Ancients get "Wings" Stickers...

Well, it was bound to happen. With U.S. coin slabs getting CAC stickers, now a company known as "Wings" will be doing it to Ancient slabs...

I have known about the "Wings" sticker for awhile, it's exactly like CAC, but for world coins.

But them doing Ancients now, that's new to me.

http://www.coinweek.com/dealers-com...s-coins-rolls-out-updated-site-facebook-page/

What's even more amusing is they will review ancients even in ICG slabs, which I have had several, and they're a joke. NGC ancients I can have some, little respect towards, but not ICG graded ancients.

 

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That's a tall order for ancients which are all unique from one another. Something tells me it will essentially boil down to eye appeal. If this ancient looks really good and we like the grade, we give it a sticker. Nothing more technical than that.

If it's anything like CAC, expect a $20 AE of Constantine to be $60 with the slab (to cover costs plus shipping, plus premium for being encased in plastic) and an additional $40 with the WINGS® sticker = $20 for fees and shipping, plys $20 for premium because of the sticker...so it's now a $100 AE of Constantine.

I'm sure Heritage Auctions will love it because they can squeeze an extra $40 profit because of the "added premium pricing" for the sticker and the slabs on what was before a $20 coin.

Soon we shall be seeing pricing books directing us to pay $40 more every time we see the silver sticker, and $80 more every time we see the gold sticker on that Constantine AE, kind of what like CAC is doing now with U.S. coins. The sad thing is most US collectors have been trained so well by the TPG's, they don't even question it. They just open their wallets wider and obey! It's gotten to the point that many now believe a raw US coin is pure trash, and if it doesn't have the green CAC sticker it is nearly junk...no matter how good the coin itself looks. Like I said, they've been trained very well.

If you feel like paying extra for plastic and stickers, go ahead. But know this is needless and the only people who will benefit in the end are the TPG's, stickering services, and auction houses. Very little will come to the end consumer, except a 100%-400% increase in prices over the next 5 years (if these people get their ways with ancients like they did with U.S. coins).

 

And that's one of my bigger fears, more ancients in plastic along with greater price increases.

And seeing Barry Murphy goto NGC is another step to more prevalent tombed ancients.

 

Sorry Guys, I cannot "Like" either of your posts. Not that you are absolutely correct; it is that I am revolted by the subject matter. Great comments. Thanks.

 

Ditto

 

Are we sure this not one of @TIF s concoctions?

 

Once they train us ancients folks like they did US folks, they'll make a killing off of us.

Let's do the math: Regular ancients cost $25 to submit to NGC, and if they deem your ancient coin to have a value of $300 or more (even if it doesn't really have that value raw and from where you get your coins), it is $45 to grade.

* I currently have 34 silver ancients in my collection
*7 of them are either above $300 easily, or close enough that NGC will say they are $300

So that's 27 coins at $25 and 7 coins at $45: That's $990 I have to pay NGC to grade 34 coins.

For that kind of money I could buy 5 or 6 more Roman Republic denarii. Instead now I have to sink that money into plastic slabs because my coins are now "junk" without the slab. By the same token, if you were to buy them slabbed already, that's more that $1000 you paid for plastic, not to mention the "premiums" on slabbed coins the dealer will charge you on top of that...which will probably mean I would have had to pay $1,500 more for the same 34 coins than I did.

________________________________________________________________

Now let's add the sticker price on top of that math. Wings charges me $12.50 per coin to look at them and decide if any of them should get a sticker, so that's an additional $425 expense.

So now my 34 coin collection will cost me $1,415 extra to make them market acceptable...not to mention the added premium I would have had to pay if I was already buying it slabbed and stickered from a dealer to begin with. If I were to estimate that, the amount would be so large I could have bought a Julius Caesar portrait denarius for that kind of money.

And that's just me with 34 coins. Some of you who own 500+ coins would go broke sending them in to get graded, or having to buy them with the premium of the plastic and sticker in the first place. There is no way you would have the collection you have today.

 

It would be over 30 grand for me. I don't see it as being feasible in the long run, there are too many ancients out there with new ones being found all the time. Most of us on this forum should and will be able to obtain unslabbed ancients probably for the rest of our lives.

 

IMHO, you are a little behind the times...AFAIK, ICG has not graded ancients for about a decade. They only do tokens, medals, US coins and foreign coins after 1600 (plus a few exceptions in the 1500's).

 

Isn't that what it is all about? I'll bet you would be qualified to have a sticker printed and accept ancients for review too! There is no guarantee of authenticity so your company would have no liability. You would not even need to check the attribution so even an ignorant dunce such as myself could do the same thing...Hummm

 

Thats insane..but not surprising.

I actually would consider having some of my U.S. and World coins slabbed, some are very nice. But just the cost of grading them, not counting the shipping cost to/from, which you forgot to factor in, outweighs the cost of many of my coins actual "value".

And as pointed out, would rather buy more coins/books then shipping/grading fees on top of fees.

Maybe so, but I still see ICG graded ancients pop up on ebay every so often. And Wings did mention ICG graded ancients, so I just assumed they still graded due to the above.

 

Pretty sure some collectors would go for it. But I still think the majority of ancient collectors wouldn't be interested in a sticker. Heck they don't even want their coins entombed why would they care about a sticker?

I think the only customer base they will have are the people that see coins as money/valuables that they can profit on. And most likely the millionaires that could are less about paying a small premium for a coin.

 

Who are the experts at Wings? If it is just some bozo with no experience in ancients then why would anyone pay for that? Don't get me wrong, the whole practice is a bit ridiculous but if they don't have a big name to go behind that sticker it is worthless IMO.

 

You can say that again!

 

Yet another money grab. Unfortunately some people will fall for this.

 

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All true.

 

I told you that you were qualified. I recommend you come up with a better name for your service.

 

. For those who weren't around that long ago, here's what Pish is referring to:

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/an...mates-vs-prices-realized.244196/#post-1884558

​

And a somewhat fuller version on my website (customer reviews)

Sadly, the business idea has not yet made me rich

 

Maybe if CACA and SCAM joined forces, we could make billions. Everyone knows that the more letters on the sticker, the more official it sounds.

CACA SCAM or SCAM CACA sounds more legit than just your plain average CACA