The slabbing/grading debate

Thats what this all boils down to. Theres no right or wrong. Want to slab your coins? Thats your choice. Want them raw? Thats your choice. Want to handle your coins with no gloves? Thats your choice.

Its all your choice. And for one member to have a go at another because they want to get a coin slabbed is ridonkulous.

 

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One of the points i was making, but my troll insists slabbing does not increase the selling price.

Lets take a professsionally graded ASE with a grade of MS70, and a ASE in a cardboard holder with MS70 written on it by hand, put them on ebay and see if they sell for the same price.

And being a self-proclamed rookie, wouldn't a professional grading help with insurance purposes? The price difference between a MS63 and MS64 can be a lot of $$$ on certain coins. What do you non-slabbers do with regards to insurance when you have a good example which fetches a good price in its grade? (genuine question, not an attack).

 

slabbing coins appears to be a cultural thing, over here 99.9% of serious collectors and dealers do no slab coins per se, and gloves are a necessary part of the collectors kit along with a usb microscope, reference books and grading books. ok it may seem like a lot of bother but, that's the way it is with us brits. as a collector of celtic coins as well as 17th century civil war coinage i just think that to put such important pieces of history inside a plastic shell, detracts from the whole ethos of collecting these specific coins. that's my opinion....

 

Let's try to rephrase this in a non-controversial manner, because I think the wording of both sides makes it look like there is disagreement when there actually is not.

A properly-graded slabbed coin marketed to a group of people (Group A) who either don't know how to grade properly, don't trust themselves yet, or don't trust the online photos of the coin should sell for exactly the same price as a raw coin marketed to a group of people who can grade it properly themselves (Group B). Since the size of Group A is much larger than Group B, slabbing simply facilitates the sale of the coin at the expected price in the larger market, especially online, which gives the effect of a higher price realized on average than otherwise, given the size differences of the groups.

How's that?

 

I think that the average price might be higher in Group B, because they actually know what they are looking at, and the relative scarcity (in that grade) of what they perceive. A good number of the folks in group A are not collectors, but rather novice investors who have been brainwashed into thinking that coins are the new Silicon Valley stocks from the 80's & 90's. As such, they look at Trends (retail) or an annual guide and then figure a 30-50% discount on what's there. Or they go to Ebay sales and see what the "title" of the auction has sold for before. ... any Ebay data is linked to the Title of the Auction, not what the coin actually was in true grade. Then they add 10% because it's slabbed because everyone "knows" that a coin has to be slabbed to be bought or sold (or so every TPG will tell you).

The B group, knowing the relative scarcity for the raw coin, pays no attention to annual guides or Ebay sales .. he KNOWS what it's worth with a knowledgeable buyer from a knowledgeable seller. Any time that you have both a buyer and a seller agree on the grade of the coin (not what's on the plastic) then both people are getting a good deal and usually a higher price.

 

And I apologize for overreacting, I'm sorry.

 

I'm not sure if that person is a buddy of yours, but nit picking every post, making something out of nothing, and responding to every single post with something negative trying to get a response from me is trolling. Either way, no big deal because i stopped feeding him after a while.

No arguments from me on that, but the question was would a professionally graded coin sell for more than an unoffically graded coin. We are not talking about a particular type of buyer. Your post, as well as another person who make money slabbing and reselling, confirms this.

Maybe i wasn't clear in what i meant. Lets say you have a 1943 Bronze penny which you personally grade as uncirculated which would give it a value of around $80k. Your coin collection gets stolen and now its time for the insurance company to pay. They look at the book value as see that a circulated coin is worth $18k, a whole $62k less (and lets not nit pick on the $ numbers here as to value, lets just use these as examples). Wouldn't the insurance company ask for some verification that the penny was in fact uncirculated condition? We all know how insurance companies like to try and pay out as little as possible.

 

not that you care doug, but he's talking about me. i "provoked" this. my apologies to eveyone. he said some things that set me off in a rage. i should have waited, calmed down, and responded. if i am a "troll," so be it. i acted wrongly, but the point i was trying to make, which doug has restated, is that a slabbed coin is not "worth more" because it is slabbed.

 

Swish.....you devil.

But certainly not a troll.

 

If you don't know what poster i am talking about, then how do you know what was posted for me to call them a troll? I couldn't even say "this coin game" without getting jumped on. I have no problem with a discussion, but i felt the other poster was a bit heavy handed, nit picking and basically looking for an arguement. What you and I are having is an exchange of opinions, and that is something different. No one is trying to twist what is said like 2 Republicans trying to win a nomination, no one is trying to belittle the other person by pointing out typos or grammar mistakes (i'm not saying the other person did that, just making a point) or anything of that nature.

Again, we are not talking about the same thing. Let me sum it up with an example. 2 coins go up on ebay, they are both 1893 CC Morgan Dollars. One is in a reputable grading company slab and is graded VF. The other is in a cardboard coin holder with VF written on it. The book price for a VF is $713 while the next grade down is $380, so there is a $333 difference between 1 grade. At the end of the auction, do you think
A) They will sell for the same price, give or take a buck or 2
B) The professionally graded coin will sell for more.
C) The cardboard holdered coin will sell for more.

The question isn't what would a serious coin collector pay, or what a rookie would pay. Its what will the auction end at.

Unless i misunderstood you, you said a rookie/uneducated buyer would pay more than its worth. In other words it sells for more, the only difference is it ends up in the collection of a uneducated/lazy collector. And another poster thanked someone for their view because they were able to make money buying coins raw, slabbing them and reselling them. Right there is someone with real life experience in what i am saying.

But it is proof of value since its graded and can therefore the current value (which can change) can be looked up in an industry standard value book. An insurance company can argue with someone who self-graded their coins, or at least beat them down on a payout. Its hard for the insurance company to argue with the grade when you had it done by a third party company and have it documented - thats the point i am trying to make.

 

Sheesh, doesn't take much to get you going does it? All i said was that i was going to get a coin i just purchased slabbed.

But on the plus side, i did learn that these coin graders won't authenticate older coins like this. I just wanted to make sure i didn't pay more than the gold content for a coin that was fake. I was thinking that it wouldn't be that hard for someone to fake coins like this. Since its not an excellent example, i'm not so keen now to slab it. I do like holding these old coins in my hand, and one reason i wanted to slab it was to help preserve it.

And then i saw a coin that was in much much better condition than mine and that burst my bubble a little (just a little, as that person was selling it for x8 what i paid) as i thought my coin was an excellent example of this coin. The seller scanned the coin so it was hard to assess it properly but the detail looked good and it was struck in the center which other examples seem to be off to the side slightly or missing their rim.

 

I went through a stage where I wanted lots of slabbed coins, but to tell the truth no matter who grades your coins if its in the general area of a grade and you send it in multible times you might get a couple grades back. Personally I think its a waist of money I can be spending on more coins but I respect others opinions and if you want a coin graded there are companies that will do it and its your choice. I will never buy a coin just because of the grade on the slab in fact I rarely buy slabbed coins unless its on teletrade. Now that I pretty much only buy ancients I probably wont be buying any slabbed. Personally I like my coin in 2X2 envelopes.

 

Summed up beautifully. Not to pick on Doug, but I think it's a bit misleading for anyone reading this thread to see somebody claiming slabs are a "waste of money" when they themselves are not actually purchasing any coins anymore. As he admitted.

The reality is, most people are afraid of fakes. There's bad fakes that are obvious. There's good fakes that fool experienced dealers. An expensive, raw coin offered on ebay gives little comfort to potential buyers and therefore will likely sell at a deep discount compared to one in a slab. Sometimes it can even be hard to tell if one has been cleaned. A whole other issue in itself.

People pay for slabbing because it is essentially, professionals giving their "blessing" to a certain coin, who have NO STAKE in the game. When two graders look at my coin, they really don't care if it's been cleaned, if it's fake, if it's MS 63 or MS 62, regardless of the price difference!!! But the dealer or individual selling a raw coin is almost always going to go with a higher end grade on everything and don't attempt to tell them something is fake or cleaned.

I can't believe people are even arguing the merits of this. I whole-heartedly agree that yes, it is only somebody else's opinion on the slab. But at least they do it for a living on a daily basis. And at least they are a third party, disconnected from the emotional aspect of it and who have no stake in whether something is a grade higher or not. If somebody thinks there's another way to get a more unbiased, professional opinion on a coin, please lay it out here.

I have no affiliation with any TPG. I'm just defending slabbing for what it is. It's easy for me to understand why people use the service.

 

So your going with option A in my example?

 

And I explained the full story about the CDN in the other thread. It works for about 30% worth of individual US coins. Whether it's prices reflect slabbed and loose coins is meaningless. In general, people feel safer buying slabbed whether they are new to the hobby or experienced. Especially buying online.

 

Regardles what Doug says or if he responds, it won't settle the debate. Choice "A" doesn't even work when the same coin is sold again on the same day right after it was purchased, alone that it proves anything. These two coins could alternate in value depending on the buyers involved. The variables to this, make an iron clad argument for or against it, impossible to win either way.