To Cert Or Not To Cert, What Is The Threshold?

Being in the UK I would never want some muppet to tell me what I have.

Thanks for opinion Kanga. Good calculation. Not quite sure about the muppet comment peter?..?

My formula is basically me estimating what I can sell it for out of the slab and what I can sell it for in the slab. If the difference is greater than the cost of slabbing, I send it in. Generally, I submit any shot 65 common date Morgans, rainbow toners, or PCGS Major Varieties.

I'll give you an example... I bought a '90-CC Tailbar, raw for $110. Listed it on ebay, best offer I got was $125 after fees. Declined it. Sent it in for grading ($21) then to CAC ($12), creating a cost position of $143. I sold it to a dealer for $165. So by spending the extra money, I raised my profit percentage from 12% to 13.34%. So I basically make judgement calls with all the coins I own and try to figure out what the most effective way to sell it is. The time it takes to roll over a coin doesn't matter much to me, but if I had to take that into account, I would probably do less grading due to time constraints.

PS I stopped overpaying for low-grade tailbars, don't worry... My next batch has an average cost basis of about $85 a coin and has 1 XF Details, 2 VF, and a F. Margin will be much higher.

i slabbed a dozen or so error coins early in my collecting as a way to be 100% sure about the authenticity of the errors. some of the error coins were only worth $10 to begin with. Of course this was a special case, but it was worth the slabbing $ as part of the learning process.

slab anything gold that is not just cull or melt unless it is an obvious super rarity in the gold series
slab anything that is considered a rarity in the hobby with regards to Year, MM and Grade, i.e., slab an 1844 VF dime, do not slab a 1944 MS63 dime

These are the rules I govern myself by

I disagree with blanket statements like this... Let's say you have an '80-S Morgan, probably a 64, maybe prooflike. In an auction, it'll sell for, raw, $75-$85. Slabbed, $125. Is it worth spending the extra $20 to get it slabbed if it will generate an extra $40-$50 in revenue?

Agreed.
That's why I specified that you HAVE to take into account S&H (which includes Registered mail and insurance).

Economy submissions are $20 a coin plus shipping charges... I usually hold until I am sending 15-20 coins. I just used the online submission form to see what 20 1881-S in 65 would cost for grading, declared total value of $3k ($150 ea, 65 money) and it comes out to $441. $22.05 per coin. Factor in $20 shipping (registered, insured) to PCGS, that's $23.30 per coin. If I'm submitting raw 64 and 65's, I lose a little on the 64's, but the real money is in the 65's... so let's say I paid $55 ea (reasonable) I am basically breaking even on the 64's and making $70 ea on the 65's. If I happen to catch a 66, that's another hundred or so in profit.

When I have done subs like that in the past, my 65 hit rate has been about 70%, meaning I get 14 65's for every 20 I submit. So that would make my cost basis per coin $78.30. Profits expected would be as follows;

64; -$10 per coin
65; +$72 per coin

With my hit rate, that means 1 65 covers my losses on the 64's, and the other 13 are profit at $72 ea, or $936 profit. If you can't grade, of course, I wouldn't bother since you're basically just throwing money away, but if you know what you're doing, buying, slabbing and reselling is easy money.

If you're paying $50 to get a coin slabbed, you're getting ripped off, or submitting some expensive material. Try finding somebody else who is willing to let you piggyback your coins on their submission... many are, it saves all parties a few bucks on shipping and handling charges.