Grading/slabbing: Where is the value point?

Eh, too simple, and coins worth more than $250 can still be a loss to have them graded (in that it won't improve the resale value by at least as much as it cost to have it graded). Better rules:

1. If you intend to sell it and it's a coin that's commonly faked. Even if it's worth less than $250 I would never buy a raw trade dollar, nor attempt to sell one (online anyway, a dealer with enough experience to know it's real may buy it anyway).

2. If you reasonably believe it can hit a high grade. For moderns this basically means MS/PF 70, usually. Maybe 68 or 69, depends on the series. If it looks like it can grade high enough to hit that point where a coin goes way up in value than the grade just below it, it's worth a shot. Dealers do this all the time; the ones that make the grade more than make up for the ones that don't (but you have to submit massive amounts to get the law of averages to work in your favor, as a collector this probably won't work, so examine it closely before you take a shot).

That's about it I can think of if the point of having it graded is to improve its resale potential. And choose to believe this or not, but most of the time grading it will not do so (improve its resale potential by at least as much as the grading fee). The 2 situations I mentioned above are the only real exceptions, and this won't happen often. It's very rare to acquire a raw coin where having it graded will be a net gain for you. Even defenders of the TPGs will admit this (many will tell you if you want a slabbed coin, you're better off buying it that way already).

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

More great points on TPG submissions here

 

Fair points, I think. I was intentionally trying to keep it simple, though.

Another way to do that, I suppose, would be to say something like:

"A coin should be slabbed when the increase in sales price as a result of the slabbing is in excess of the cost to have it slabbed."

That cutoff, in a very general way, is around $250 the last time I looked at it in detail.

But as you and others have pointed out, the decision is quite a bit more in depth, and requires, both the market knowledge in a particular coin as well as an ability to predict what a TPG will slab a coin as -- and that's not a skill that is very widely found, even amongst experienced collectors. And given the break-even point is generally a single grade (for instance 69 vs 70 in your example), the ability to accurately predict what a TPG will grade a coin is very important to the decision to slab or not.

Lastly, I disagree strongly with your conclusion: "And choose to believe this or not, but most of the time grading it will not do so" and "It's very rare to acquire a raw coin where having it graded will be a net gain for you." To wit, I know a number of modern dealers and crackout artists who make their living doing precisely that. I have also done it myself (although I do not make it a vocation). So it can and is being done. Again, the key is the eye of the submitter and their ability to predict how a TPG will grade a coin. Without that, it's a guessing game, and the odds are stacked against you.

Respectfully...Mike

 

I really like when you don't keep it simple Mike. More to the point, I like it when you share your knowledge and experience in depth.

 

My fingers like simple. lol

I hope you and yours are well, Paul.

 

and once you realize that all 3 offer a 100% money back guarantee of authenticity, they are all the same. oh, you want their opinion on grade? now the price begins to differ. anacs will attribute varities that the other 2 won't. anacs guarantees the varities. as for "grade"... well, grade is an opinion. and opinions are like... ok, gotta stop there.

 

How interesting to learn that 'grading' (as opposed to authenticity certification) is an extra cost option in some cases! Silly me...I thought it was an all-inclusive, tell-all report on the coin at hand.

So: slabbing doesn't answer all the questions, it's sort of a loss leader, and there is still the (larger or smaller) risk of the dread 'body bag', which (I will stick my neck out here and surmise) usually means your wee treasure ain't: it's fake, or otherwise unfit for market. I am so embarrassed in my dotage to find bo bottom to my ignorance of fundamentals...and not just about the arcana of numismatics either.

Thanks for the continuing guidance. As you were too polite to finish your last thought, please allow me: we're ALL equipped to have opinions, and the older one gets the more they, and those of others (particularly paid 'experts') can reasonably be called into dispute.

 

So what are you going to do with the coin?

 

Hey Whit? Ya wanna collect or ya wanna invest? If you're takin'n the investment trail then ,Happy Trails. Two dudes sitting side by side bickering over a number......sounds like investment fodder. Do you like what you're seeing? Chose it on your own. Leave the extraneous noise out of the mix.........

 

Instead of slabbing the coin, try to find one already slabbed. sell the origional coin to offset the costs. The risk of having an older coin rejected is great as most if not all silver coins have been cleaned at some point in time, pcgs and ngc will certainly body bag them. The only time i'd slab a coin is a key date that is hard or expensive to find... and then go to a reputable coin dealer to have THEM send it out for grading. a good dealer will be able to tell if its worthy of grading

Charlie

 

It...and the two others it came to me with...will go to an auction house (as yet un-chosen) early in the new year. And, thanks to all of your insightful comments, they'll go raw, as they are now.

If the auction houses (which will get pics to assist in making their decision about whether to express interest) can accept raw, then I'll be content to let the market assign values to them, and live with the hammer prices less fees.

Life is simple when you have expert help. Thanks, all!!

OOPS! I was mentally adrift, and thinking about the Japanese Trade Dollars, and the 1870 1-Yen. Sorry...

The dime that started all this noise has been offered for sale, and so is probably not gonna be slabbed...for all the good reasons posted in this thread; not sufficient value being chief among them. Again, my gratitude for your thoughtful contributions.