Another Thread About Slabbing Ancient Coins.....

So I'm a beginner collector, I have purchased a few ancient greek and roman coins so far.

I get that many ancient collectors prefer to touch and handle the coins by hand and store them in case trays or pvc free coin flips but the first thing that comes to mind when I look at my own coins is how to propery store them so they "stay fresh" and do not oxidize too quickly.

I figure that by slabbing these coins (whilst not completely airtight) the plastic cases would slow the oxidation process far longer than keeping them in plastic coin flips. I also don't like the idea of handling my coins by hand becuase it seems that there will be more metal loss down the road especially with the acidic oils in our fingers. The slabs would display the coin in a decent way and prevent you from actually handling your coins by hand so there should be more protection that way.

Wouldn't these reasons justify slabbing your ancient coins?


Now,

If I were to store my coins in PVC-Free coin flips, what would be the best method to store them which would slow the oxidation process?

 

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They are now in your collection after having been minted 2000 years ago. They haven't oxidized too quickly so far.

Many ancient coins new to the market have been cleaned recently, and silver can soon tone dark when the old surface has been stripped and chemical reactions can occur. However, many ancient coins have been out of the ground for many years and they can be expected to stay largely as they are, baring additional chemical exposure (e.g. acids such as lemon juice, ammonia sprays from cleaning glass near them, resting on paper containing sulfur, etc.). Many have not changed much in 2000 years and have no reason to change much in the time you own them. Most will not "oxidize too quickly."

I know quite a few experienced collectors. My friends and I "crack out" any slabbed coins we buy. When you buy a coin you pay for enjoyment. It is not like a share of stock with value, but no pleasure beyond its value. Handling coins is wonderful pleasure and you will be missing out on a lot if you slab your unslabbed coins, or if you don't remove the slabs from your slabbed coins.

 

Using Quickslabs is, in fact, how some of us collectors on CoinTalk store our coins. We can still remove them for display in, e.g., Abafil cases or flips. For more information, you might want to view the comments in this thread:

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/switching-to-slabs.301135/

Regarding the acidity of skin oils affecting ancient coins: skin pH varies between 4 (mildly acidic) to 7 (neutral) and as such is very unlikely to negatively affect an ancient coin. Someone with more expertise in the chemistry of metallurgy might want to add more information, but I'd be surprised if skin acidity per se would have any measurable effect on your coins.

 

My objections to slabbed ancient coins are largely aesthetic: they can't be displayed as nicely together, by contrast to displaying them in trays or albums. More importantly, I can hardly see the details of a slabbed coin unless it's very bright silver or gold. Never mind getting any sense of the coin as the three-dimensional object it was intended to be. It might as well be a hologram. And, of course, taking a decent photograph is basically impossible.

That said, if I had an extremely valuable coin I viewed as an investment rather than an object that gives me joy when I look at it or hold it, and my primary goal were avoiding the possibility of accidental damage to my asset, I would probably have a different opinion.

 

i use these for coins i want a bit more protection, but generally my coins are in plastic flips or envelopes.

https://www.wizardcoinsupply.com/lighthouse-quadrum-intercept-2x2-coin-holders-15mm-6-pack.html

 

If these are the same size as NGC slabs then this would be a solid option becuase I can also remove the coin out of the holder whenever I want to, and the dark plastic background is actually quite nice.

Would I still have to find the right sizes for my anceint coins?
I have an Athena/Owl Tetradrachm and it is pretty thick so i don't know if the specific coin would fit in the QuickSlab holder.

 

Most ancients do fit, even up to sestertii. However, my Athens owl and some other high-relief tetradrachms are a bit too tthick. I keep these higher relief coins in 2x2 flips and the majority of my coins in Quickslabs.

A note: if you've cracked a coin out of an NGC slab, the plastic insert fits within Quickslabs which offers a happy medium of being able to re-open the slab to take the coin out while having a nice fit with the NGC prongs.

 

The quick slabs come with different sized openings. The sizing is in mm. Put your coin on a clear ruler and see what the diameter is. Then you buy the slabs that come closest. Keep in mind you might not get a perfect fit because ancient coins are not perfectly round. I have used these for display purposes and they work rather well and look quite nice. Plus you can remove the coin whenever you want.

 

Oh boy, that last bit is genius!

So this seems to be a good option so far.

Better for me becuase I just purchased this slab display case,

https://www.safepub.com/colossal-aluminum-case-for-80-slabs/

I'll just throw in some silica gel packs inside the case for humidity control for NYC Summers.

 

One aspect of the discussion that doesn’t get pointed out that much is that widespread adoption of slabbing ancient coins would be bad for the hobby in a multitude of ways.

One: Treating ancient coins as a commodity is a bad message to send when private ownership of them is under attack by some cultural property advocates. I recently bought a coin that I knew had a very old provenance but it had been slabbed since it’s last sale at auction. I was sent the coin in the slab without the ephemera that proved the link to the provenance. I responded that I would return the coin if the ephemera couldn’t be found and was lucky that it was. My point is that slabbing made it easier for the provenance to be lost in a way that it wouldn’t have been if kept in its original storage box / flip etc.

Two: Slabbing doesn’t guarantee authenticity and there is no logical need in my mind to seal the slabs so that they cannot be opened. This seems nothing more than a rollover from the way modern coins are handled without any thought to if it makes sense for individually made ancient objects. Prices, even for slabbed ancients, are driven more by eye appeal than by the grade so why not make them removable so they can be further tested / handled / displayed if needed. NGC would be such a fantastic option for an authenticity opinion if they made their slabs to be opened like some of the above products mentioned.

Three: Among new collectors there is a slab premium that just doesn’t make sense to me. It’s like a restaurant charging me extra to put a pane of glass between me and my food. I don’t get it. The last thing we need is for slabbing to become the norm and people to start talking about red sheet prices (or whatever the modern thing is) for ancient coins.

 

Agreed on all points, especially #3. I lost interest in US coins largely for the "graded 63 but looks 64+" nonsense that every dealer says on top of CAC vs PCGS vs NGC vs ABCD. I've already heard this remarked upon with ancients ("it should be 4/5 surface, not 3/5") and I seriously hope it doesn't continue.

 

Anybody who's spent a lot of time at art museums should have noticed the difference between looking at a painting -- say, a Van Gogh -- in a frame without glass covering it, and one that does have glass in the frame. The glass makes it much more difficult to appreciate the texture and three-dimensionality of the paint. The glass forms a barrier between the viewer and the painting, no matter how clear and thin the glass may be. Now imagine replacing the glass with plastic, like the plastic used for coin slabs. I think one would probably be just as well off viewing a photograph of the painting. The difficulty would be multiplied.

 

I would agree with Donna ML about the loss of aesthetics. Years ago I was privileged to examine a tetradrachm from Rhegion signed by the artisr Kratesippos. This coin was not in very good shape and from the picture I paid it very little attention. However when I was able to look at it and change the angle that I was using I was amazed at how the image of the lion mutated. As the angled increased the face seemed to become more fierce. This is not a unique experience. I have had many of them from seeing my very first dished flan to seeing the relief on a fairly common coin.
However the far greater concern is that of authenticity, and the lack of certification. Many of the "tells" on a counterfeit can be found on the edge of the coin and the slab makes examining that part of the coin all but impossible. On a related issue, the slab may get in the way of a proper pedigree search. I have had a number of instances where the identification of a coin hinges on a very small area which can be covered up. Thus trying to determine if your coin is actually from a collection from the 1920's or dug up 10 years ago means that your slab can present a brand new challenge.
As for my original story. I decided that because of my experience with the tetradrachm of Rhegion I just had to try to buy one. So I got this one. Rhegion Tetradrachm 415 to 387 BC. Obv Head of Lion facing. Rv, Head of Apollo facing right. HGC1638 17,20 grms 23 mm Photo by W. Hansen

 

Coins generally don't change much within our lifetimes, unless they are subjected to tooling or other forms of physical alteration. Other factors such as such as mode of storage, can, over time, cause superficial changes such as toning (not necessarily undesirable).

Slabs are useful with respect to selling a particular coin. There seems to be a preference for slabbed coins, common, scarce or rare, on the part of much of the coin collecting public. Also, the guarantee of authenticity by slabbing company is a selling point, especially on eBay, a venue rife with fakes.

I guess a secondary advantage to putting a coin into a slab is that it is protected from mishandling by a klutz such as myself. Whenever I handle a coin these days I really worry about dropping it, which is not a big deal in a house with mostly carpeted floors, but my house is mostly tile floors, so when I am photographing coins I need to be extra careful.

Also, photographing coins in slabs can be a challenge.

Virtually all of my coins are in 2 x 2 safety flips. They seem happy in them and access is easy for photographing or just enjoying and handling them, minus the klutz factor, of course.

 

But NGC and other third-party grading companies don't guarantee authenticity. All they give is their professional opinion. Which may be well-informed and give comfort, but there's no recourse against the company if its opinion turns out to be wrong. As opposed to whatever recourse one may have against the dealer.

 

Perhaps that's their policy nowadays. That seems to apply to ancients for NGC. I don't know about other companies.

I did have a rare Colombia 8 reales certified by ANACS back in the early 1990s as genuine. I sold the coin to Karl Stephans, who subsequently sold the coin to another collector. That collector determined the coin to be a fake, so the coin was returned to Karl, who refunded the collector. Karl then returned the coin to me, so I had to return the money that he paid me.

I then sent the coin back to ANACS. They reevaluated the coin and deemed it to be indeed a fake. Within a week (slower times back then) I received a check from ANACS for the value of the coin, which was based on my original submission value (what I initially paid the first seller) when I sent the coin in for certification.

 

Fascinating. Perhaps it's only NGC ancients? Perhaps the theory is that authenticity for ancients is a matter of opinion, whereas for modern coins it's a matter of fact? In any event, I imagine that they would charge a great deal more to guarantee authenticity.

 

I went to the NGC website to check on their policies on authenticity. You are correct. NGC does not guarantee the authenticity of ancient coins, primarily due to their age (age discrimination!), the existence of ancient contemporary fakes, a general lack of documentation compared to modern coins, and the wide array of conditions for ancient coins compared to modern coins. So, an ancient coin is put into a NGC slab and deemed authentic based on their opinion, but with no money-back guarantee if the coin turns out to be bogus.

They do have a different guarantee policy, which is fairly lengthy, for modern coins. Basically, under certain conditions, a coin can be returned to NGC due to non-authenticity. There are documentation requirements. If the slabbed coin is in fact fake, there are options, which I won't outline here.

Note: This link covers the guarantees for authenticity and grade for non-ancient coins.

https://www.ngccoin.com/coin-grading/ngc-guarantee/

 

This statement will offend a number of photographers but they are largely one that would not recognize a good photo if they saw one. The state issued me a driver's licence with a good photo of me by their definition (not allowed to smile). They are correct by definition, right?

Allowing for the fact that we all make occasional errors, I have the greatest respect for the 'opinions' of David Vagi and Barry Murphy (the NGC 'graders') when it comes to the authenticity of ancient coins. In this sense, that is why we might send a coin to NGC. However, I have absolute NO similar respect for slab brands other than NGC and consider all of them little more than sellers of plastic boxes. I do wish there were a code on the NGC tickets that would tell us which and when (something like a B21 in small letters saying Barry saw the coin in 2021 while DB19 would indicate they both saw it two years ago). This would protect us from the eventual fact of life that we all will go blind and crazy someday (I did; you will; deal with it). IF NGC offered a cash back guarantee covering errors, they would have to buy insurance protecting them from a thousand lawsuits from people who disagreed with their opinion and found an 'expert' to testify that the coin was false. Who would benefit from that?

I find this an interesting point from our resident lawyer. Where is the line between opinion and fact? The judicial system regularly makes the news when what they call 'facts' are replaced by new 'facts'. In coins we can 'prove' something is fake but saying something is with absolute certainty genuine, official, made in the regular mint with full authority or several other considerations is an opinion. 'Facts' only change when they are defined as facts by the opinions of a system. 9999 experts saying something is true is not what makes something a fact; it is just a very popular opinion. I might add that there is no double jeopardy law when dealing with fakes. However a coin is determined to be genuine, the question remains open to reconsideration forever.

For the record, I have no objection to the concept of plastic slabs for ancient coins. I do not use them because it would cost me several thousand dollars to house my collection and the stack of slabs would not fit in my available space. Has anyone calculated how many slabs fit in a cubic yard? For the same reason, I no longer use trays (which I love) or plastic pages in binders (which I threw out thirty years ago and currently despise). What I do find objectionable is welding the this shut so I can not touch, see (clearly from all angles) and determine if I agree with the verdict printed on the label. Add to that I may want to take a new photo of the coin to match my changing level of satisfaction.

 

A.D. I have slabbed many high grade coins that I didn't want handled & it's an excellent way to prevent coins from oxidizing as long as the slabs aren't exposed to excessive heat or long periods of direct sunlight. NGC has recently increased the price of slabbing ancient coins, so it would be pointless to get coins of low value slabbed. As other collectors have pointed out slabbed coins are usually easier to sell & generally bring higher prices at auction. It is not impossible to take excellent photos of slabbed coins. All it takes is a good camera & the correct lighting. All the photos below I took with a Cannon EOS Rebel XS camera, & indirect sunlight.


If you don't want an image of the whole slab you can always trim the photos with good software & combine the image of the slab insert with closeups of the coins.









If I buy a coin raw that I plan to get slabbed I'll take photos of the coin before sending it in & when the coin is returned I'll combine my raw photos with the slab insert. That way you won't have to look at the prongs holding the coin .