Barry Murphy Off to NGC

Welcome to Cointalk. I wouldn't take it too personal. You obviously must have had good reasons for your decision, and the rest of us as outsiders would not understand them as well as you. So we are all going to have different opinions on any given subject...and that's ok.

I do hope you stick around in this forum. I know I could definitely use an expert's opinion every once in a while, and the forum will be all the better having someone of your knowledge and experience around.

 

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Threads that devolve into name calling never go anywhere positive, so it's better to stay out of the fray.

Barry Murphy

 

An opinion or two:
If you really do not believe in slabs, stop buying them. If you see a coin in a slab that you want, walk away. You will live without it. Leave written instructions in your will that your collection will not be slabbed even though it will result in a lower price realized. When you buy a slabbed coin and break it out, you enable that coin's next owner (or you) to pay again to have it slabbed again. Of course the style of slab changes so you may want to have coins in slabs redone to have the new style anyway. If you are in it for the money rather than the coins, you will play these cards differently.

I would have no problem with slabs if they were recloseable and accompanied by a photo certificate like David Sear issues. There could even be a 'sealed for your protection' sticker that would show a slab had been opened. This would not work on US coins where so many look alike but a photo certificate provides a level of protection for ancients that tend to be distinct in some feature. I suppose it would leave us vulnerable to a real coin being replaced with a cast made from it and colored to match. Since there is no guarantee with the coins anyway, I'm not sure how big the problem is.

I'm sorry to have lost a friend over this. I am not proud of the tone of some of the posts above but this venue has never been particularly eloquent. Slabs are not an option for a person like me who paid less than the cost of a slab for about a third of his coins. I hope this move is a sign that NGC is moving away from what I consider inappropriate business practices and toward showing expertise rather than marketing ploys. We will see. A collector my age can look forward to dying before we run out of free-breathing coins. Young collectors will participate in a different style hobby or decide that collecting old coins from a civilization hardly taught in school anymore is a stupid hobby anyway. I'll not know which.

 

Personally, I think our hobby has more serious threats to worry about than slabs. Slabs can be removed. MOUs, on the other hand, may require an act of Congress. I don't worry about slabs.

 

brilliant

 

I stand by every word. If sell-out is name calling. Then I am name-calling. Own it.

I have not forgotten your lofty diatribes against those spoiling the hobby. Anyone else and I wouldn't have bothered to pine in. Enjoy your new job.

 

It's unfortunate that you've decided not to detail your thinking about your decision, and I understand that name-calling and labels can be sufficient reason to decide not to respond. If you infer that I personally think you've "sold out" then I want to apologize and correct this impression -- I don't think this at all -- and again encourage you to share your thoughts on this topic.

If I had the range of knowledge about ancients that some dealers and collectors here have, I could be genuinely motivated to take my expertise to a slabbing/grading service that I thought could be improved to provide real, added value to collectors of ancients.

My personal opinion that slabbing ancients adds no value for me is exactly that -- a personal opinion that may not be shared by others. It's an opinion that's also relative to the particular grade of coins that I collect, and further reinforced by my only buying coins that have been viewed and evaluated by my dealer, who has close to 40 years' experience in the ancient coin arena.

As I wrote previously, if I were a novice collector of ancient coins in a different price range, I would feel much more comfortable buying coins that in some way had been evaluated and judged by an expert. If slabbing is the way to provide that level of comfort to a beginner, it's a viewpoint that I'd like to see illuminated and discussed (in a civil manner) on this site.

 

They slab action figures and vintage Cereal boxes too!

 

I am a high end collector and I cannot see a day I would have my coins in slabs as Eids also mentioned. I buy stabbed coins sometimes and crack them out. And no, I'm never going to return the label to NGC because I don't care what they think.

I look at slabs like oysters. I only care about what's inside and if I'm motivated enough, I'll shuck them. If I'm unsure of the contents (aka, know the coin inside the ghastly plastic case) I won't buy it because I've been screwed with hidden rim damage on slabs ancients and I won't make that mistake again. I don't think slabs are worth getting too exercised about and tha Carausius keenly points that out.

As for you Barry, you are famous at least for a bit so enjoy it. I bought some of your books in the CNG auction. Also sorry your business didn't work out. I worry constantly about the future of mine so I get it and mean that genuinely.

 

Actually my business was working out just fine. I could have continued to support me and my family with all 3 kids in college without any problem. I was just tired of it and wanted to do something different. Basically I wanted my nights and weekends back. 25 years being a dealer started getting a bit old.

Thanks for buying some books. I sold about 20% of my library in the CNG sale, I've given away another 10-15 % and I still have the rest. I'm downsizing my house from 5000 sqft to 2500 sqft so I needed to get rid of a bit of stuff.

Barry Murphy

 

Heh heh, right here!

At least you're still doing what you love. (jus' my opinion) I see ancient slabbing as a stepping stone for beginning collectors. Get their toes wet in ancients, then as usual, drag them out from that slab instinct to truly appreciate these jam packed coins that you can touch.

Mr. Murphy, I've considered being an ancient coin grader, handling all those coins day after day giving my opinion on the coin while getting paid for it, makes a guy drool. But I like to look at them (in hand) again and again.

 

Good luck to you Mr. Murphy. I sincerely hope it all works out for you. Just a thought: I was in the Army for 33 years, and thought I might like a change, so I retired and moved on. Man I miss the Army.

 

Although I agree wholeheartedly with the anti-ancient-slabbers, this thread is about Barry Murphy.

I started seriously collecting ancient coins in 1997. Somewhere early on I came upon Barry Murphy's posts on FORVM and Barry's store on vcoins.

It was apparent to this newbie at that time that Barry had knowledge, experience, and nice coins at fair prices. I was always happy to see Barry's posts in coin thread discussions because I usually learned something of import. He was obviously someone who had much, and a wide variety of, knowledge in the field. And IMO he could have sold his coins for much higher than he did. His goal was obviously not to squeeze every last $ out of every last coin.


Although I am not a fan of NGC slabbing ancients, having Barry on board can only be a benefit.

I have bought coins from Barry. And although he may or may not remember me, I wish him the best. And please keep on sharing your knowledge Barry.

 

Barry Murphy sounds like an honest , open ,guy. His reasons for doing what he does in life are his alone. We have one life and we MUST live it our own way. I was a police office for many years, but I wanted my weekends and evenings and to spend Christmas with my kids, so I left. I get it Mr Murphy.

 

I have communicated with Barry form any years. I do not know him personally but can state that in all my dealings with him I feel that he is an honest and trustworthy person and one that I was happy to deal with whenever I could. He has done me some favours over the years and I wish him all the best with his new direction.

I don't buy coins in slabs often but I have no objection to those who do. Where there is a market for things people generally will find it and sell to it. I have broken many coins out of slabs but also have kept a very small number slabbed. Slabs simply don't fit into the way I arrange my collection and y coin focus means that generally the things I collect aren't slabbed.

I am often uncomfortable with the way threads here degrade to personal attacks very quickly and have stood back from participation several times as a result. I considered doing so as a result of this thread.

 

How's the NGC library? Must be pretty decent.

 

Geez. I think the ad hominem attacks have been regrettable. Let's all take a deep breath.

I don't know Barry, but I think he has shown a lot of courage joining the muck of this thread.

Although in collecting ancient coins (unlike other coins) one buys the coin and not the slab, they are easy enough to remove if one doesn't like the slab. When buying a coin over the internet from an unknown seller, however, I appreciate coins having been examined by NGC.

I appreciate the knowledge Dave Vagi and others from NGC have shared about numismatics. I hope Barry will continue this tradition.

I will be a forever-novice collecting coins (because I don't) despite examining coins and other numismatic material for more than four decades. So, I hope Barry continues to participate in this subforum. I, for one, have a lot to learn and I always appreciate new insights.

These are first world problems, folks. Let's keep things in perspective.

 

That is a good question but I wonder just how important a library would be for a grading/authentication operation. A large dealer (CNG class) needs a library to write up extensive descriptions with catalog references but The NGC model provides very little ID information and people with the experience of Mssrs. Vagi and Murphy should be able to do most ID's off the top of their heads. You don't need a book beyond a one volume old Sear to ID Roman Imperials to emperor and date range. Also, I suspect that most coins received for grading are the usual suspects. Perhaps they get a hundred Severus Alexander denarii in EF for every Pescennius Niger in any grade. When appealing to the new market of inexperienced collectors to whom all ancients are new, the added value of a slab is probably less on coins of some types than others.

I am not even close to the level of these gentlemen but I do find that my use of some books in my library has fallen off compared to others. Unless the coin is in poor condition, references for Imperials is mostly for the purpose of providing a catalog number while I am considerably less comfortable naming that Parthian king. I have many books in my library that I really should sell simply because they no longer provide regular practical support. The expertise that would allow someone to function as an authenticator is not gained from 95% of the books I know but from handling countless thousands of coins every year for 25 years. I doubt that my fingers in the last 50 years have contacted as many coins as Barry's have in any one of his 25 years. This is a level of training that could not be duplicated with the largest of numismatic libraries.

I would, however, wonder how anyone (collector, dealer, NGC grader) could keep up with the latest in the forgers' arts. There are no books. Internet sites exist but staying current is hard enough when you really need to be ahead of the game. I'm sure there are people sending in known fakes in the hope of slipping one through. A fake in a slab is defined as genuine since some dealers even refuse to guarantee authenticity of coins sold in slabs. Even though they do not guarantee authenticity, they are putting their good name on the line with every encapsulation. In the end, that good name is their only product. If you wanted a 'blind-pig' opinion, you could ask us here on CT.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/even_a_blind_pig_can_find_an_acorn_once_in_a_while

 

@Barry Murphy
Please don't leave Mr. Murphy, this forum could really use a professional like you. The ancients community here is really nice but sometimes their lips move faster than their brains.
I hope that you will reconsider.
~Magnus Maximus

 

Very true. For high-end stuff, however, I'd want to compare with specimens in public collections and good provenances (as many as possible), no matter how much experience I have. Much of that is online now but there's still a large chunk of important material that isn't.