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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;brg5658, post: 1284736, member: 29751&quot;]Hi Doug, thanks for your comments.&nbsp; My replies are below:</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>As for your argument about &quot;educated&quot; collector prices, your simplistic&nbsp; &quot;wisdom&quot; does not jibe with the reality of the market.&nbsp; For example,&nbsp; are you suggesting that there is no market premium for a 1934-35&nbsp; Melbourne Centennial Australia Florin in a PCGS MS65 holder than for a&nbsp; raw equivalent coin?&nbsp; If you say yes, then you are simply wrong.&nbsp; There are&nbsp; plenty of &quot;educated&quot; and experienced collectors who would pay a premium&nbsp; for the PCGS coin, unless they are able to view both coins in person.&nbsp;&nbsp; <u>Which is the factor that all of this hinges on -- availability of world&nbsp; coins for <b>in person</b> purchase.</u>&nbsp; There just aren&#039;t many sellers, and as such, the&nbsp; added security of having a coin graded by a TPG is worth a premium.&nbsp;&nbsp; The reality&nbsp; is that the supply of world coins is sparse in the US, dealers are few&nbsp; and far between, and if I&#039;m going to spend money on them I prefer to get&nbsp; them <i>authenticated </i>by a TPG and at least know they are not&nbsp; likely cleaned, etc.&nbsp; It isn&#039;t an issue of &quot;experience&quot;, it is a simple&nbsp; issue of availability and security (I can&#039;t travel around the country looking at coins in person -- I have a day job!).&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>In addition, I never said&nbsp; populations were useful, I merely provided the link to where they could&nbsp; be found.&nbsp; Your arguments about populations, updating, etc. are all&nbsp; valid and have been regurgitated enough times that anyone who wasn&#039;t&nbsp; &quot;born&quot; to the hobby yesterday already knows them.&nbsp; No one (at least not me nor gbroke) is using world&nbsp; coin pops as a marker of rarity, and this was never implied...except by you.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Well, I just have to say I disagree with you on this one.&nbsp; Again, it is not an issue of a collector&#039;s &quot;knowledge&quot; as you conjecture, but an issue of availability and security.&nbsp; I can not view most world coins I purchase in hand.&nbsp; If I wanted to see all World coins I purchase in hand, I&#039;d have about 2 in my collection.&nbsp; With that being said, the TPG is an additional level of security and reassurance for the buyer (even with the faults mentioned).&nbsp; I still only buy from sellers that allow me to return the coin if I am not pleased.&nbsp; Statistically though, the probability of a return of a raw coin is much higher than for a TPG one, so for rarer issues I usually look for slabbed examples.&nbsp; That is my (and other&#039;s) prerogative.&nbsp; Again, I find your insinuation that anyone who buys world coins in slabs is somehow uneducated to be insulting and not based in reality.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Your points here are good ones.&nbsp; I only ever buy from trusted sellers, who allow returns.&nbsp; I agree with you that there is nothing magical about the slabs.&nbsp; But an across the board writing off of slabbed coins is also silly, as some of the most beautiful examples of particular issues are indeed &quot;entombed&quot; (whether we like it or not).</p><p><br /></p><p>Regards,</p><p>-Brandon[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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