Just 3 months ago buying anything other then a US slabbed coin was unthinkable. Who in there right mind would ever buy anything other then a graded slab? Well my whole world changed when watching a documentary on Nero and cruising Heritage at the same time. I typed in Nero and there it was unslabbed but this was Heritage so I bid. A day later I called and cancelled my bid. I found cointalk and showed it to the guys and they said it was real so I bid again and won! What a fantastic experience it was to feel such a thing. I have seen the light and must feel my coins now. I still have slabs in my blood so my fix is in the pictures below. Raw to slab to raw in 15 seconds.
I'm confused, or did I just miss the joke? You browsed Heritage, saw and loved an unslabbed Nero, received reassurance about the coin, instead bought an unslabbed Hadrian thinking it was the same Nero, and put it in a reopenable slab with fake NGC label, calling it a Trajan?
My post could have been better. Since the Nero I got some more coins and only the Hadrian fit in the reopenable slab. I was excited about my discovery and got the coin confused. I removed the NGC reference from the label so it don't look fake. Guess I'm in a transitional period from slabs.
A flip will do. One of the joys of large Roman bronzes is holding them, passing them around to friends and family for show-and-tell. They are way past the point where a fingerprint could do any damage.
Baby steps my friend. Soon, you will no longer need the slab training wheels and will properly enjoy your coins in the raw! That's a nice one by the way.
I feel your pain, Michael! The slab demon sits on my left shoulder and the PVC free flip fairy sits on my right. Both of them are shouting at me!
Best of both worlds till I figure it out. For now I get to write whatever I want on the label and pop it out at anytime.
Now that I'm not as confused as TIF was LOL and I see what you did----that's a cool example of Hadrian (reverse please) and who doesn't LOVE handling any big bronze!!! I never stop pondering about all of those who held that very same coin in their hands as I am doing thousands of years later...and keeping them in a reopenable slab does allow easy storage and the option of letting others hold an ancient coin as well.
Great bronze. Amusing about the label but expected. Welcome to the slab free lifestyle. Much more enjoyable.
Feeling pleasure being sinuful in itself, touching a raw coin and liking it has to be inspired by the Devil. I am with the Devil on that subject Q
You know if you really really need to have the slab you can buy airtites or generic slabs Just measure the widest outside of your coin. Airtites http://www.wizardcoinsupply.com/products/air-tite/ Slabs http://www.wizardcoinsupply.com/everslab-coin-holders-lighthouse/ I will use these for US Proofs just so I don't damage the surface anymore. However, like others I just say use a flip for everything else.
We had a blind customer who collected high relief Greek silver coins. He would roll his wheelchair up to the counter and we gave him a red velvet tray of them. The little round tags were under the coins so he could "feel away." He never put one back in the wrong slot. After going through several trays he could go back and invariably pick out the two or three he wanted on each trip. How he could go through about 150 coins in three trays and remember where his choices resided was a mystery. His nurse never said much so either he had some vision left, turned his choices a certain way in the tray, or developed a high state of awareness and memory due to being sightless.
Interesting! I wouldn't think coin collecting would be a hobby for blind people, but Beethoven wrote many of his masterpieces after he'd gone deaf. The human spirit has a way of overcoming obstacles.
He was a rich business man and only collected Greek silver. We tried to get him interested in Roman Sestertius coins but he said the silver coins "felt" better. I had the unpleasant job of telling him his Euainetos Decadrachm (bought from a European dealer) was a "magnificent" struck copy.
There is a "feel" to ancient silver that has to be experienced. I recently bought a second Alexander Tetradrachm and it is hard to describe the feeling of having TWO of these large coins in hand!!!
The only thing that "might" surpass that is having each type of Pan Pac $50 slug (unslabbed) in each hand. You don't want to put them down. I'll bet some of the guys posting on CU and NGC forums have done it. For us normal collectors, two circulated $20 in each hand will give you an idea of what I'm writing about.