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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Jaelus, post: 3497269, member: 46237&quot;]I&#039;m talking about the grades of the coins <i>to the collector,</i> not what&#039;s on a label.</p><p><br /></p><p>All the coins in my main sets do eventually get slabbed. I buy the lion share of my coins raw though. For those I buy slabbed, I don&#039;t always agree with the grade, and frequently I will cross or resubmit a coin fully expecting a <i>downgrade</i>. If it&#039;s a coin I feel will be in my collection long term and I have no plans to sell it, I would rather the grade on the slab be one I agree with. All purchases I evaluate according to my upgrade rules, however, since the probable grade it will get when slabbed is important to me.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Finding the right coin the first time around is always the best way to do it, but it&#039;s frequently not possible. For some of the coins in my sets, I have MS60/61s that don&#039;t have great eye appeal, but it may have been the only example I saw for sale in a decade, or it may have been an absolute bargain that I jumped at.</p><p><br /></p><p>I also find most of the time I upgrade a coin, I can recover what I paid for the upgraded coin when I go to sell it. In some cases, I wind up selling the upgraded coin for more than I paid to upgrade it. I&#039;d have to look through my records to prove this, but while I don&#039;t make money on every upgrade, I would be extremely surprised if I wasn&#039;t in the black overall on upgrades.</p><p><br /></p><p>Aside from upgrades being generally cash positive, the other reason why I pursue them is that I fill perhaps one or two holes at best in my main set each year at this point. Upgrades keep the excitement up of working on the set. There&#039;s nothing like the feeling of finally finding that special upgrade that you know you&#039;re never going to top though.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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