Why do people bother spending their time and money on slabbing coins where to only crack them out of the slabs shortly after receiving them again. To me it doesn't make any sense and the PCGS and NGC slabs look really nice with coins in them instead of in a pile of broken plastic. Thoughts and opinoins always welcome.
I was introduced to the hobby (old school, back in the 60s) and prefer the coins RAW and unslabbed. I have a few examples of both cards and coins which are encapsulated, but generally if I buy a coin which is slabbed I eventully take the Vise-Grips to it, CrackOut and be FREE ... B
People like Jim Halperin, who is famous for it, do it just to make money. You don't have the coins slabbed yourself, you buy coins in really old slabs from the time when grading standards were tough (1986). Then you submit a coin for grading and have a chance on gaining thousands of dollars in value. I'm not a fan of this, and don't crack coins out, I just read about it.
What exactly is a coin? It is a 3D object isn't it? Why should slab take away the beauty of edges??? Unless there are slabs that are made to view the edges, I'm not sending mine for slabbing any day soon. No point just viewing 2 2d images in my opinion. Some examples that I have:
It sure does. You just pop open the holder, take the coin out, look at the edges, and put it back in when your done. Charlie
I like that slab... going to get at least one of my coins in there just for the sake of having one, lol.
I think that slabs are neat, but a collection should have the coins in the 2x2s and tubes, not slabs. I only have a few slabs in my collection
YNcoinpro ask "why do collectors crack open slabs?" It's only a guess, but just possible that they are coin collectors and NOT slab collectors.:whistle:
The best way I know of to accumulate a high grade of clear plastic. Also, how would you like to be imprisoned in a plastic slab? FREE those coins.
Slabbing is a marketing tool. It helps identify a coin and it's quality. Usually, the person that wants to sell a coin will get it slabbed so the marketplace will have a good gauge of it's quality. When the person who buys it puts it in their collection, they might want to crack it out so it will fit in with the rest of the collection. Of course, as other folks have mentioned, some folks will crack out the coin just to try to make a few extra bucks, or a collector simply might think the slab doesn't do the coin justice and take it out. Enjoy! CDB
I'll only buy a high grade high value coin in a slab anymore, and it stays in the slab. The reason is that when my kids go to sell the coins someday when I'm gone, I think they'll have an easier time of it and [maybe] not get cheated as bad by those no good, low-down, !@#$%^&* dealers. For coins worth only a few bucks apiece, I'd rather have a raw coin.
I prefer slabbed Morgans. I`ll decide whether I agree with the grade or not when I buy it. My experience with coin dealers and raw coins over the last 40 some years is: I buy from you MS63, If I want to sell the same coin to you it is AU58 or less. At least with graded coins, I have half a chance using my experience (expertise?) to argue a point. With raw coins, the seller almost aways overgrades MS coins.
I like and agree with Old Dan's answer. IMO most slabs are used as a selling tool as a means to achieve higher selling prices. Since I don't sell, that feature is worthless to me. As a buyer, I feel slabs are detrimental to my wallet, especially since my prime collecting interest is afflicted by very few fakes, and prices change little over grade variations, I just fail to see any personal "need" for them. In general, I am rather disgusted by some of the behavior/appearances of favoritism/lack of grading consistency/related episodes of bad ethics/obvious breaking of their own policies, and so on, even by the "top" services. When they first hit the scene, I had very high hopes for what they supposedly were trying to accomplish, but those hopes were changed by a good dose of reality. Their venturing into slabbing of Civil War tokens was certainly unimpressive IMO. They should have at least bought a good book to properly id them first, or at least figured out how to use it properly. After several years, NGC still has not figured out how to properly use the Fuld id numbering system, which is pretty much the hobby standard. At least that is the system I think they are trying to use. Maybe I'm wrong though, and perhaps they simply decided to just start their own id system. They often seemed to have trouble copying the merchants name from the token to the slab label. I've seen store cards slabbed as patriotics, and patriotics slabbed as store cards. I don't see how I am supposed to have any confidence in their services when they do a rather poor job IMO of dealing with simple concrete basic facts. Trust their grading? roflmao, I don't think so. Every slab I have ever acquired has had the token broken out. I'm not sure why, but I still hold some value for their opinion of authentication, although I am not at all sure how well they could authenticate tokens. I imagine that would be a considerably tougher task than for regular coinage. If I were seeking to purchase a highly counterfeited piece, I would probably look for a slabbed one, and it would probably remain in the slab. Maybe because it would provide some peace of mind for a prospective buyer at some point down the road.
