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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Curtis, post: 8552718, member: 26430&quot;]If they don&#039;t turn into &quot;rattlers&quot; or press down the high points, I&#039;d probably find them preferable. (Though I somewhat disprefer encapsulation in general.)</p><p><br /></p><p>But there was a line in the article that sent me down a rabbit-hole that has left me feeling very upset...</p><p><br /></p><p>Apparently the Smithsonian Institutions (Washington, DC) has had some portion of the National Numismatic Collection encapsulated. Looking around I found several articles about NGC slabbing significant portions of the Smithsonian&#039;s coin collection.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Smithsonian Collection of 1.5M coins is one of the greatest in the world, largely built under the curatorship of Elvira &amp; Vladimir Clain-Stefanelli in the second half of the 20th century. I can&#039;t speak for them, but I wonder how they would feel about it?</p><p><br /></p><p>Personally, I really don&#039;t like the idea of putting a public collection into proprietary encapsulation that basically includes advertisements for a private corporation (NGC tags) above every one of those coins. To me that&#039;s a shocking corruption of public numismatics. (Having their corporate name and logo plastered all over my collection is also one of my objections to them for my own coins.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Starting in 2008, &quot;The 200 most rare, unique and famous American coins in the collection will be placed into customized plastic holders that will allow greater access to coins while improving their protection.&quot;</p><p>&quot;<font size="5"><a href="https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/986/preservation-of-numismatic-collection/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/986/preservation-of-numismatic-collection/" rel="nofollow">Preservation of National Numismatic Collection</a></font>&quot; (3 Mar 2008).</p><p><br /></p><p>A few years later they encapsulated a bunch of &quot;World Coins,&quot; dates given in article were c. 17th century on (not sure what that means to them though).</p><p><br /></p><p><font size="5"><a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/press/releases/smithsonian-preserves-national-numismatic-collection-through-ngc-encapsulation" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/press/releases/smithsonian-preserves-national-numismatic-collection-through-ngc-encapsulation" rel="nofollow">Smithsonian Preserves National Numismatic Collection Through NGC Encapsulation of International Coins</a> </font>(24 March 2014)</p><p><br /></p><p>I couldn&#039;t find any photographs or a full accounting, or whether they&#039;re still doing more.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.ngccoin.com/about/industry-affiliates/smithsonian-institution/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.ngccoin.com/about/industry-affiliates/smithsonian-institution/" rel="nofollow">NGC Supports the Smithsonian Institution</a>.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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