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Message:: [QUOTE="900fine, post: 639953, member: 6036"]Here's another caveat. Tell me what you think. In the US series, the majority of valuable and/or early coins are slabbed* except the ones which are problem coins. The best ones are slabbed. This leaves a large mass of raw coins which tend to be overgraded or problematic. For instance, compare Capped Bust 25c - slabbed PCGS XF40 vs. raw offered as XF40. Same date / variety. If you rounded up all of them, worldwide - all slabbed XF40 and all raw offered as XF40 - you would see a large difference. The slabbed coins, on the whole, would be superior to the raw ones. Why ? Because the grade opinion for a raw coin is offered by the seller. Raw coins, as a whole, have a bigger problem with overgrading than slabbed coins. They also have a worse problem with problems passing through as undetected by seller or buyer (for whatever reason). I am talking about US coins only. The more valuable they are, or the older they are, the more the raw coins are picked over. In general, the good ones are in slabs. I am aware there are exceptions. But exceptions don't prove the rule. Yes, TPGs strike out occassionally. But TPGs have a higher batting average than dealers and collectors as a whole. * important exception - early copper[/QUOTE]