So I put together some full Danzig and Whitman albums. Nice coins in a few of them, EFs and better. Took awhile. I look at completed albums on Ebay and note hardly any sellers write of the coin conditions. Nonsense like, 'lovely album, rare coins, some very nice, shiny.' But I recognize, it is in an album. You would have to pull out all of the coins in those 'press and fit' albums to grade them, then it would be you as the seller saying I think it is an MS 64, and the buyer would say it was an XF 43 and mail it back to you with an XF43 in it and demand a refund. LoL So I see the best solution is to 3rd party slab them. Problem I see is no one I know of makes books comparable to Whitman or Danzig albums but for slabbed coins. Does such a slab arrangement exist? Would the market be receptive of a whole Whitman/Danzig albums worth of slabbed coins with high grades? Would not the presence of the slabs take some of the fun out of collecting them or is that offset by the joy of actually having an MS 1916d Mercury or a slabbed 1932s quarter certified as both genuine and XF or mint state? No, I don't want to part them out, but this was inspired by my best 41/42 Mercury being a slabbed coin which doesn't fit into the album I bought it for, but I would much rather slab them all than break it out of the slab, which is currently duct taped to the back of the album.
I'm not really sure what your question actually is. Do they make organizers for slabbed coins ? Sure they do, they range from slab boxes, which is what most people use to keep slabs in and organized; to pocket sheets that can hold anywhere from 6 to a dozen or so slabs and then the sheets fit in a 3 ring binder. Or are you asking about how to go about selling an album full of coins as 1 single sale ? If so, yeah people do that all the time. But it really depends on what you are trying to do - get as much as you can for the coins, or sell them the easiest and fastest way you can. Selling an entire collection, or even an album full of coins, can be a great deal of work and take a long time if you try sell them one by one. And unless you have a known presence or reputation as a seller, you may have a difficult time doing it or getting top dollar. But there are always plenty of good dealers out there who will offer you fair price for your coins and take them all at the same time. And by the time you figure in fees and shipping and everything else, selling the entire collection to a dealer will often end up giving you close to the same amount of money as if you had sold the coins one by one. So selling to a dealer is usually what I recommend that most people do. As for getting the coins slabbed and then selling them, very rarely is that ever a good idea. And for a couple of reasons. First of all the costs. Getting each coin slabbed is going to cost you about $30 per coin, or more. Do the math, getting a 100 coins slabbed is $3,000, plus shipping and insurance. And when it comes to the average collector which is what most people are, about half the coins or more in their collection won't even get slabbed because they are problem coins of one kind or another and the owners don't even realize it. And probably most of the rest aren't worth getting slabbed to begin with, they just aren't worth the expense. A coin usually has to be worth $200 or more to make it worthwhile - and most aren't.
Like Doug said: do the math. You never mentioned what series you referred to. Lincoln cents from 1950 to date surely wouldn't be worth it.
That is a very good point. Absolutely, Lincolns and Jeffersons, or even Buffaloes or State quarters wouldn't be worth it. Not for about 120 years anyway. No, I was thinking of Mercury Dimes, Morgan Dollars, Liberty Dollars, Liberty dimes, etc. Full agreement that slabbing a bunch of AG, G or Fair or even VF coins would be throwing away money. Although I must point out that as recently as today while perusing classic coins I noticed a bunch of slabbed AG coins, so someone found it worthwhile. An explanation would be that over the last decade I acquired some complete or very close to complete Whitman and Danzig type books. From 3 to 10 each of the coins mentioned above. As always when acquiring such many coins were AG - VF. All of the albums usually have/had at least one or two (sometimes way more) XF or higher coins. What was interesting to me when I noticed it was different coins in different albums were the ones that were XF or better. <Just about everyone had uncirculated 60 to 64 quarters. > So, one day out of boredom I began re-arranging. Why not? So I would take the XF or BUs out of all the albums and put them all into just one album and took the worn coins and put them in albums with other worn coins. When I was done I was down to a bunch of average albums with AG - VF coins and one album of each type with mostly very nice mint like beautiful coins. A few blank spaces maybe, but mostly all XF40 or nicer (personally I don't like to claim a coin is above 40 and leave that to folks with some kind of credentials (unless it is still in the proof wrapper of course). Then I started throwing money at the folder in question. Filling the blank spaces and replacing the few worn ones left with the best ones I could. Yes, some AGs and Fairs were replaced with much higher grade slabbed coins stored with the album (and I concede this is giving me an aesthetic problem). The end result is I have made a bunch of album collections that are both complete and which also contain some durn fine coins. No, they are not for sale. Probably not in this decade anyway. Maybe not at all while I am alive. Personal economics will determine that. As stated, albums of average coins abound. 60 - 70% AG3 and a few VFs and maybe (but not always) 2 or 3 BUs. I have both inherited and purchased such dogs. Full agreement entirely slabbing one of those would be a waste of money. Also full agreement that such critters trade cheaply on the Ebay (often for well less than the book value of the coins were they sold individually (although yesterday to my amazement I did see one go on the Ebay for almost 3 times what it should have gotten if they were all XF at Redbook prices (but none of the pictures looked better than F12 or VF20 to me)), simply because exam of the coins in entirety is hampered by the buyer not having assurance of the grade of the coins and not being present to look). Also recognition that parting a complete album out for resale would both be time consuming and destructive to the album itself as it would no longer be a complete album collection. Yes, getting coins slabbed isn't cheap. To the costs per coin must also be added the costs of 'joining' (perhaps more accurately described as being akin purchasing a gate pass to a fair or an event) the TPG company offering the grading service. That is several hundred dollars by itself. So regardless of graysheet, blue or redbook alleged value a seller must include not only their purchase price, not only any costs related to decades of storage, but also the costs of slabbing to include a pro rating of the fee to 'join' the TPG service. If a coin wasn't purchased fairly cheaply (thankfully many of mine were inherited) or held for decades, the new required sale price would be unobtainable for a very long time. The suggestion of either selling to, or contracting with an established dealer to sell the coins on consignment is an interesting one I hadn't considered. I have sold on Ebay several times, from vehicles to coins and stuff in between. Full recognition and experience that if one has to keep re-listing, that venue can get expensive and soon climb into low double digits (presumably one kills the listing before letting the cost of the listing climb much higher). Shipping isn't that bad there. You just post the shipping costs up front. If they like it, they don't bid. Not really the seller's worry because almost always someone, sooner or later, always bids. One must presume a dealer will probably offer a graysheet or blue book price. If he offers Redbook, then he has no profit. Then if he sells for you on a commission basis, one must compare that cost to the fee costs we would see if selling on Ebay. Still, it is an interesting idea and if I just needed to get rid of a collection in the fastest possible way, I might choose that venue. [I still haven't figured out how any Ebay seller can afford to offer free shipping, unless the intent is to claim a tax deduction for business operating costs at the end of the year or use profits from some other venue to cover that cost.] I like Ebay though. Recognition of the vendor means something, but to many not as much on Ebay as price or attractiveness or time auction ends does. I have bought many, many items from Ebay names I have never heard of or seen again. From coins and toys to engine parts. So far my worse purchase has left me merely satisfied, but none have made me unhappy. Often I am very happy with something I bought from someone I never heard of before seeing the item for sale. Have I purchased from known names on Ebay too? Sure. Ampex comes to mind for coins. Would I ever limit my purchase options by deciding to only purchase from names I recognize. Nope. Life isn't about always being safe. Full agreement however, that if I rented a booth at a coin show (which probably ain't cheap) because no one knows me, no, I probably wouldn't get top price. <I see that a lot at gun shows where some guy no one knows who rents a booth gets hammered down on his prices, meanwhile over at the local big boy's table, folks often just fork over the requested price with no negotiation tried. Ebay isn't like that and the unknowns have just as good a chance when selling there.> Yes, I have seen the slab boxes. I guess maybe if I go the all slabbed route I could stick them all in one of those boxes and sell them with the then empty Whitman folder just so the buyer can match them up. Better would be if Whitman or Danzig offered slab boxes designed to match their folders. Actually thinking about it, I am thinking maybe the real problem with selling such an item would be that very few of the novice collectors would be able to even consider such a pricey item. Just the Mercury Whitman item with all mint state coins currently mostly un-slabbed and slabbed 1916ds and 41/42 would be way out of the reach of many as is. I won't even speculate what the cost of it would be if they were all slabbed, or a different album full of all slabbed EF-MS coins including the Carson Cities would bring. LoL
