice just coin and putting in the proof spot. Then I’d have the proofs in their slab. Maybe you could find proofs that are not slabbed.
The struggle between slabs and albums is real. I have an ASE set that's in a Dansco and I just love the heft of it and the thuddy slap of the pages as they're flipped when full. Most of my stuff is in slabs, though, and I'm good with keeping it that way. If I wanted to crack out a higher value coin for a Dansco (1909-S VDB cent, for example), I would photograph the slab, make a life-size print of it, and put it in a sleeve with the tag from the slab, keeping it with the Dansco. I wouldn't tape the tag to the album, because it's ugly and could ruin the album. If I wanted to sell that coin, I know I'd have to resubmit it for grading or try selling it as raw with my documentation. Proofs are another story, though. The surfaces of a proof, especially for thicker coins like halves, dollars, and ASEs, are easily messed up with a Dansco if you're not careful. There are raw Franklins back to 1956 that are decent looking and aren't that expensive. They're not worth slabbing because of value, and there's not much downside if you get a slide mark on one accidentally. Earlier dates start getting more expensive in grades you'd want to have in your collection.
