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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 2253498, member: 19463&quot;]I&#039;m sorry if we scared off people but I have trouble letting pass the attitude that a coin is worth something in a slab and raw coins are dangerous junk.&nbsp; The dangerous practice is buying coins from the wrong sort of sellers. Except for a few fake slabs (they exist) containing fake coins, it would seem that buying a slab is the way to go for safety BUT only if you only buy a brand slab that is accompanied by an opinion worth having.&nbsp; I have seen no value in ancient slabs other than NGC and a couple of them left me wanting.&nbsp; There are, however, other ways of safe collecting.&nbsp; You could buy a coin with a David Sear certificate.&nbsp; You get an opinion worth having and a a photo of the coin but no plastic coffin.&nbsp; You also could buy coins from a trustworthy, full price dealer.&nbsp; I&#039;d rather have a raw coin purchased from Harlan Berk, CNG, Barry Murphy or a host of others (not some auction houses in Europe that have been ruining their once top reputations!!!!).&nbsp; Slabs enable dealers who know nothing to deal in ancients.&nbsp; I prefer to buy a coin from a dealer who knows coins and offers a lifetime guarantee of authenticity so you do not need a slab.&nbsp; I do not know what percentage of NGC coins David Vagi actually touches or who he has hired to do the grunt work of slabbing big lots of discount hoard batches.&nbsp; I do not care because I do not want a holder that is sealed so I will not be asking his opinion no matter how much I respect his credentials.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>You can buy coins in slabs as you wish.&nbsp; I hope you will post photos here an even teach me how to take good photos of slabbed coins (I have not seen many).&nbsp; I hope you do not plan of trying to sell your coins (to me) expecting compensation for the surcharge you paid for the plastic.&nbsp; I have several hundred dollars worth of coin cases, boxes, envelopes, flips, books and whatever that will not be repaid to me on coins I sell.&nbsp; As long as the slab fad holds you may be able to cover what you paid for the holders.&nbsp; If it passes???</p><p><br /></p><p>Buying a fake hurts.&nbsp; Sometimes it is educational.&nbsp; I went to college and paid a lot of money for the experience.&nbsp; I have made a lot of mistakes over the last 50 years in the hobby.&nbsp; I may have spent as much on my numismatic education (books, travel, mistakes and time) so perhaps the slab cost is justified if you desire to collect but not to learn.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Does anyone have any idea how much a high end expert would charge to look at 3000 coins and flag the fakes?&nbsp; At current rates, slabs would cost over $100k.&nbsp; I can afford a few fakes.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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