Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DonnaML, post: 8109003, member: 110350&quot;]I understand the utility of slabs to preserve truly high-end ancient coins (say, five figures and up) and make sure they aren&#039;t damaged. (And perhaps to make sure the tiniest of coins aren&#039;t lost!) And I also understand that if I ever had to sell my collection -- or my heirs did -- the benefit from having them slabbed first might outweigh the cost.</p><p><br /></p><p>I find the grades pretty useless on slabs, and for ancient coins in general -- they often have nothing whatsoever to do with how visually appealing a coin is -- and pay little or no attention to them in buying coins. They should be irrelevant as long as there&#039;s a decent photo available. Which, ironically enough, encasing a coin in a slab makes it almost impossible to accomplish. Not only can&#039;t a slabbed coin be photographed as well as a raw one, I&#039;ve found the few I&#039;ve held in hand much more difficult to see. It&#039;s not so much that I have a need to handle my coins very much, but I do like to be able to see and examine them closely.</p><p><br /></p><p>I posted the following here early last year, and haven&#039;t really changed my opinion:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;To me, from an aesthetic viewpoint (wholly apart from the investment motives), slabbing ancient coins is pernicious. Once a coin is slabbed, in my opinion, it&#039;s no longer an actual coin. It&#039;s become a commodity. Like pork belly futures. Frankly, there might as well be a hologram inside the slab instead of a coin. Because all you&#039;re really seeing when you look at a slab is the image of a coin, mediated through plastic -- not terribly well, I think -- rather than the coin itself, which was intended to be seen directly, and to be experienced through the sense of touch as well as sight.</p><p><br /></p><p>I expect that one of these days people will be slabbing rare first editions of books, making them impossible to read. (I&#039;ve already seen that done with old magazines.) Or valuable paintings -- should all the Vermeers and Van Goghs and Rembrandts be graded by TPG&#039;s and encased in plastic slabs? Anyone who&#039;s ever been in a museum knows the vast difference between the experience of seeing a painting with and without glass in the frame -- the latter is incomparably superior, given that it allows the viewer to see the texture of the paint in all its three-dimensionality, an effect that&#039;s nearly destroyed when it&#039;s behind glass. Plastic is far worse than glass in detracting from the viewer&#039;s experience. Never mind that slabbing makes it physically impossible to display coins together in an appealing manner, as I have tried to do with my collection in its trays, as shown in some of the photos I&#039;ve posted here.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Finally, I think the slabbing of low-to-medium-value ancient coins by dealers who market them on Ebay is often a scam intended to permit them to ask 5-10x those coins&#039; fair market value, in the hope of deceiving some poor, gullible sucker into paying that much. It&#039;s a disgrace.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in