How low does the serial number on a slab have to be before the holder becomes more collectible than the coin housed within it? I suppose it would depend somewhat on how valuable the coin was. Noticed this evening that I have one of the first coins that NGC ever graded. Or, perhaps simply one of the earlier submission forms used several years later that still generated such a low slab serial number? I'm thinking it's actually one of the very first coins graded. Has the look of an MS67 regardless of the MS64 label!
That's the twenty second coin of that submission . There's 360 at 64, 77 at 65 and 5 at 66 . https://www.ngccoin.com/census/world/russia-imperial-1801-1918/sc-267/5r/
And that slab style didn't begin until around 1992. NGC had been slabbing coins for 5 years by that point. Someone just used an old submission form. The first part of the serial number is the submission form number. Another possibility is that it WAS an early submission and was then later reholdered.
It's not been the cert# but the holder/label combination. e.g. the regency slab is rare period, so the cert# is irrelevant. Same for the doily. The only ones I know that have some (small) value are the 107xxxxx PCGS 1st generation slabs and again that's because they are the white label very 1st rattlers. So it's the label not the cert# - the cert# just proves it's really white even if it's faded. Now there might be an other lunatic out there collecting ANACS SWH by the cert#, i.e. one from each 1K batch (7xxx, 22xxx, etc.) but I doubt it. And I won't pay extra for the cert# I need. Part of the problem is you can't prove when it was slabbed by the NGC cert#. They used printed forms and printed them in batches by type. So 004xxx was likely one of the first batches of world coins certified. But who knows?
I'm a variety collector and I could see in the future, not necessarily this coin . Someone collecting the series, with this kind of slab ..
I just posted one on the PCGS board that was in a newer slab, serial number 22033-016. The thing is, the earliest black slabs had a number starting with 121xxx. The slab I was looking at was newer than the one above, too. Barcode matches, coin is genuine, cert lookup fails.
It's quite possible! Here is an interesting coin update article exploring the topic of fancy certification numbers: http://news.coinupdate.com/buy-the-coin-not-the-holder-what-about-the-cert/
Ya and there's a thread on PCGS right now where a guy put his birthday in the PCGS cert verification and it came back as a Morgan. Now everyone's trying it and the guy wants to try to find that Morgan and will pay up for it.
What do the holders before that look like? I was thinking this was one of the very old ones, -no line below the label and thicker slab than newer versions. Any chance you have a photo of what you are describing? Does it have a different font?
Yes that is a "no line fattie" but there were either four or five generations of holder before that one came out. This is from memory, designation numbrs are those used in the book NGC 1 First generation was the black insert and gold NGC logo printed on the black insert. Sept 1987 NGC 2.1 Second had white insert, plain white label, and NGC logo printed ON the white insert. late Sept or early Oct 1987 (This and the next were both during roughly a two week period until the NGC 3 labels were printed. It is out of order because it was discovered after the book was published.) NGC 2 Third has white insert, plain white label, and NGC logo is printed on the OUTSIDE of the slab. Late Sept or early Oct 1987 NGC 3 (Should have been two varieties, but I literally can't see the difference between them so listed them as one variety in the book.) Fourth has a border around the edge of the label, and scales logo on label. This border was first in green and later in brown. Oct 1987 - late 1989 NGC 4 Fifth has the brown bordered label and a hologram on the back across it's full width instead of the printed logo. Late 1989 - 1992 NGC 5 Sixth Barcode added to the front label. 1992 - 1997 This is your slab, the last of the "no line fatties" NGC 6 insert is now keyed so a raised part of the outer shell fits into a groove in the insert. Edges of the slab are now beveled making it appear thinner. Part of 1997 only. NGC 7 Hologram size reduced to half width. 1997 - Aug 2000 (Originally I thought they also used this form Oct 2000 - Aug 2001 but I was wrong, the hologram size was slightly different on the later ones. NGC 8 serial number is now in tiny font below the barcode Sept 2000 only. For descriptions of some of the later ones see (The images are no longer available. When they upgraded their forums software it broke all the links.) https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/220185/pictures-of-the-ngc-generation-slabs-long
