The slabbing/grading debate

Another thread was being taken off topic by this subject so i thought i would start this thread.

The other thread is here:
http://www.cointalk.com/t165399-36/#post1363545

Personally, its up the coin collector what they want to do. If they want to Slab/grade it thats up to them, if they want to keep it raw that is also up to them. This isn't a right or wrong thing, its a personal preference thing

 

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you posted the third quote in the "foreign" section of cointalk. why?? it seemed more applicable to usa coins.

the first quote is from pcgs's webpage. the second is from ngs's webpage. now, what guarantee do they offer? pcgs = NONE on anything that is not american. ngs = none on ancient. very little on world, seeing as how i could not find their world guarantee. if you can, please post it!

again, your quote. just because a coin is entombed does not mean it is worth more. there is a phrase in numismatics... "buy the coin, not the slab."

 

I live in Canada, go to lots of coins shows, and participate in many coin site discussion forums. This topic has been covered ad infinitum for years, but I guess it deserves some new flogging. From my experienced perspective, about 80% of all coins that you see that have been certified, shouldn't have been .. in many cases, the cost of the TPG is/was more than the coin will ever be worth. Unless you are a dealer looking to increase the selling price, or you are a collector that MUST buy some coins sight-unseen, then the decision to get a coin certified just lies with your own ability to grade, the knowledge of your heirs, or your desire to preserve the pristine looks of what you have. The propaganda that has flown around for the last 10 years has brainwashed newbies into thinking that you HAVE TO HAVE coins certified, which is a premise that just is not true. My stomach churns and my eyes roll when I walk down a bourse or look on Ebay at a $2 coin encased in $25 plastic. Likewise, when I see modern "proof" bullion coins fancied up in PRF-68 dresses, I just shake my head. A proof coin, by definition is supposed to be perfect ... special dies, special handling, special packaging and never to see the light of day after purchase. It will go in a drawer, box, album page or folder, never to be heard from again. It will never see a pocket, a cash register, a pub counter, or parking meter. What have we come to when we pay money to get someone's opinion on something that we, as collectors, should already know?

 

To slab or not to slab, that is the question. I agree that it is personal preference, but it is important to learn how to grade the series you are interested in yourself. If you can purchase a coin already slabbed at or close to what it would cost raw (and it is accurately graded), then that is a plus. I also like to buy slabbed coins that I think are undergraded. If you know how to grade, you can be more confident when you buy raw coins as well. TC

 

self grading is part and parcel and the fun of coin collecting, it is first and foremost a hobby and when one gets to concentrating more on the worth of a coin the hobby then becomes a business. in my own collection every coin is speacial to me, be it a civil war siege coin from newark, scarborough etc etc or an olympic 2012 50 pence piece, they all have their charm an attraction. i am selling my collection, not for purely financial gain but because i feel that i have come to the end of the road with it but like doug my love of numismatics will never wane. i can catagorically say though that not one of my coins is slabbed because i feel it would lock them away in a plastic coffin instead of the being a tactile and important part of history, i am firmly in the anti slabbing camp as are 99.9% of uk collectors, and even though i will be no longer collecting i will still be vehemently anti slab.........because in my opinion someone has found a way of screwing coin collectors by slick marketing.

 

for british coin grading i strongly recommend this book..........................

 

While I appreciate the work that slabbers do to authenticate coins, I have simply always had an issue with their method of grading. First, they make up their own grading standards. Think about that. Standards is supposed to mean, well standard. If every TPG creates their own definitions of a grade, and can change them whenever they feel like, how is this "standard" in any way? Secondly the whole slabbing thing allows crackouts and regrades ad infinitum because they do not track each coin to ensure its not a regrade. This effectively means if you see a slabbed coin its prbably either fairly graded or ovrgraded, sometime dramtically so. Again, no "standard" and no one to complain about the grade since the TPG make up their own.

IF slabbing was done to verify authenticity, and TPG used independently set standards, (ANA, etc), and tracked each coin to ensure it only ever got graded once, then I may very well buy slabbed coins. Until then, I view it much as Moneyer as a slick money grab driving up the costs of the hobby, with little benefit except to the TPG bottom line.

 

I don't even see a question here. What am I supposed to do, make up my own? What is it we are responding too? This is simply a statement. It wasn't taken off topic, there is no topic, it answers itself. Please explain.

 

I have no intention to get into the "slab vs. raw" debate because everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

However, I do have to take issue with your comments about proof coins...........

1) By definition, proof coinage is a method of manufacture. Nothing else!

2) There is no guarantee of perfection.

3) Yes, special dies and planchets are used, but there is nothing special about the handling and packaging that makes it different from any other limited-edition set which may include uncirculated coins as well, such as an anniversary set.

4) "........never to see the light of day....." - Hardly!

5) "........never see a pocket, cash register, etc........." - Then why have I found so many searching rolls?

Chris

 

I wish I could stay out of them. I think maybe its a case where idiots go where wise men fear to tread. Just talking about my posts of course.

Chris(2)

 

cpm9ball ... My comments on proof coins dealt specifically (as I put in the sentence) proof "bullion" coins. If you are finding proof bullion coins in rolls, then more power to you and tell me the bank where you go.

 

Bill, I will agree with you about the slabbing of proof bullion. It seems like a waste of time and money to me, but we do all have to remember that there are folks within our hobby who do like to collect them in this manner. It's a (the whole slab-o-roonie debate) "to each his own" thingy........

 

Oh! I see! The definition of PROOF bullion is different from PROOF coins. Nope, I've never found a proof bullion COIN in circulation. I have found UNC bullion coins in circulation, but the rest of your statement is still wrong.

Chris

 

While I agree with this statement, there is another aspect to the grading done by TPG's that always seems to be ignored, even by the older collectors here who should know. TPG's, without a doubt, invented the need to know coin grades above all else. Before them, we still collected, and maybe threw a few grades around, but it wasn't the important part...the coin was. Imagine that...a coin being more important than an opinionated grade. The TPG's came along and told us grade was vital and we all needed to pay to know what our coins graded because we were stupid and uneducated collectors and they were the grading gods. So, almost 30 years later, here we are with a generation of collectors who don't know how to grade to save their lives because they have the crutch of the grading companies to fall back on. They don't care about the coin as much as the precious grade, and god forbid if someone with 40 or 50 years of collecting experience tells them their coin is overgraded or undergraded, because what can they know compared to a grader that just finished potty training the week before?

TPG's serve a purpose, but that purpose isn't to make collectors lazy, uneducated, and unbending in questioning the TPG's from time to time. They are not the absolute authority- they are paid opinion givers in a field with no certainties or standards.
Guy

 

All I know is that I collect raw coins because I am a collector, and not an investor or dealer. I put all my coins in albums and do it for the sheer enjoyment of the hobby. It is really dependent on what type of collector you are, I suppose. However, the one case where I would purchase a slabbed coin is for highly counterfeited, and expensive coins. For all other coins, I just can't get myself to spend $30 (or whatever) to get a coin put in plastic. I would much rather use that $30 to purchase another coin for the album. You dig? It boils down to personal preference and I respect every ones own way of collecting.

 

so this photo from the ngc grading room doesn't show what a scam it is? the guy is clearly handling a coin without using gloves and regardless of how clean you think your hands are there is always natural acids present in the skin which will leave an imprint.....................

 

I don't understand this statement at all. So if you want to push a nice MS coin into an album it's better to push it in with a bare finger than use a glove? And of course you will say, don't use albums. But people do and like to. I would not believe that using a glove to gently push a metal object in something would ever impair the surface to the point of damaging it or affecting the grade. If it was done repeatedly, possibly. I do know you can leave a nice big fingerprint on them that will show up years down the road though because I have seen them.

As for the OP and the grading debate, there certainly has been a lot of stuff graded that probably shouldn't have been graded. On the other hand, there's a lot of stuff that should be graded. As has been covered here extensively, there is a worsening problem with counterfeits. And it's only getting worse. The Chinese are copying even the common stuff now that I would bet would fool many experienced collectors. Simply because they would never expect a $10 coin to be a fake. The copys are good enough to fool people if mixed in a roll or a bag. Or if you're just not paying that good of attention.

Next, you have to give the graders some credit. They may be younger. (Or they may not be. People are just throwing around guesses here.) Who are you going to go with for grade on an important coin? The graders (since at least two and sometimes 3 graders review for slabbing) who gets paid to grade coins all day, every day, year after year? Or an experienced collector who may be asked to seriously grade a coin once a month based on their own opinion? (If that.) Which probably won't agree with the next "experienced" collector's opinion. Who certainly won't agree with the dealer selling the coin, who of course, has been doing it for 30 years.

To me the TPG's cut out A LOT of BS. My opinion. I'm sure many others think they add to it. But it's the nature of this hobby. I don't know how you can escape it.