what is the importantance of a slabbed coin?

[Detectingfreak]

Hey guys. Me and my Dad went to the oregon state coin show and we kept hearing people talk about slabbed coin. I was wondering what the importance of a slabbed coin was?

 

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[jeff of pa]

It Just means it's Graded by a Pro & In cases where the coin is rare & Could be Counterfeit it's also Proof
it is Genuine

 

[Mackaydon]

Here's a site you may wish to review:
http://www.pocketchangelottery.com/article108.htm

 

[idahotokens]

The value/price of a coin is largely determined by its condition or grade, but grading a coin is fairly subjective. Over the past couple of decades, grading has evolved from verbal descriptions (About Good, Good, Fine, Very Fine, Extra Fine, About Uncirculated, Uncirculated, Brilliant Uncirculated - have I left any out? Proof is not a condition, rather a manufacturing process) to a numerical scale ranging up to 70 that allows a finer degree of grading. Still, at the present, grading is done by humans and is subject to differences of opinion. There are books that illustrate certain coins in many different conditions so an amateur can get a ballpark grade, but there are still many factors that contribute to different grades for the same piece.

Here is where the professional grading companies step in. They provide (for a fee, of course) a service where they will grade the coin (in hopefully a standard fashion) and encapsulate it in plastic so we can be assured that the grade corresponds to this particular coin (no switching coins). That way, the buyer, especially in long-distance transactions, has some degree of assurance that he/she is buying a standardized produce. The downside is that there are several companies grading and "slabbing" coins and they don't all have the same reputation. In fact, up until a year or so ago, there were coins on the market (especially ePay) that were encapsulated but the grading was not done by reputable graders. This caused ePay to specify the companies for whose products they would accept the term "slabbed".

I've seen many dealers buy slabbed coins which they think deserve a higher grade, pop open and discard the slabs, and submit the coins to a different grading company in hopes of obtaining a higher grade. Since there is often a vast difference in price between close grade numbers in high-value coins, the dealers figure the cost for having a coin re-graded is worth it.

eBay has tutorials on many subjects - take the time to read some of them. For instance,
http://search.reviews.ebay.com/_Coins-Paper-Money_W0QQucatZ11116QQuqtZg is where there is info on grading.

John in ID

 

[springcypress]

One of the things which has started to happen though is the explosion of Third Party Graders.

There are only a few legitimate TPG companies; PCGS, NGC, ANACS are the most consistent and follow legitimate grading standards. PCI is possibly another good TPG.

Other than those though, it's a slippery slope.

Ebay made a requirement that to advertise a grade in any listing the coin needed to be certified by a TPG. And so literally dozens of TPGers showed up over night. The volume sellers would grade the coins themselves (overgrade), put them in a slab and push them into the market.

One of the more humorous byproducts of this is that we're now starting to see services that grade the graders. You send you coin off to a grader after you receive it you send it off to a TPG grader and they grade the accuracy of the TPGer and then place a sticker on the slab.

It's getting insane. I personally don't like slabbed coins EXCEPT to verify authenticity. When I send a coin to a grader all I'm looking for really is whether or not the coin is genuine. After I get it back I usually break it out of the slab (unless I have plans on selling it in the near future).

To add a further layer of complexity, over time even the GOOD graders (ala PCGS, NGC) standards have laxed. There is a big market now for early PCGS holders with green labels. When PCGS used the green labels their standards were much stricter than they are now. You're almost guaranteed at least a point upgrade on a resubmittal of a green label.

To me the end result of all of this is that we're right back where we started. Buy the coin - Don't buy the slab.