That seems like the smartest thing to do, in fact I always look at Heritage and DLRC before I buy something. Heritage has sold much more material, but I am partial to DLRC because they are located where I live. I can look up past auction prices fairly easy on those two websites.
I just totally skewed the 09-S Lincoln price charts on the plus side, yet turned away some avg stuff presented to me below bid in PCGS holders..... It's tooo unpredictable. You MUST buy the coin instead of the plastic, AND use no single source as a guide
Herein lines the problem. Even if the guide is "right" it can't be right for all different quality levels of a coin in a particular grade. The coin is as important, or more importantant than the guide.
PCGS, NGC or bobs slabbing inc. Doesn't matter. All my coins go into airtites. I will say this about PCGS....it takes several hard blows with a hammer to break the case.
you are doing it wrong. You need to use an "end nips" which looks like this: and can be found in most hardware stores. Just use the end nips on the 2 places I marked on the following coin: The slab will pop apart in 3 parts without damaging the coin, but it will allow the coins removal as well as the slab insert. This concludes the educational portion of tonight's show, lol.
I guess I didn't say how far into the slab rim you need to "nip". You need to cut through the upraised ridge, but you don't need to go any further than that. this method is far superior to the hammer method because there are no flying parts in this process that can damage your eyes and the coin is much safer.
Will try that trick Chris, I use the twist trick, but now use a scroll saw and cut around the high edge.