Slabbed ancients.....yay or nay?

Welcome the Ancients Forum, @Mkman123 !

 

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Welcome to CT Mike (@Mkman123). Like you I'm a novice when it comes to ancients. Most of the guys here on CT are extremely knowledgeable and can spot a fake from miles. But unfortunately I couldn't tell even if it hit me on the head. I dabble in ancients from time to time and love the look of Phoenician shekels or Alexander III tetradrachms or those from the Seleucid empire etc but would not profess to being able to tell a real one from a cleverly cast fake.

Not too long back I bought a couple of fairly expensive coins ($2,000+ each) from a very well known auction house which turned out to be fake or severely impaired. If I hadn't submitted them for grading, I'd still be sitting on them, foolishly thinking I had something special. Moreover, if you've got a really special coin, would you want a clumsy friend dropping it on a hard floor and putting a mark or scratch on it, reducing its value by half???

Yes in ancients there are many different things to look for in a coin like the strike quality, centring, metal quality, porosity and very importantly the style (fine style coins command a much higher price among the investor collectors), which one does not have to worry about too much in moderns. I use the term 'investor collectors' because many of them collect to accumulate nice collections but also to enhance their wealth in future whereas most of our colleagues here at CT are true collectors, passionate about their hobby but not overly concerned about profiting from their hobby.

There was a recent thread about a CT member who purchased some very expensive Chinese coins, in raw state and found them to all be modern reproductions/fakes. Luckily that auction house would take back the coins even after many months to protect their reputation but if you're buying from eBay, you would be picking up the tab after the 2 month period expires.

So to summarise, it's your money at the end of the day and you've got to decide what you're comfortable with. Consider where and who you're buying from, how much you're paying and if you want to break some out of their prison, feel free to do so. You might consider having the coin graded/authenticated but not encapsulated.....best of both worlds IMHO.

I think I'll take a long holiday now so most of the guys will have forgotten my post when I come back to CT

 

MKman123 - you write in your initial post:

"...My goal is to preserve them.[...] I notice many of you ancient collectors collect raw/prefer raw. Why is that? For me a slab would better preserve it from the elements and help with authenticity as I'm sure counterfeits are a big problem.

Although what you write is, technically speaking, correct, it ignores the huge variety of storage and protective choices available. But more importantly, carried to its ultimate, your goal would put all coins in vaults in museums "Oh, that's OK" I'm sure some would say "We have photos of our coins". Don't get me wrong, good photos and the ability to take them are of greater importance than you're even likely to suspect at this point in your journey into the wider world of numismatics. If you're satisfied with photos, why bother to buy the coins at all? Coffee-table books with glossy coin-porn photos of the worldwide, best known specimens blown up to full-page size on luxurious papers would be all you would need, right?
I can't speak for everyone (obviously), but for me I see slabs primarily as a cynical attempt to spread to Classical numismatics the madness into which Modern World & US coin collecting has descended by removing any necessity for the "investor" (notice, I didn't say "collector" - collecting and investing are two totally separate concepts) to know anything at all about the coins he buys then immediately makes disappear into his safe-deposit box where they won't be likely to be seen or appreciated by anyone again until he dies. And frankly, if you want to do investing, that's a fine pursuit - but you're likely to do a lot better in the long run with carefully chosen mutual funds or bonds.
If you think of collecting more like savoring fine food and wine, taking in a really great show or concert, or treating yourself to a spa weekend, you will be doing a LOT better in the long run. Those pursuits are all fine - but at the end, all you have is memories. At least with your coin purchases, you can savor the quality of the art or whatever it is that motivates your collecting (over and over) and still have the coins.
That suggestion made upthread that you try your best to forget nearly everything you currently know as a slab-investor in modern coins is really wise, even though probably not 100% achievable in reality. It is probably enough to consider ancients to be like house cats compared to horses, (it can work in both directions) - yes, they're both animals, they're both mammals, but their care and feeding and what, exactly, you appreciate about them is or can be vastly different.

 

My hope is that you'll take the time to read all the threads and posts on this site regarding the cons (and, yes, the pros -- there are some, at least for beginners) of buying slabbed ancient coins. But in the event that you decide to take the plunge before finishing this reading, and before you've absorbed the collected knowledge of the collectors on this site, I'll offer a succinct summary of my viewpoint on this topic.

Personally, I love ancient coins for their history and artistry. Slabbing an ancient coin does nothing whatsoever to enhance a coin's appeal in these two areas. I don't care about the TPG's opinion of the coin's condition or grade, nor do I care about its judgment on the artistry. So slabs add no value for me.

In one respect, I'm fortunate to work with a dealer who helps find coins and spot tooling that I wouldn't necessarily detect, so I really don't run the risk of buying a forged coin (with this exception: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/hadrian-aureus-a-tale-of-subtle-differences.283959/). But even a novice collector can minimize this risk by buying only from dealers who guarantee their coins (e.g., VCoins and Sixbid auctioneers). Slabbed ancient coins offer some security to a novice collector -- in my opinion, the only plus of buying a slabbed ancient -- but note that TPGs DON'T guarantee authenticity of the ancient coins they slab.

Spend some time perusing VCoins (www.vcoins.com) and various auctions (www.sixbid.com) to get a sense of which ancients appeal to you and which ones don't. You'll get some direction from doing so, and feel free to ask questions on this site about coins that you find appealing.

 

The group has pretty well covered the way I feel about slabs (No!) but the bottom line as far as I am concerned is that it is just one more step in the ruin of the hobby by people who buy coins but have no interest in them. If you don't care enough about the coins that you don't want to learn about them and see them at their finest (not in a plastic box), if all you care about is making money off them selling them to someone even more unaware than you are, if you think what you need to know to appreciate a coin is what is printed on a tiny label then I would really prefer that you go away and collect your shiny baubles that need protection by sealed plastic tombs. Ancient coins have survived a couple thousand years as they are and will do OK without you. I have absolutely no problem with you storing your coins in the way you choose but slabs carry with them added ignorance factor granting people with extra money a licence to pay extra for the right to collect without understanding. I have no more love for people who buy coins and have them held in the vaults of their agents since they have no interest in even seeing the coins. Slabbed coins make life easier on people laundering money turning the coins we love into anonymous commodities safe to sell at any flea market or street corner. If it were just a matter of a plastic box, there would be no slab-hate as displayed here. Some of us see it as the imminent end of the hobby we love.

 

Wow- that thread is crazy. I don’t think ancients will ever get like that. We’re just a different, more sophisticated breed.

 

I would like to believe that but feel we should always continue to push back against slabs.

 

Thanks everyone, taking all the information in and will take my time getting into ancients! Appreciate it!

 

Being somewhat of an optimist, I currently don't see slabification as imminent or inevitable, but I do agree that if it does happen, it would change the hobby permanently for the worse, and relegate those of us who are actual collectors to an ever-dwindling minority.

It would be interesting to be able to track two statistics about those who purchase slabbed ancient coins:

(1) How many of those collectors eventually break those coins out of the slabs?

(2) Do those who keep the coin in the slab end up collecting more ancients, or do they end up with just a few and never really develop an interest in ancients?

 

Good questions.

 

One problem is that I don't think any of the services that slab coins will guarantee the authenticity of ancient coins, they just entomb them.

 

With all this being said...buy one, hold it and think about the history. It doesn't have to be expensive, but it is nice to have a fairly large one like a tetradrachm. Go for it!

 

The trepidation of slabbed ancients mirrors that of US colonial and copper coinage. There was a ton of pushback against slabbing those issues although the market generally acquiesced and they are slabbed now (save for a couple dealers). Many coins still come with an "EAC" grade in auction descriptions. I suspect ancients will go somewhat of the same way: "slabbed AU; conventionally graded Good Very Fine" (not always the case, obviously).

I know of some predominately US dealers who have been dipping their toes into ancients, bringing their clients into our market. This is worrisome for selfish reasons: I want more coins first. However, some of these collectors are only buying aurei that slab "at least AU", ignoring style, the type represented, and all of the other important aspects that make ancients so unique.

These are the sorts of people who also have a tendency to overpay. I've seen a few sets of Twelve Caesar aurei selling for $750K-$1M+. It's certainly possible to do this with exceptional coins and exceptional types but these were common examples which were decent but not amazing. Compared to US coins, an aureus with a population of 30-50 pieces sounds like it should cost $200K but in most cases, it simply doesn't.

Slabs allow for less of a difficult barrier to entry for many collectors but it also offers an opportunity for people to be taken advantage of with exorbitant prices, regardless of your price point (but especially on less expensive coins when the cost of a slab is close to the cost of the coin).

That said, we shouldn't necessarily blame the slabs: it is the dealers who are being dishonest in some of these circumstances.

Long story short: caveat emptor, do your research, and ask around here as we're all happy to help.

 

true, but they won't "entomb" a coin if they have any concerns of it's authenticity..i.e. "you can fool all the people"...

 

But they admit they know little about them.

 

i trust their judgement more than mine, but i'd doubt anyone who is 100%.

 

Great to see you posting, @Kentucky ! I'm glad to see that you haven't given up on us!

ANACS authenticates ancients and states it on the back of their slabs.



Not that I go this route anymore. I have grown to love actually holding them. If I get a guarantee for life (lifetime refund if found to be fake) from a trusted and knowledgable dealer—that's all I need.

 

@Deacon Ray I had forgotten that ANACSs slabs and authenticates ancients.......if they really back up that guarantee that should be very good.

 

I had a few authenticated by them, @Mkman123 . But now—I only buy from dealers who stand by their coins authenticity so I had to ask myself why am I slabbing coins that I already know to be authentic?

I never plan to sell my collection. I don't collect ancient coins as an investment in the monetary sense. I collect them because their history fascinates me. Holding them in my hands is like no other experience that I can describe.

 

I stand corrected.