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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DonnaML, post: 4502163, member: 110350&quot;]This reminds me of the people I remember reading about who collect unopened boxes of old baseball cards, without ever knowing what they contain.&nbsp; Apparently, if the boxes are ever opened, it destroys their market value!</p><p><br /></p><p>To me, from an aesthetic viewpoint (wholly apart from the investment motives), slabbing coins is almost as pernicious.&nbsp; Once a coin is slabbed, in my opinion, it&#039;s no longer an actual coin.&nbsp; It&#039;s become a commodity. Like pork belly futures. Frankly, there might as well be a hologram inside the slab instead of a coin.&nbsp; Because all you&#039;re really seeing when you look at a slab is the image of a coin, mediated through plastic -- not terribly well, I think -- rather than the coin itself, which was intended to be seen directly, and to be experienced through the sense of touch as well as sight. </p><p><br /></p><p>I expect that one of these days people will be slabbing rare first editions of books, making them impossible to read.&nbsp; (I&#039;ve already seen that done with old magazines.)&nbsp; Or valuable paintings -- should all the Vermeers and Van Goghs and Rembrandts be graded by TPG&#039;s and encased in plastic slabs?&nbsp; Anyone who&#039;s ever been in a museum knows the vast difference between the experience of seeing a painting with and without glass in the frame -- the latter is incomparably superior, given that it allows the viewer to see the texture of the paint in all its three-dimensionality, an effect that&#039;s nearly destroyed when it&#039;s behind glass.&nbsp; Plastic is far worse than glass in detracting from the viewer&#039;s experience.&nbsp; Never mind that slabbing makes it physically impossible to display coins together in an appealing manner, as I have tried to do with my collection in its trays, as shown in some of the photos I&#039;ve posted here.</p><p><br /></p><p>Rant over -- I just get tired of the obnoxiousness of those who look down on ancient coin collectors who refuse to slab their coins.&nbsp; Even if I do understand the reasons why some do it.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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