Certification Without Slabbing?

Totally with sel on this - I'd feel comfortable buying a coin of this value from a reputable dealer like Noble or Downies (personally, I'd say Jim Noble would be more qualified on Australian coins than a US TPG). They might not be a "third party", but both have reputations to uphold and that is enough incentive to get things right.

Whenever buying any coin, but especially one this valuable - you should do your research and examine the coin in hand yourself. That goes regardless of whether it is being sold by a reputable dealer or if it is slabbed.

JUst caught up with this thread. I see some people got a little hot under the collar. The key point of irritation IMHO is "cultural" American collectors just have no understanding of the absolute suspicion the rest of the world has of the American TPGs. We would never argue with TPGs on American coins but with non-American we foreign collectors just see so many mistakes from PCGS, and NGC we just wouldn't go near them. The coins pictured are investment grade Australian coins. The best way to get the Certified is to take them to Nobles, or Monetarium( may be spelt wrong) ask them to authenticate the coin and insist on paying for the service. They will do the necessary research and will provide you with a written evaluation of the coin including market value. IMHO Foreign (meaning non USA) investment grade coins should never be slabbed unless they are going to be sold in the North American market. By investment grade I am referring to coins that exceed US$20,000 in value. For non US collectors who are most likely to pay the most for such coins the slab is just going to get in the way of authenticating the coin. If I was looking at buying such a coin( in my dreams) and it was slabbed the first thing I would ask the dealer of auction house to do would be to remove it from the slab so I could authenticate it. If it were an American coin I would happily leave it in the slab.