South American slabbed or certified?

What is certainly true is that some American grading companies want or need to expand beyond the US market. PCGS for example recently opened an office in Paris, and EU based dealers can now send coins that they want to have capsuled to that office, instead of having to mail them to the US. Among the "PCGS authorized" dealers are well known names such as Lanz or Franquinet. But of course most of those dealers have worked with that company before - the Paris presence just makes it more convenient. Shipping back and forth will be faster, particularly because there is no customs involved.

What Doug wrote about "European dealers and auction houses selling harshly cleaned and damaged coins as problem free examples" ... well, he has stated that before. Don't know what it was like 10 or 20 years ago, but my experience is, by and large, a different one. Of course it also depends on who you buy from. What is certainly true is that coins slabbed by such US graders make it difficult for anybody else, be it a dealer or an auction house, to grade them again.

Oh well. I hope that collectors over here will still have an option to decide what they prefer and want.

Christian

 

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Its called a bandsaw or simply hammer and chisel. Works quite well for any coin I want but unfortunately is encased in cheap plastic.

 

Well I busted one of my two only certified Ancients out of its encasement not long ago... there is a post about it somewhere.... I am glad I did so. I couldn't set up a proper bandsaw, so I managed with a small dremel tool. Kinda tricky since the coin was so large, little margin for error, but all came out well.

Here is the link:

http://www.cointalk.com/t124010/