The new NGC AirView Holder

Have you read about the new holder, which took more than four years of research and development:
https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/9218/airview-holder/

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Very interesting. It's almost a game changer.

This was always one of the biggest complaints about the slabs.

 

I'd like to see one in person. Nice that it doesn't have prongs.

 

Certainly an improvement over what they currently use.

 

Too bad you can’t specifically request to have a coin encapsulated in an Airview holder

 

If the polymers maintain their integrity and clarity over time, then this is definitely super nice. I wish I woulda stocked up on those crystallized rarities!

I'm suspicious about how truly "invisible" the polymers can be though, hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Edit: Looks like this announcement was made 3 months ago, and I still haven't seen any on the market. They must be using them pretty sparingly?

 

Still like PCGS better, plus the fact there worth more in a alike holder just
ask the noodle...

 

What's so innovative about taking two plastic sheets and sandwiching a coin in between? Granted, it doesn't explain the process in detail but if it is something as crude as just pressing the coin in place I can see one obvious problem. The highest relief part on either side is receiving constant pressure. This will either damage the coin (esp. on soft gold coins like the one pictured) or it will start crazing the plastic, or both.

A better method would be creating a two part mold in acrylic sealed at the edges with a solvent. It would however be really expensive and time consuming so not practical for high volume. You can always just straight up cast into acrylic but that's a much more permanent kind of solution.

Rasiel

 

Vacuum sealed polymer sheets.

 

"Designed for small, fragile and oddly sized coins, the NGC AirView Holder is the best way to preserve and display coins that previously could not benefit from the protection of NGC encapsulation."

I wish they had been more specific here. So I can't get medium sized coins in these holders? lol

 

Ya. I'm sure there are some nuanced methods implemented to ensure coin protection and to maximize aesthetics, but I doubt that there is anything groundbreaking about the technology. Basically just:



Assuming that it's easy to implement and works well over long periods of time, it is a worthwhile idea to have used for this purpose though. If they can completely eliminate all reflection, refraction, and opacity of the polymers, then it will definitely be a step-up with respect to visual obstruction.

 

Here's a Youtube video by TheCoinGeek, in which 2 of the coins that he ordered, are in the new NGC AirView slabs. The AirView part of the video, starts at 6:02. Myself, I am wary of the AirView slabs, for the reasons mentioned earlier in this thread. Pressure on the high points of the coin, and whether the plastic layers really are inert, and will stay inert for decades. I'm always wary, of any kind of plastic, even PVC free plastic.

 

It looks like that film is going to make the coins difficult to photo.

 

Thanks for linking this, nice to see examples in the wild that aren't cherry picked for promotional purposes. There are a few angles where the polymer structure is visible, but all in all, I'd say that this is a fantastic upgrade in holder design. Like he said though, it all comes down to seeing how well they hold up over time.

Considering the effect that the slab already has on this front, may be more appropriate to say, "Even more difficult to photo".

 

Don’t be too surprised about the polymers used in these. I say that because a number of years ago I cut 3 of the 5 layers in my eye. I had to have surgery to correct the problem. When cut, the eye cannot heal itself like the rest of your body. The surgery took less than 10 minutes. I was awake and undrugged the entire time. A rather simple procedure but scary as you eye is forced open and you can see everything that’s being done to you. And guess how they repaired those cuts in my left eye, with polymers. They have an eye glue that’s so clear when dry it’s amazing. My iris is larger than the other one but I can see extremely well in either or both eyes.

 

If they don't turn into "rattlers" or press down the high points, I'd probably find them preferable. (Though I somewhat disprefer encapsulation in general.)

But there was a line in the article that sent me down a rabbit-hole that has left me feeling very upset...

Apparently the Smithsonian Institutions (Washington, DC) has had some portion of the National Numismatic Collection encapsulated. Looking around I found several articles about NGC slabbing significant portions of the Smithsonian's coin collection.

The Smithsonian Collection of 1.5M coins is one of the greatest in the world, largely built under the curatorship of Elvira & Vladimir Clain-Stefanelli in the second half of the 20th century. I can't speak for them, but I wonder how they would feel about it?

Personally, I really don't like the idea of putting a public collection into proprietary encapsulation that basically includes advertisements for a private corporation (NGC tags) above every one of those coins. To me that's a shocking corruption of public numismatics. (Having their corporate name and logo plastered all over my collection is also one of my objections to them for my own coins.)

Starting in 2008, "The 200 most rare, unique and famous American coins in the collection will be placed into customized plastic holders that will allow greater access to coins while improving their protection."
"Preservation of National Numismatic Collection" (3 Mar 2008).

A few years later they encapsulated a bunch of "World Coins," dates given in article were c. 17th century on (not sure what that means to them though).

Smithsonian Preserves National Numismatic Collection Through NGC Encapsulation of International Coins (24 March 2014)

I couldn't find any photographs or a full accounting, or whether they're still doing more.

NGC Supports the Smithsonian Institution.

 

I only collect NGC slabbed coins. In my opinion, there are a ton of upsides to this and very little in the way of downsides. All that being said, I agree with the overall sentiment that slabbing coins in museum collections is a silly idea.

It's not really the "Advertising" aspect that bother's me, although I guess it'd be appropriate to omit or hide this information under these circumstances. But, so long as bids were taken from all qualified contractors, then the job itself can't be classified as corruption based on federal statutes. In the case of ancient coins, there's really only 1 company that qualifies though, so I guess there's that.

The reason that I'm not in favor of slabbing museum coins is because... I don't see the point of it. The fact that it's displayed in a museum is indicative of it having been evaluated by experts, so they aren't gaining anything there. And, the coins are presented in some type of display either way, so they also do not gain anything on the protection front.

I mean, it's not like they would get the coins slabbed and then start passing the slabs around the room so that the public can get a better look.... right?

 

Looks like NGC finally caught up to Roma Numismatic's holders(Image from linked thread).


I still wouldn't pay for slabbing or keep a coin in a slab but if I were buying an already slabbed coin, being able to inspect the edge a bit closer would be a nice benefit before I break out the hammer since msot dealers don't do returns for formerly slabbed coins once cracked out.

 

No, I wasn't talking about criminal corruption at all. I meant a corruption (violation, debasement) of the fundamental principles of a public museum and institutional collection, which are more or less the antitheses of a commercial enterprise.

It's inappropriate to have corporate labels permanently affixed to museum objects, as is the case for however long coins remain encapsulated.

 

While it fits certain definitions of the word (violation, etc), I would not call it "corruption" based on the typical, modern, common usage (abuse of power, etc).

But that's just opinion and semantics. I do agree that affixing modern, commercial labels to historical museum pieces is generally inappropriate.

Hah! Roma better pipe up before that "pending patent" goes through!