At what price level is a coin worth being graded?

I've been collecting world coins for a few years with my son's but usually no coin with a book value over $20-$30. I recently picked up a few with a book value around $80-$100. Are these worth sending off to be graded? Just wondering where the threshold level is. Also, what's a good price guide for graded and slabbed world coins? Thanks in advance!

 

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Good question. But get ready to receive different answers.
You could have a world coin with a book value over $80 but depending on it's condition it could be worth less.

 

First, welcome to the neighborhood!

Like paddy said, you're liable to get a lot of different answers. Some seasoned collectors will tell you that they won't submit any coin that is worth less than $200 because the cost of grading is too high to make it worthwhile. Suppose that the grading with shipping and insurance will cost $30. If the coin is only worth $100, you've lost about 30% of its value in grading fees.

Chris

 

I personally say it also depend on what country it's from and how collectible that country's coinage is.

 

Almost no coin is worth getting graded unless you have been collecting and self-grading for many years and are comfortable with knowing the market. If you like a slabbed coin, for newcomers, it can be much cheaper to buy already slabbed coins.

Exceptions may be if you have a huge rarity and any grade it is in is worth it or you have a rare one and/or one that possibly might not be real and it is worth it to be verified as genuine and grade-able.

Some other exceptions do exist, but you have to know the coin and whether the upside is greater than your outlay, including shipping and insurance, and you are willing to accept a poorer outcome than you hoped for.

 

It is also very much a matter of taste. Personally I hate slabbed coins - for me that takes away all the joy of the history of the coin as it turns it into a plastic commodity, but I do acknowledge that others have a very different view.
Country also makes a big difference - in the US grading coins is big, but in much of the rest of the world it is rarely done. In the UK there have been a number of attempts to get grading going, but most have collapsed due to lack of interest.
It also depends a lot on your long term intention. If coin collecting is primarily about investment then grading makes sense as you protect and authenticate your investment. If it is more about the history and artistic merit of the coins, then it is less important.
Finally value of the coin makes a big difference - there seems little point in spending more on grading than the coin is worth. In fact you might take the view that it is only worth grading if the fact that it is graded increases its value by at least what the grading cost - which takes us back to country as grading a UK coin rarely adds value and can reduce it!
Just my thoughts - no flaming please!

 

The answer varies widely based on your collecting goals, and financial decisions. There are the aesthetic and storage questions mentioned above - some people really like slabs, and some people don't. That may factor into your decision.

However, let's look at it just from a cost perspective:

Submitting a coin costs about $25 - $30 each. So, if you're talking about a $100 coin, lets say you got a really good deal and bought it for $80. You put another $30 in, and now it cost you $110. You're may be able to sell it for $95.... which means you lost money on the deal.

I have plenty of certified world coins worth less than $100, but I sure didn't submit them, and I'm betting someone lost some money on them!

The fees become more palatable at a higher value. If you're talking about a $300 coin, it starts to make more sense. For me, somewhere in the $200 - $300 range is where I start to think about submitting. The exceptions here would be if the coin is hard to authenticate, or highly counterfeited, submitting will make the coin more liquid. That is, much easier to sell for a better price.

The short answer is: there is no solid answer. It's a decision you have to make for yourself.

 

I use 10% as a guide.
If it costs less than 10% of my estimated minimum catalog value then I consider it a candidate for submission.
DO NOT FORGET S&H; THAT CAN BE A CONSIDERABLE EXPENSE.
Multiple submissions at the same time AND ON THE SAME FORM reduces the per coin S&H cost.

This guideline works out to be about $200 as my estimated minimum catalog value for submitting to a TPG (NGC or PCGS only).
I'll drop that to $150 for special cases.

 

Thanks for the information. My goal is to put together a nice collection of different world coins to leave my sons who would then hopefully add to it and it leave it to their children etc... I'm not into it to buy and sell and try to make a profit. I just want a collection of nice coins with good value that won't take up a ton of space. That's why I've started going for quality over quantity.

 

Personally I would only slab a coin which is a key or semi-key where known counterfeits exist. Then I'm paying more for authentication than grading. Any person can roughly grade American coins with a copy of Photo Grade. Foreign coins are tougher in determining the amount of wear. UK commonwealth coins you can count the jewels on the crown to get a rough grade. Other countries you just look at the high points in the design. Ancients are rougher to get an accurate grade. Tough grading dealers will call something a solid VF and then it comes back from the grader as MS. Did the coin get better? No but the price surely went up.

 

As a general rule, if the coin is worth less than $50 it's probably not worth slabbing from a financial perspective, however, it depends on your goals. If you're looking at it from a financial perspective, then the implication is that you're planning on selling the coins. If you're buying coins for resale, then yes, it absolutely would not make sense to spend more on grading than the value added by slabbing the coin. If you're not planning on selling the coins, then it doesn't matter as much.

I would caution when you say "book value" that the world catalogs are not terribly accurate in terms of pricing when you get up into high MS grades. They try to be a jack of all trades, but you really need to get into pricing specialization to be able to gauge value. Many common coins with prices listed in Krause below $20 for MS60 command strong prices in MS65 and above due to the condition rarity. So it might not be worth slabbing an MS63 example of a common coin, but an MS66 might very well be worth it.

 

Personally I need to make $30 or more AFTER eBay fees and shipping to make it worthwhile.

 

That needs to be a featured article on the home page!

 

Indeed, @ToughCOINS , I'd love to see this fleshed out a little bit more. Post it as a thread in the Coin Chat forum where it will have higher visibility. This is good advice that everyone should hear.

 

From what you have stated and your intentions(cost, space, etc), I don't think that you should slab any of your coins until you and your son have evolved enough to accurately grade what you have and be able to ascertain how much a coin is actually "worth". You can not take any "book" value of a coin to correctly find out its actual worth. You can't sell a coin to a book .. you need someone with a wallet. If you have a coin with a book or guide value of $100, you would be lucky to have a dealer buy it from you for $40 and you might be able to sell it for 5$50-70 to another person. With paying $30 to a TPG and paying shipping both ways, you have probably spent more what the coin will ever be worth (the ability to actually sell it).

Enjoy coin collecting for what it is ... a hobby for you to enjoy. Once you start buying slabs or putting your own coins in the, you lose the real feel of coin collecting and all you will have is boxes full of plastic with cardboard stickers. Take the money that you would spend to have 2 coins TPG'd and spend it on a couple good reference books that will teach you to grade your own stuff. It will make you both a more knowledgeable buyer and seller.

 

Thank you for the advice. Can you recommend any resources on grading my own stuff? It seems complicated for world coins.

 

go to coin shows and coin shops and examine their slabbed foreign coins. Try to see why the assigned grade matches the coin. The more you see the more you will know. Begin covering the grade on the slab and don't look at it until you have decided what grade you think it is. Gradually your predictions will match what it shown on the slabs. be patient and enjoy the process. As you find coins that you like and can affords that are already slabbed buy them.

 

Awesome, thank you!