Your 1875-S Twenty Cent Piece also has the dropped digit (7 or 5) in the dentails, you can see the top of the digit in your scan. I have been told that it is fairly common, but it's another bonus to your S over S!
Lots of nice raw coins in that scan, and you are well on your way in completing your 7070!
Fantastic, thanks for all the tips! I'm an ANA member, so I have an NGC login for submissions. (I have a 1909 S VDB in F12 coming back, will post pics when it gets here).
I'll certainly buy the coin, not the slab. Especially after reading Rick Snow's article on the progression of IHC grading. I don't want to buy overgraded coins, either!
I've collected several "runs" in slabs. I like the flexibility of deciding what does or doesn't "belong" in my "slab album", as in I am not forced to feel as though any hole an album company makes needs to be filled! In some of the traditional albums I inherited I put in "plugs/fillers" in those holes and refuse to fill them!
Because slab album pages are 9 openings, the only thing I kind of attempt to do is "target" a run in some multiple of 9 - tho even that is just a preference.
So I started with a "all gem+ buffalo herd" and landed on 1930 and above to fill two pages. Most are PCGS but a couple are NGC - nothing less. My Peace dollar album is three pages of mostly MS63+ but runs the gamut of TPGs including a couple basement slabbers. My Franklin Proof album is just one page of all PR64+. I love the fact that I decide where it starts and stops by MY TASTES, and "oddity" coins are up to me to decide on. I included a 3-legger, for example, in my herd though it is the one not "GEM" LOL, because I always wanted one anyway. But no others in any run! I can add a page at will to any of them whenever I want.
Then when doing a "true RED" IHC album I stopped at the last "3 pages" of years. Most of that set are raw coins that I put in Coin World slabs myself. I'm not bothered by them not being in a PCGS, NGC, ANACS slab. It would have cost me 10X as much if I hadn't bought most of them raw.
I'm not that familiar or "into" registry sets, not sure what the attraction is? I hear others talk about them but just haven't looked into that scene!
My experience is that slabbed coins are at a premium and it is much harder to buy them at near-wholesale prices, as is my target. Most of the bargains I found were at coin shows or ebay auctions. Online stores and dealers and ebay BIN offers RARELY want to part with a PCGS/NGC certified coin for less than 95% of retail, in my experiences. So the bargains you can sometimes find on raw or "garbage TPG"s like ICG or basement slabbers are truly non-existent when looking at the BIG2. At least for the types I like to collect.
My suggestion is to stick with things the way you now have them. Purchasing slabbed coins will cost you more and for just plastic. You will end up with a massive pile of plastic and very little coins. To see what you have will take a long time since all those plastic hunks take up a lot of space. If you've been collecting coins in Albums, you'll most likely be unhappy with a pile of plastic that is difficult to know what you have. You can show people an entire Album but to show them the same amount of piles of plastic would take up lots of time and space.
As I mentioned, you can make up your own albums with sheets that hold 9 slabs each. They display nicely and are as presentable to others as regular "slotted" albums, IMO. If price or whatever fofrces you to a raw one you can just slab it yourself in a Coin World slab - tho they do cost over a buck each - so not cheap.
I prefer the flexibility of "building my own" album with whatever years/mintmarks/runs I feel like. You do tend to pay more for slabbed coins, but they should also pay more whenever you go to sell them for the same reasons. I like that I can just stop at 9 coins if I like. No "10s" of holes staring at you if you just stop at some point.
I adore my GEM BUFF cert slab album, for instance. It is wicked kewl! LOL
Quote: My suggestion is to stick with things the way you now have them. Purchasing slabbed coins will cost you more and for just plastic. You will end up with a massive pile of plastic and very little coins. To see what you have will take a long time since all those plastic hunks take up a lot of space. If you've been collecting coins in Albums, you'll most likely be unhappy with a pile of plastic that is difficult to know what you have. You can show people an entire Album but to show them the same amount of piles of plastic would take up lots of time and space.
I'll back up what SmokedIron said. ICG isn't a bad one to look at.
Now, when you're "buying the coin, not the holder", be cognoscente of the fact that slabs CAN and DO effect the value of a coin. I turned down buying a coin that was priced fairly but under-graded because I want to protect my investment. It was a Morgan that was clearly 64-65 DPL, but it was slabbed 63. Now, had it been priced at $100, it would have been a no-brainer, but it was priced $300, as a 64 DPL would be priced. I could have taken the chance, I certainly thought the coin was beautiful and fairly priced. But I realize that when I go to sell it, not being a big time dealer (at the time) that a buyer wasn't nearly so likely to pay more than the slab said the coin is worth.
I've never submitted a coin for grading so this may be a bit hypocritical to say, but if you wanted it and were very confident that it was undergraded and fairly priced at one grade more, why wouldn't you consider that you could re-submit it yourself( and get the proper grading ) before selling? Doesn't seem you should pass if you can "fix the undergrading" when ready to sell it later.
Saying that, of the >200 certified coins I've purchased, I only paid "above retail for the grading" once. I was just soooo certain it is undergraded - as you appear to be on your example.
I guess that my slant is that the grading on PGCS and NGC coins is more a "max" than what I'd consider TRUE. IMO, many more coins are graded higher than I would grade them so I won't overpay ( on speculation that what I think is a slightly undergraded coin would get a higher grade on re-sub ). Maybe I don't trust that their graders and I would agree that much. I don't claim to be a great grader at this point - so I err on the conservative side. I do think a number of my buys were undergraded, but I paid closer to wholesale for their marked grade than retail for the next one up! I may eventually re-sub some of them - but I am amassing more than turning over at this stage.
I will pay "closer to retail" on coins with great eye appeal - compared to others I feel are all fairly graded. But that is because I feel if I am that dazzled by the coin - then a buyer down the road should/would likely be as well.
Good Luck all!
Quote: Now, when you're "buying the coin, not the holder", be cognoscente of the fact that slabs CAN and DO effect the value of a coin. I turned down buying a coin that was priced fairly but under-graded because I want to protect my investment. It was a Morgan that was clearly 64-65 DPL, but it was slabbed 63. Now, had it been priced at $100, it would have been a no-brainer, but it was priced $300, as a 64 DPL would be priced. I could have taken the chance, I certainly thought the coin was beautiful and fairly priced. But I realize that when I go to sell it, not being a big time dealer (at the time) that a buyer wasn't nearly so likely to pay more than the slab said the coin is worth.
Having all your coins in slabs may well be nice, BUT, imagine if you had many thousands of coins. For example I have well over 3,000 Mercury dimes. Some are in 12 completed Whitman Albums. My 10 completed Lincoln Albums alone if all in slabs would fill my house with plastic. Not even sure how many 1943 Lincoln Cents I have in plastic rolls. It scares me to imagine how many houses I would need to have room for all my coins if all in slabs.
pretty much most coins I stick to buying slabbed. Only things I don't buy slabbed are normal 90% junk silver. With the chinese making good fakes, I don't ever want to be in a situation or my family put in a situation were most of the coins are fakes and losing money, etc.
Having a slab collection would more likely be a type versus series thing, like my 7070 slab collection. According to the (older, not revised) 7070 album, there are 76 (or 85 if you count the GOLD) coins. Surely, a manageable number of slabs. If you are an accumulator of coins, then slabs would be certainly a daunting feat, unless you only had slabbed keys. To each their own, enjoy!
I just started collecting a Registry Type Set last year, so I considered all of the above options, but decided on something quite different.
I decided to collect only PCGS coins, and I get all of them TrueViewed (photographed) by PCGS. That also results in them putting the coins in a nice new slab. Then I just put the slabs away in my safety deposit box and put the pictures on my iPhone & iPad. Then whenever I want to look at my coins or show them to someone, I just show the pictures.
I also use the same TrueView pictures for my registry set. I'm doing the "Complete US Type Set, Circulation Strikes", which has 133 coins. I figure it will take my lifetime to ever come close to completing this set as it includes all the pre-1800 coins as well as the early rare gold coins. But there is only one complete set listed in the registry, so even if I get half way there I will be among a select few.
Take a look at my thread where I posted my TrueView pics:
If you collect coins in BULK or like to fill many albums then obviously slabs are not condusive to that type of collector.
But I am interested in quality over quantity predominantly so for most coins I like slabs and don't feel they are that "big" comparatively. I dumped a bunch of rolled junk silver and wheats etc. to get rid of the bulk items I had inherited. I prefer a collection that I can fit mostly in my safe.
Disclaimer: While a tremendous amount of effort goes into ensuring the accuracy of the information contained in this site, Coin Community assumes no liability for errors. Copyright 2005 - 2026 Coin Community Family- all rights reserved worldwide. Use of any images or content on this website without prior written permission of Coin Community or the original lender is strictly prohibited. Contact Us | Advertise Here | Privacy Policy / Terms of Use
First Page
Posted 03/08/2012 5:25 pm
