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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 2852079, member: 112&quot;]My advice is and always has been collect coins because you like them - for no other reason.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>A lifetime of experience, literally hundreds of articles written on the subject over the years, 20+ years of reading reports on the coin forums from collectors who sold their collections, selling my own collections twice, and helping numerous other collectors sell their collections.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Easy answer, the amount you can sell it for to a knowledgeable person.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>No, it isn&#039;t. The value of a coin is what a knowledgeable person will pay for it, not what any person will pay for it.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>A lot of people do think that, but it&#039;s not true. What is true is that a raw coin may only be worth $X to one person and $XXX to another. So why is that, what is the defining factor ? Knowledge. </p><p><br /></p><p>You can pick any raw coin, it doesn&#039;t matter what it is but for the sake of argument lets say it&#039;s a coin of some scarcity and value, and show it to two different people - one an average collector who would really like to have that coin, and the other a very knowledgeable collector or dealer who has complete confidence in his own grading and authentication abilities. </p><p><br /></p><p>Now the average collector, even the average dealer for that matter, doesn&#039;t have complete confidence in his own grading and authentication abilities, so he won&#039;t offer fair value for the coin, no where near it. He&#039;ll offer some ridiculously low number. Why ? Because of his uncertainty, because he has no confidence in his own abilities.</p><p><br /></p><p>But a truly knowledgeable collector or dealer, he will look at that raw coin and make you a fair offer for it, and he will buy it with confidence knowing full well that he is paying a fair price. And then he&#039;ll probably have the coin graded and slabbed because he knows that will greatly increase the ease with which he can sell it if he wants to. It won&#039;t increase the value even 10 cents, but it will greatly increase the ease with which he can sell it - because people who do not have the knowledge he has, and no confidence because of it, will have confidence in the slab.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now let&#039;s look at it a different way. Let&#039;s say we have a coin that is graded and slabbed, and it routinely sells for $5000. Any day of the week you can get $5000 for that coin from any dealer you want. So that coin is worth $5000 - no doubt of it. But now you take that coin and you take it out of the slab, it&#039;s now raw. </p><p><br /></p><p>Do you really believe that coin is not worth $5000 anymore - just because it&#039;s not in a slab ? Did half or more of its value just evaporate as soon as it came out of that plastic ? No, it did not. The coin was worth $5000 before it went in the plastic, and it was still worth $5000 when it came out of the plastic. </p><p><br /></p><p>And TypeCoin, all those coins you used as examples, they were and are worth the same amount in or out of the plastic. And in your own mind, you actually believe that - otherwise why would have paid to have them put in the plastic ? You knew what they were worth, that&#039;s why you bought them, why you sent them in to be graded and slabbed. That&#039;s why anybody sends them in ! </p><p><br /></p><p>So don&#039;t you see what you&#039;re doing when you make claims like those you made ? You&#039;re arguing against yourself, what you know in your own mind, what you yourself believe. The coins are worth whatever they are worth, and it doesn&#039;t matter if they are in plastic or not. The plastic is nothing but artificial confidence that people use to replace the lack of their own. Plastic adds no value.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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