The slabbing/grading debate

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Well, from grading seminars held by the same top-level folks who do the actual grading (I'm talking the top 2-3 TPG's on each side of the border) .. they say that they average from 17-22 seconds per coin while grading (for grade/authenticity only, not necessarily varieties). If you extrapolate from that, you are paying an absolute unknown person, with unknown skills/talent, and with no standardization across the board, between $3500 - $4000 an hour to get his opinion.... an opinion with no real explicite warranty or guarantee that the 66 in your hand wasn't a 63 or 64 a year or so ago. My opinion of TPG's is that my time would be better spent (and money saved) by just standing by the toilet, flushing 20 dollar bills down the drain. I know how to grade all the coins in my collecting niche, I have informed my heirs the value of the coins and who to contact with my demise ... why do I need an opinion encased in plastic? Don't you think that your $3000-$4000 per hour could be better spent going to a grading seminar, buying some good books to build up your reference library, joining a top-notch collector organization, or going to coin shows and looking at hundreds and hundreds of coins so that you can get your "grading eye" into shape?

 

Any good lawyer would tell you to get it in writing, the TPGs do just that. And this is exactly what you must do to attract the greatest audience of buyers when you sell. It isn't necessary if you can grade and authenticate coins when you buy. So no to buy, but yes to sell, if you want the best of both worlds.

 

thanks doug, i always wear white cotton gloves when handling my coins. i am certainly not an amateur and have been using them for the past 48 years..............

 

Just my personal habit/technique

I'm not a "professional, dealer, grader, authenticator" but I do use Nitrile gloves (without Talc) and sometimes wear a mask when I handle some high-end coins or if I'm handling proof coins. You just need to recognize that while the gloves won't leave oils, they can still damage the coin's surfaces.

More than 95% of the time I don't use gloves.

I am perhaps more conscious about not speaking, coughing, or breathing over the coins when I am handling them by the edges.

opppps, I just realized my post is pretty far off the subject of this thread.

 

I agree. Its like the advice given universally "never clean coins". Its given universally to prevent all new collectors from ruining coins left and right. However, I have no problem cleaning a coin, but I feel my decades of experience has given me that right. Same with gloves, I use my fingers, but I know how to handle a coin properly.

I am sure you have as well Moneyer, go ahead, try some flesh on metal action.

 

Slabbing is most useful, IMO, when it comes time to sell.

 

Seems the only fitting thing I can say is: :dead-horse:

 

I would agree with spending a bit more for a graded coin with a value over over $150, but not for a stupid modern coin. one thing I despise is the PCGS "sample" slabs. Buying one of those is buying the slab and not the coin.

 

I collect coins. If one happens to be raw and the other slabbed, I don't worry about it and get bent out of shape about it. I enjoy all my slabbed coins just as much as my raw coins. It doesn't make me lazy. If anything, it helps me learn grading from studying the coin in hand as opposed to seeing a picture on a computer screen. I don't think of it as a plastic coffin etc. I wouldn't handle my raw coins bare handed on a regular basis so a coin being in a slab is one in the same to me.

 

And until about 2005 the only guarantee they had in writing was for grading, not authenticity.

Who are you to tell someone what he should or should not collect? Yes it is buying the slab and not the coin because in that case it is the slab that is the important thing and not the coin inside it

 

well, the thing is, I am not the one to tell you what to buy. In fact, that wasn't what I was even trying to say. I was just putting my opinion out there like everyone else, and you can challenge it all day long.

By the way, why don't we just hold a poll? I'm sick of nice CT members getting mad at each other for no reason.

 

Because this is exactly what the op wanted to do. As said in another thread, they typically never participate in the threads' discussion once they stir the pot.

 

I doubt that Conder was getting mad, but he has a very valid point. It's the same for his "slab history". Who would others have to turn to for the information if he didn't compile all of it.

Thanks, Conder!

Chris

 

again, I was just posting my opinion. The reason I'm sort of irritated is that there was no reason to get mad over what I like and don't like. I may have insulted you in some way, and I apologize for it.

 

Neutral corners......

Nobody's gettin' mad at anyone here.

 

As we used to say many years ago in Latin class, "De gustibus non est disputantum" aka "Tastes are not disputable" aka "There's no accounting necessary for taste" aka "To each their own"

If the ancient Romans said it, it has to be true and accurate; right?

 

And thank goodness for that, right? If we all liked the same things, then all of our coins we like would cost 100x more than they do.

I am on record as not liking slabs, but I also don't get into tokens, or mpc's, or small currency, or many, many other great, interesting, worthwhile collecting areas. Just because I am not into them, does not demean or make less important any of them.

We are all just coin geeks after all.

 

I started the thread, and i didn't/don't stir any pots.

I simply posted a picture of a coin i recently got, and mentioned that i was going to get it graded/slabbed and another poster got on me like white on rice about it to the point that they are trolling. They kept on with the topic dispite other posters asking to keep it on topic which is why i started this thread - to keep that other thread on topic.