Slab Coins, The way to go.

I been into coins since 1947. never had a coin slabbed until 2 months ago. Now I have over 50 slabbed coins, and I think in the future I will be slabbing a lot more of them. The more I think about it, the more I want to do it. The reason, the Chinese are copying our coins more and more. Last night at our local coin club meet I saw for the first time Chinese usa Peace dollars. Last month someone showed me a trade dollar made in China. I think pretty soon they will be making all the rare coins, and a lot of common one's too. A lot of people are going to be taken by fake coins in the years to come. ANACS is slabbing mine, and I am very happy with them.

 

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I have to say that I agree wth you for the most part on your opionion as to why you are getting them slabbed. This is pretty much the only reason im getting all my more rare type and gold coins slabbed.

 

That brings to my mind a question. Will the knowledge of detecting fakes be able to stay ahead of the technology of counterfeiting?

 

You know that's a very good question. But im sure that right now the technology to counterfeit almost anything on the market is out there. I heard that back in the late 80s before Iraq invaded Kuwait. That there was places printing US PAPER MONEY. To of coursemess with are Economy. Im sure if someone wanted to really counterfeit coins they very well could if they got there hands on those reassures needed to produce FAKES of al most any type. That fact in its self is a big REASON to get your MORE valuable coins SLABBED by a reputable TPGS as soon as you can if you by it from some place like EBAY.

 

Today at the shop I was there when a guy brought in a good many coins that he said were real---they were Chinese Trade Dollars or whatevery they are---I bought some a few months back for $2 knowing that they were fake.
This guy who I've seen before doesn't seem to know about coins and when he showed me some of his collection a large part of it was fake----he is the type that you can't really tell him--you know this is fake----he just doesn't really care....anyway he thought these were fake and my dealer agreed with me and told him that these were fake---slabs are a great thing that I'm glad we have!

Speedy

 

Now that is interesting thought. There are only so many ways to authenticate many rare coins, and with the rate technology is and has been improving in recent years, maybe we'll reach a point where one can't tell the difference between an original coin and an excellent counterfeit?

 

that will be the end of coin collecting as we know it.

 

I have several that need to be slabbed and several that are. The only thing I don't like is you can't hold them. Even if you are wearing cotton gloves, it is still an amazing feeling to hold a numismatic coin.

fortunately there are many coins with wear. I hold those and slab the rest.

As long as the coins are slabbed by reputable graders, I think technology will keep up with the counterfeiters. It will be the raw coin market that suffers. If counterfeits proliferate, raw coin prices will drop to bullion rates as the coin may not be worth more than that until slabbed. Great now we will have contracts that say, "Upon grading by Y company, I will pay X for a coin in the agreed upon grade, or spot price for any counterfeit."


Delawarejones

 

Wait until someone starts counterfeiting the slabs themselves in a serious fashion. That's when you'll start seeing major problems, especially with the sight-unseen market and coins that are put into fake slabs with only a one- or two-point-bump. They can always copy the number from a real coin of that type and grade to boot.

Fish

 

In my areas of collecting (and even the hobby as a whole), I feel slabs have been very detrimental. Exonumia has a miniscule, almost non-existant counterfeiting problem. Grading is not much of an issue and most exonumia collectors and the vast majority (if not all) of price lists do not even use the Sheldon scale, values typically change only in small amounts from grade to grade (as an example, the majority of cwts in Unc are valued at about 2x that of one in F). Cleaning is a minor, if any factor at all. Many tokens with holes or other obvious damage are still often sought after.

When slabbing first appeared in exonumia, the reception was so cold that I saw quite a few MS graded Civil War tokens unable to even attract a $.01 opening bid on ebay. Unfortunately, that has now reversed for reasons I can not fathom, and slabs now often bring 5 to 10X catalog. And even the slab enthusiasts I know feel that the tpgs do a rather poor job of exonumia grade assignment. I won't even go into their numerous identification screw-ups and inability/unwillingness to use hobby standard identification numbering systems.

When tpgs initially appeared, I held high hopes for them and thought they were the answer to many problems. Sadly, it took little time to realize that they were not going to rise to my expectations, and IMO now seem to be firmly anchored in the position of primarily being a tool used to extract as much $$$ from collector's wallets as possible.

I still believe slabs have their place, but it is a vastly smaller place than is currently occupied.

As far as slabs being protection from fakes - if they can make a good counterfeit of a coin, making a fake slab should be relative child's play IMO. If fake slabs are not already infiltrating the marketplace, I would expect just that in the near future! Perhaps someone should get ready to open a slab authenticating business. Maybe I'm alone here, but I always felt it better (if at all feasible) to be able to acquire any necessary knowledge/skills to do things myself rather than hiring it out.

 

cwtokenman,

You have just summed up my reasons, that I could never express as eloquently as you, why I'm on the verge of shifting all of my non-bullion coin collecting to the token world. It's the least corrupted branch of the hobby in my opinion.

Thanks.

 

well you stil need to watch who slabbed it.
i had a PCI slabbed trade dollar that i sent to Anacs and they said it was fake!

 

If it was still in the slab, PCI guarantees their slabs, don't they?
So, return it to them.
Good luck.

 

no i sent it to anacs for a crossover and they said it had pvc,so i cracked it out and cleaned it and sent it back in.i'm thinking of sending it back to PCI again though.

 

That has already happened. http://www.pcgs.com/articles/article_view.chtml?artid=4400&universeid=313

What is more scary is with the Imperial Russian commemorative coins, where a fair amount of counterfeits are starting to make into slabs as I heard.

 

What's next, slab-slabs, and slab-slab-slabs? It's like trucks, truck-trucks, and truck-truck-trucks.

That's for all you Simpsons fans out there.

Fish

 

Slabbed... why?

I will never own a slabbed coin. If I can't touch a coin, then it's not worth having. I want to hold it in my hand, flip it in the air to see if it "rings true", heft it and feel the edges. Slabbing is just a way of removing a coin one step from reality... it is no longer a coin once it's slabbed... it's merely a "collectible"... it may as well be a die-cast toy car or a painted plate. Have people forgotten how to spot fakes by their feel and the sound of their ring?

And you can't weigh a coin or test its density once it's slabbed. Speaking of which... I've been seeing an awful lot of supposed ancient silver coins that are not only fake coins... they're fake silver. They weigh about half of what the standard weight for the type should be. I have not done a certified metallurgical analysis, but from density and chemical tests I'd say they were a zinc/aluminum alloy, probably made from junk car parts. The color is good and the modeling is decent. If they're slabbed or held in a flip it's hard to tell, but if you hold it in your hand it instantly feels light. I think these are probably originating in the Middle East, particularly Jordan. I base this last on the fact that a colleague of mine does archaeological field work in Jordan every summer, and says his that the diggers he hires moonlight as "treasure hunters". They go out into the desert, and come back in a week with 1000 or 2000 "Roman" coins... every time! They joke about how they have this great spot (ha ha) where they "find" (ha ha) the same number of coins every time they go out. Making the coins is the easy part, the key, they tell him, is the aging process. Everybody has their own secret recipe, which usually involves urine, bleach, ashes, and sand, among other things, and some sort of slow cooking over a fire.

Anyway... these guys sit around the campfire and have a good laugh about people who buy these things without ever touching them, because that makes the faking job so much easier.

 

Tom
I must disagree with most of what you say....
Most of the time feel and the ring isn't what can prove if a coin is real or not--most of the time with these Chinese fakes the detail is all messed up or as other times the mintmark is funny or such---that is where slabbing comes in nice--the people that work at PCGS and NGC are experts and know how to tell if its fake or not---and when they slab a coin they are guaranting <sp?> that the coin is real---and they pay when they mess up.

While for circulated coins that may be fine for UNC that can lower the value faster than anything---one flip and a nice big fingerprint on it and there went the value and what you paid for it

That is what I totaly disagree with---it makes the faking job that much HARDER-

But then this is just MHO

Speedy

 

No it will not if the coin collecting boom continues. Counterfieters will beging using modern technology with microscopically engineered fakes that will not be able to be tested for authenticity by anyone. If there becomes a large enough market for rare coins that will be the future for sure. They can now make diamonds that are real and governments are going crazy trying to lazer tag ones that come from the ground versus man made ones. Soon that will fail. Rare coins will be very easily manufactured that will meet any grading system criteria even attempting usage of any modern machines. It is just a matter of time. Also, China is just the start. As soon as other countries jump on the band wagon, counterfeiting coins will boom out of countrol. Having coins slabbed will not be a gurantee of authenticity.

 

I have to agree with Just Carl I'm afraid. Let's face it... a coin is just a piece of metal impressed with an image! There's no technological marvel associated with it... it's basically 19th century craftsmanship. Counterfeiting is just not all that hard to do! There are no legal restrictions on the ownership of machinery for the precise duplication of patterns.... and that machinery has gotten very very good! At some point we will either have to give up the hobby entirely, or be willing to enjoy a wonderful coin EVEN if it may be counterfeit. In fact... some of the counterfeits are themselves more highly collectible than the coins!