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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Vess1, post: 730513, member: 13650&quot;]I don&#039;t recognize the limitations.&nbsp; First and foremost, they guarantee authenticity.&nbsp; That&#039;s the #1 issue anymore.&nbsp; Even serious collectors won&#039;t be an expert in every series.&nbsp; But if they want to drift in a different direction and purchase something else, you can do so with reasonable confidence buying a slabbed example.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; I have no faith in any loose Morgans on ebay anymore.&nbsp; None at all.&nbsp; I&#039;ve never gotten burned but the unmarked replicas are getting good enough to the point where some of them are nearly indistinguishable from real.&nbsp; If all of them were &#039;obviously&#039; fake, then fine.&nbsp; I&#039;d say no big deal.&nbsp; But that is not the case anymore for a lot of different series&#039;.&nbsp; Not just Morgans.&nbsp; And there are *multitudes of people buying from the Chinese and intentionally* trying to rip people off with those replicas.&nbsp;&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; Also, the TPG&#039;s opinion does matter on grade, because they see no monetary gain from the sale.&nbsp; It is a purely, uninterested, 3rd party&#039;s opinion from not just one grader, but two graders have to agree!&nbsp; And if they don&#039;t, there&#039;s a third grader for the tie break.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; Instead of having greedy dealers grading everything two grades higher than they should be (there&#039;s one at every show), fortunately we can fall back on slabs where they get it right the vast majority of the time.&nbsp; The argument is settled before it begins.&nbsp;&nbsp; I&#039;ll never understand why anybody could be against that. </p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; That&#039;s not to say one should assume all MS-64s or 65s or 62s are created equal.&nbsp; 10 different ones within the same grade could be put in order from nicest to worst and justify varying price ranges.&nbsp;&nbsp; Some who don&#039;t care about that, will pay the same price across all 10.&nbsp;&nbsp; There is something to knowing a series.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; Anyway, the slabs also provide excellent protection and storage.&nbsp;&nbsp; Photographing loose coins IS much better and easier.&nbsp; But shooting through the plastic is no big deal.&nbsp; You can still get fine pics.&nbsp;&nbsp; My avatar is in an NGC slab.&nbsp;&nbsp; Most of the time, you can&#039;t even tell.&nbsp;&nbsp; If they get scratched up, the slab can be polished.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; The serial numbers also allow for looking them up on line for verifying authentication.&nbsp;&nbsp; The problem is, not enough people use them and I&#039;d bet over half the people on this board could be fooled by a fake NGC slab.&nbsp;&nbsp; Although if you&#039;ve seen enough of them, the differences should be very obvious.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; So there are still pitfalls for newbies buying slabs with wreckless abandon.&nbsp; It still can be risky but is the safest bet.&nbsp; Safer than trusting someone who may not know anything themselves.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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