The Slabbed Coin Market for Ancient Coins is HOT

Those of us that have followed heritage for a while have seen the crazy amounts people will pay for an extra piece of plastic. But it really seems to be getting out of hand (pun alert!).
I believe a lot of the animosity (if that's the right word) ancient collectors have towards slabs is that they are often used to get "suckers" who buy ancients as an investment and not for love or passion of history to pay through the nose.
However, once you get into certain price brackets slabs do have their advantages.
On the other end of the spectrum "suckers" slab coins that have zero reason to be in a slab to try and get more for them then the coin would be worth otherwise and it backfires.
Case (pun intended) in point. At a recent Stacks auction I purchased one of my favorite Sicilian bronzes for $60.


Somebody really lost money paying $50 to slab this and, whatever they paid for the raw coin, get a max of ten bucks for their troubles.
Don't worry Hieron II is safe now.

That poster identifies as, "She, Her" now. Despite showing again and again that she likes to troll our community, asking questions she had the answer to, playing dumb and outright lying. If that is what she wants she has the right to be called "las".

 

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Preach it, brother @Ryro! This slabbed eyesore has had its price reduced to $108:

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This raw one cost me $60. Slabs are ludicrous for coins in this price range. I don't pay for plastic.

 

And yet @Barry Murphy posted a few weeks ago a huge bag of Gordy III ants that were waiting for him to be graded for slabbing.

I wouldn't have the patience for that or junk LRBs being sent in for slabbing.

Such a waste of $ & time.

 

What a lot of so called collectors do not understand.....
a Nomos/ CNG/ Kunker/ Numismatica Genevensis coins graded EF= NGC MS 5/5 5/5 sometimes even CH-MS.
I have seen many CNG "EF" coins later appear in auctions as TPG MS-65s/ 66s European Auctions have a world grading chart/
VF/ Sehr schon/ TTB/ = US EF 45/ AU50
EF/ Vorz/ Supb. = US AU-55-MS-60
GEF/ Fast St./ Spl. = MS-62/63/64
MS/ St./ FDC= MS-65+

 

That's not true, nor is it necessarily better to be conservatively graded. NGSA sent all of their aurei through NGC for this latest sale: most are graded AU when they were previously graded FDC or Mint State by NGSA and others.

 

This one from Adams Collection was described by CNG as CH-EF/ my Heritage specimen/ now slabbed rose to a MS-65 . UK "Coin News" always refer to slabbed coins as vastly "overgraded"

 

Submitted, I suspect, by one or more dealers who will put them up for sale on Ebay for at least 5-10 times the coins' actual market value, which seems to be the going rate for asking prices on Ebay for slabbed ancient coins. Getting common and ordinary coins like that slabbed is essentially a marketing scam.

 

I have not been following this but it is quite possible for a VF coin to be worth more than a MS of the same type if the VF has 5/5 for both strike and surface and the MS has lower numbers. A goin with 2/5 surfaces can be completely unworn but still ugly as sin. The slab shown with the Hieron is not the full price version but the 'bargain' model with no rating for the strike and surface. I do not know what the Gordians awaiting service are paying or what service they are ordering but I would hope they were also in line for the low end slabs and getting a bulk rate.

 

This is far too much work.
These lots are usually sold by US-based wholesale dealers.

 

OK, then presumably they're sold by these middlemen to dealers who will put them up on Ebay. I don't know how much of the enormous markup comes from each.

 

Either way, the ultimate sales target is the unknowledgeable or novice end-purchaser who is convinced of the coin's inflated value by its encapsulation.

Personally, I don't find this any different in principle from the display ads that appear on my web page when I visit CoinTalk:



Although I haven't researched these coins, I imagine that they're similarly grossly overpriced.

 

what panzerman doesn’t understand is that CNG and others almost never use a grade above CEF. So even if the coin is uncirculated, CNG will call it CEF. This is starting to change though as more dealers are starting to call coins Uncirculated.

also, a lot of CEF coins in major auctions have crappy surfaces which the auction houses fail to mention. I see a ton of CEFs that end up with 2 or 3 surface grades due to improper cleaning, scratches, smoothing and other issues.

Barry Murphy.

 

I’ve been told that it’s the newly-minted Chinese millionaires who get off on spending as much money as possible. There are cycles of asset bubbles in recent Chinese history, and they have always burst. Many of those tuned into historical Chinese market trends have remarked that the Chinese coin market is showing patterns very similar to other asset bubbles.

The Chinese coin market has also become completely dominated by slabs in the past five years. It costs like $5-15 to get coins graded and authenticated, so everyone is trying to get as much slabbed as possible. It follows that slabbed material from other civilizations whet the appetite.

Also, the coin collecting mindset is quite different than in the west. Chinese collectors want the biggest, the best, and the rarest just to say that they have them. It’s a game, it’s a competition, and those with the most money win.

These are my observations from being plugged into the Chinese market for the past 10 years. I think they explain why we are seeing the price results we are seeing.

 

Can you show an image of a graded coin in Chinese slab?

 

The demand for Chinese coins has been strong for at least the past 15 years, if not longer, reflecting the increasing standard of living for many, and especially for the relatively newly minted millionaires and billionaires. But this trend is really worldwide, especially in the Industrial North.

There have been times when prices for coins went into low earth orbit, even before the trend to slab coins through TPG services. In the past, the influx of coins from hoards often tempered these spikes. However, that does not appear to be the case, apparently due to the tremendous amount of cash in the hands of a relatively low number of individuals. Trends come and go - nothing is forever. Come the next bust, or correction, if you will, many individuals will undoubtedly seek to liquidate some or all of their holdings, and, at least in theory, the law of supply and demand should kick in.

The beat goes no....

 

While not an ancient coin, this "Fat Man" dollar from the Republic is pretty typical of the demand for Chinese coins, especially in mint state. This particular issue was re-struck for many years after the initial release in 1914, with a total mintage of more than 750,000,000 coins, according to Krause.

It is currently listed on eBay at $1,800 with a "make an offer" option. I am not sure what the variety references on the slab really mean. I have a couple of Fat Man dollars that I bought years ago, one for near melt value.

 

But do you know if there's any factual evidence supporting the contention that it's wealthy Chinese collectors who are primarily or at least partly driving the price increases for ancient Greek and Roman coins?

 

In a few bidding platforms, flags are displayed for live bids. I noticed Chinese flags bidding high for coins not worth half of the hammer. Nevertheless these were never competing with me and usually bids were less than 1000 euros. On the contrary I have also noticed several coins I lost ending up in the usual dealer eshops. I explained in the past who drives up the prices and I stand my ground.

Edit: or maybe it's wealthy Chinese using VPN to show a US flag

 

All I know is it ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son, no.

 

I agree, it looks like the Chinese coin market is finally starting to simmer down. Aside from the unrealistic prices of these coin, the number of fakes in the market is having an impact too. The fakes aren't a new phenonium either. I bought the fake "Fat Man Dollar" pictured below over 20 years ago for $30. When prices for these coins began to escalate I sent it in for slabbing, it came back in a "body bag" . When I noticed the die clash marks on the reverse I was convinced the coin was genuine . Click the image for a larger view.



I've seen a number of "Fat Man Dollars" of 1920 with the same die clash marks in slabs, like the PCGS example pictured below. I'm sure a number of these high quality fakes are reposing in slabs today .