Raw or Certified?

At what point will you buy only certified coins or are you comfortable grading and buying raw coins as well? I do both, but I buy the coin first in either case.

 

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I likes my coins as raw as a fat dudes inner thigh, and I dont bother grading in most cases...

 

What are you talking about....don't be a troll!

 

I'm comfortable with my grading skills to a point but I will buy certified over a certain monetary value, if necessary, (about $200) or if I know the particular coin has a high percentage of being counterfeited.

I usually end up breaking most out of the slabs to put in my books but a select few stay in the slab.

 

I was just answering the question...I only buy raw coins in most cases and I dont bother grading the coins...I let people who are concerned with grades do that, I just go on eye appeal. I dont buy certified coins or get coins certified as I feel it is, on the whole, worthless. Thats all I was saying.

 

Then why the obviously inappropriate reference?

 

It doesn't look like trolling to me. It was actually a pretty funny reference to how the legs of a fat person rub together when they walk leaving those rubbed leg portions raw and uncomfortable, which is how he likes his coins, that is raw.

By the way, as a fat man myself, I feel i am qualified to speak to the "rawness" of the legs of fat people, lol.

 

I didnt feel it was inappropriate...if it was, my bad.

 

Getting back to the subject at hand, I recently purchased a rock solid 1856 Large Cent MS-65+ RB that was raw although he was calling and pricing it as brown. It was right around ask price and I have shown it to other well accomplised numismatists who will give you the un sugarcoated truth and they all agreed it was graded correctly and the price was right. 3/4 of them thought it was red-brown and not brown too. My wife was the hardest on the coin and said while the grade was there she wasn't that crazy about the strike on the obverse where the rims were a bit lightly struck. All of them said it would slab out at atleast a MS-65 Brown, possibly highier since there literally isn't a mark on the coin. I think it was a great buy and they did too, plus I doubt I will have trouble selling the coin if I want to at the grade I purchased it in the future. Can you get burned buying raw-yes! Your chances are better if you make yourself knowledgeable and learn to grade the series you are going after.

 

Let me ask both of you if the person who is reading the post is fat, is it funny to them? I doubt it seriously. You are the moderator and I guess that is life in the big city.

 

Preception is everything. 95% Raw and 5% otherwise...

 

You darn right you can ! If you think TPGs are all over the map with consistency, I have found coin show dealers FAR worse. Hobbyists too. TPGs are pretty darn accurate.

Right on !

The trap is when I think I know more than I really do... when I think I'm all edu-ma-cated and can spot a real bargain when I see one. I've learned to raise my red flags ! The US series is intensively collected, and raw coins are pretty well picked over. They've had thousands of eyes cast upon them. Beware !

My other trap is "What a great deal ! I got this raw coin for a fraction of slabbed price !" Maybe not... the raw coin may be cleaned. Sometimes it's tricky to spot.

Are TPGs perfect ? Of course not. But they're better than I am overall.

 

Looking at what is in slabs these days I can not honestly say their standards for a grade are better than mine. True, raw you can get burned, but I have seen discounted slabs simply because nobody with eyeballs that see will believe the grade on the slab from even the much vaunted PCGS or NGC in some cases. Cleaned coins for me are failry easy to spot especially in higher grades. Using the buddy system and getting other opinions with raw coins is life saver if you have some doubt. New material surfaces and while I agree that lots of US coins have been slabbed, there are many that surface that haven't, you just need to look.

 

I don't buy certified coins. The grading is often inaccurate, and I honestly care more about eye appeal than grade.

 

Eye appeal is where a lot of this is at BIG time and sometimes grades are bumped up because of this in the TPG services. My case and point about the original roll of buffalo nickels being graded raw MS-63+ to MS-64 and then when they were slabbed by PCGS and NGC, came back no less than MS-64 (NGC) and the majority came back MS-65 with many MS-66 and atleast one MS-67 (PCGS).

 

re: eye appeal vs. grade...

I don't think grade, by itself, is ever the true issue. Grade only leads us to price, which is the real issue - the main reason to have a grade at all.

So for those that don't bother to grade, how do you arrive at a fair market value estimate ?

Safe to say everyone is interested in eye appeal.

I can see how fans of Ancients have a whole different view of this. It doesn't seem possible to have a rigorous, documented set of standards for the enormous array of ancients. Heck, it's difficult enough just for the US series.

 

Since the task of selling the coins will fall to my kids someday, and since they aren't active collectors, I usually purchase slabbed coins if they are worth significantly more than bullion value. Those non-bullion coins that aren't slabbed are clearly marked with what I think the value and condition should be.

 

as a collector of both ancients and modern my view stays the same eye appeal has the most influence on my purchases. take the newest ancient i got the man had 2 different versions of the coin and I went for the one I found the most attractive even if it wasn't the highest grade he had but thats just me i'm not 2 interested in resale:smile

 

The only time I'll buy a slabbed certified/authenticated coin is if its a high dollar key date. I dont buy a slab because of the grade stamped on the label, I can grade the coin myself and if the slab says the coin is AU and I agree with it then I'll buy it if I want it. Otherwise, all of my coins are raw and in my albums. I'd much rather buy a coin raw, any coin, key or not, but with metal and coins values constantly on the rise, counterfieters are involved more than ever in our hobby whether we like it or not. So, if I'm going to spend $8,000 for a 1916 SLQ it better be in a slab and it better be genuine.

 

I am old, fat, bald and ugly. Just like by coins. I think your response was great.