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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;beef1020, post: 2446364, member: 24544&quot;]I will add in my two cents on the slabbing of ancient coins and it&#039;s &#039;inevitability&#039;, but from the perspective of my previous collecting interest in US large cents.&nbsp; US large cents is one of (the only?) areas of US numismatics where slabbing does not dominate the market.&nbsp; You can still go to large coins shows and see a number of the copper dealers offering all their coins unslabbed, in all price ranges and grades from $50 to &gt;$50,000.&nbsp; Further, the norm for serious collectors of these coins is to crack them out.&nbsp; Now, I understand there are a couple large copper dealers who slab most of their stock, and certainly all the coins in a major collection get slabbed for auction, but that is marketing only.&nbsp; As an aside, I have heard stories of Dan Holmes walking around with his 1795 reeded edge large cent in his pocket, a coin that sold for $1,200,000 in 2009, and handing it out at EAC conventions for other collectors to examine.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is possible in large part because there is a very dedicated group of people collecting these coins and passing on the traditions and culture of collecting them.&nbsp; They have their own grading system and they keep their own conditional census.&nbsp; Basically, large cents has an amateur community of experts who maintain grading standards and census reports,&nbsp; they don&#039;t need TPGs to do that for them.&nbsp; If we want to keep ancient coins unslabbed, it will require something similar, an organized effort to maintain grading standards and culture.&nbsp; An effort to maintain amateur numismatic collecting and study, not just investing in coins. </p><p><br /></p><p>Lastly, I believe both early American copper and ancients have a distinct advantage in pushing back on slabbing, they are generally very unique coins and are not fungible items even when in the same &#039;grade&#039;.&nbsp; One huge benefit to slabbing coins like Morgan dollars is you can buy a sight unseen MS64 and generally know the quality of the coin you will receive.&nbsp; This is a huge benefit to dealers who are trading inventory and have commoditized the market, but ancient coins are not fungible like that.&nbsp; They are generally unique, hand made objects with huge variation.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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