Slabbed coins at shows

You just need better cutting tools, that's all.

 

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I can see half a Captain Morgan

 

My experience with small shows ( 15-20 tables) is there
are a lot of raw coins. 90% fall into one of these catagories:
1: the coin is not worth slabbing because of its value,
ie. F12 Barber coins common dates.
2: the coin has been cleaned
3: the coin while original, has bag marks and or other distractions.
For a beginner I would recommend looking at and studying as many
raw/slabbed coins as possible. Purchase carefully and realize that
your mistakes will be your "tuition" into this hobby.

 

Once you "crack open" a slab the paper insert
becomes worthless. The coin then rides on its
own merits. Who's to say another coin of lesser
quality will be substituted. Once a coin hits the
$100 threshold if for no other reason should be
slabbed for authenticity. A slabbed coin is much
easier to sell for this reason. Your heirs will have
a much easier opportunity to sell the coin to an
unknowledgeable dealer than a raw piece. If you
feel the need to handle your raw coin then do
so carefully.
P.S. Send the paper insert back to the TPG so they
can adjust their pop report.

 

The grading is jokingly referred to as 69 and 1/2 or a MS 69.5 grade

 

50c coin

 

You know, I thought about that last part, ALOT! I listen to the guys in my club say about how they like to fill their books with slabbed coins. Crack them out and they keep the paper insert just to know that that is what they have in the book. Thats all well and fine (and their books look fantastic) however the pop report is not a valid number and misrepresents how common or rare a coin actually is. It actually should hold almost no validity since we have so many people who like to crack open the slabs.

 

Coin collecting ( of past decades ) has long gone into the garbage bin. Speaking as a retired coin and stamp dealer, the average collector is a parasite and only wants things cheap...They only look at price as they would rather go to a show and bring home 100 items at 2.00 each than a rare dated item ( EG 1911s or 12s Penny ) in medium to high grade so it can acrue value quicker. My belief is UNC is JUNK and that includes slabbed items in any grade..I should not have to say to you lot but collecting and investing are 2 different things...Me as a retired dealer, i much prefer the raw items in several grades than a piece slabbed in plastic which cannot fit into any push in album or plastic coin insert or page. The raw items give enjoyment in sorting into grades ( that is if one knows their gradings ) and places them in a coin album...Just remember that low valued items can also be graded.. A lot of people these days attending shows are of the 45 to 70 year old range....The people below 45 have kids to look after and bring up , a mortgage to pay off etc etc etc and not concerned about hobbies. 1st hand experience speaking.... I know a lot of you will disagree with me but in years to come when the future generations completely lose interest in our hobby, i will say i told you so.. You will notice kids these days have no interest in numismatic or philatelics so what is going to happen when we die??? THESE COINS ( along with slabbed items ) WILL BE MELTED!!! And then as all this precious metal goes on the market, price goes down due to being more supply than demand. Kids will not think twice to buy the updated cell phone that loses money once it is purchased and taken out the store as it is 2nd hand but they will be happy to do so. I cannot say how many gold and silver coins i have melted in my life as the price of the metal was greater than the catalogue price of the date in general. As i was in business, the way to run it is on turnover and if no buyers are out there, then the business only goes downhill.. In australia the pre decimal coinage was 1910 to 1945 - 92.5% silver and 1946 to 1963 ( 50% silver ). It was hard for me to switch to 90% silver which USA has.

What i have just stated above is quite terse ( in my eyes ) but it is the truth as i was a dealer for just on 35 years and had it good in the 1970's when the boom was there. Since the introduction of pre printed labels from the post office to show how much the package is to ship, used stamps of present day are so rare to be found genuinely used but nobody looks far into it. I used to buy sheets of high valued stamps and get the stamps postmarked on the bottom left corners only. After they went off issue ( about 2 months after issue) i doubled my money which in other words means i earnt 600% on my money per year. That = 100% x 6 per year . They had to have hand cancelled postmarks. Only reason i did this was there was not enough time for the stamps to get out in the general mail and i made my killing early. That was roughly 600% earn on my outlay but you slabby people will say that's not enough..ay??? Collecting is one thing but investing is another...Unfortunately the word greed comes into our hobby so often and investors can only see "lets wait a bit before we sell" or lets hang on a bit... Remember when the hunter bros bought out the silver in the 1970's??? I believe in making the profit and getting out while i can..Remember that a small profit is better than none... I liquidated all my used stamps and many other people got burnt. That is simply from greed. I cannot speak for the USA at that time as i was just on 20 years old and i was living in Australia. But i am sure it was world wide. If anyone want to send me a message, i will reply but be serious...If it is just garbage talk, that is where your message will end up and will be unanswered. Have a lovely day you all....

 

Yep...raw coins all the way as i am a collector and enjoy the task of grading

 

I'm with ya' all the way, my man. Curmudgeons to the rescue! You have written truth.

 

Ohh god, and they have the green beans on them! Where did all of these coins go?

 

Good Lord.....oh the humanity........

 

And for those who won't buy slabbed examples........unless you're passing on them because of higher price (they can be had as bargains), you're cutting off your nose to spite your face.........just a most humble opine.

 

More money than I have. I can't even afford to crack out a slab let alone one with a green bean!!

 

Heck Bambam. I gotta problem with paying more for 'beans', but I will (if I agree with the assessment), on some/many/almost none occasions. Dat make sense?

 

At the local shows I go to down here, the slabbed coins seem to get the lion’s share of the attention. The raw coin sellers often look as lonely as the Maytag repairman.

 

Not if they have classic commems.......

 

And what they have is a book full of raw ungraded coins.

Very true, and it has been that way for at least the past 100 years.