My son was given a grab-bag of stuff today at the Baltimore Whitman show. Inside were a couple of postcards (at a coin show?) and a PCGS Sample Slab with a 2019-D cent encased inside. I'm not 100% sure what the purpose of these things are besides marketing stuff. I was amazed at the coin they decided to waste time/money putting in plastic though. It is covered in spots and scratches. I wonder how long it will take to break down and die the death that all Zincolns eventually face. Are these sample slabs worth hanging onto or are they just kind of a novelty piece of junk? Sorry for the bad pictures. I figured that it wasn't worth too much of my time to try and get good pictures.
No it isn't rare, and as for how the choose the coins to put in them they just take an unc roll or a few and just put all of them in the holders, no selection process to only chose better quality pieces.
they use this as a promotion when a new type of slab or alteration to previous generation of slab is released. There is a slab collector on this forum...I can't remember the username though.. Oh wait @Conder101
Whelp I guess he can keep it as an interesting piece. He certainly didn't like the fact that he couldn't get anywhere near the coin. Yay! No slabs for this kiddo!
People do collect sample slabs and some are quite rare (a regency sample was several thousand). Some also do sets of sample slabs (by year, by type, by grading company, etc...). This one is very common (a few have sold for under $10 on eBay). It doesn't hurt to hold onto it (maybe it can be used for a trade later on).
Every year, at FUN, I go searching for 'sample slabs'. NGC always has none (they give 'em away at their luncheon for members only), ANACS comes clean on occasion, but PCGS always has plenty on hand. They even allow me to pick up a couple of extras for my friends. Good folks, PCGS.