1916 D Mercury Dime & 1894 Barber O Dime - Question On Next Steps

Personally, if I was a buyer for these coins, I would want to purchase a slabbed example. Here's why:

If I was buying an expensive coin like this one, I'd want to have a second opinion from an expert on whether it's genuine.

With key dates, there's always a chance the coin could be altered or in some way modified by a coin "doctor" so it appears as a key date.

Unless you have super high quality pictures, something like tooling marks around the mint mark or diagnostics of a fake could be hidden.

Also, from my personal experience of seeing listings on ebay, slabbed coins generally sell for higher rates than raw. Of course, you can specifically look for cases which are the opposite and find them. But I'm just stating my observations.

Let's not start another argument about TPGs here. The purpose of this topic was the OP asking questions about coins.
My advice to the OP is to weigh the pros and cons of slabbing yourself, and think which is the better option. Remember, slabbing these coins is not required. But you definitely can have them graded if you want. Just think about which option to choose.

ebay prices will be all over the map for things like that. Anything from a massive seller like APMEX you can throw out the window for raw, unless you're nationally known as well you won't see that pricing. You can take it to the bank that some of the raw 16-D sales are fakes or altered/added mint marks type thing, some of those may have been bought by people to open a case but others are people being their own worse enemy thinking they'll get an upgrade or something like that.

The one seller of the slabbed ones you listed under priced his BINs which is his right, but that does happen a lot on ebay with people trying to get a faster sale or potentially not realizing the full value.

If a new/newer seller sold a raw coin there the buyer can very easily end up with the coin for free. The TPG protects newer sellers in such disputes. There's also what would happen if someone without a ton of knowledge walked into a coin store/coin show trying to sell a slabbed vs raw version of it.

#paralyze - very true - my wording should have been more precise. I should have not used "profit," but just what the seller received in payment.




This is why I was surprised to find the result I did this morning when I looked at the sold listings. Admittedly, I had never really thought to check out the idea of slabbed coins always selling for more on ebay. I just took the concept as a given b/c the idea is normally always told to people planning to sell a better coin.

So was my mistake in thinking the statement of slabs always bring higher sales prices is basically aimed at professional auction sites like Heritage and not necessarily places like eBay/etsy?

@basebal



You lost me on that. I have absolutely no idea what you mean about a new seller and the buyer getting it for free.




Intersting...howso?







I see all of this information as pertinent to this thread b/c it helps cover all of the bases about making a decision to keep a coin raw or get it slabbed.

For ebay with raw coins it basically generally ends up a he said she said situation if a case is opened. They favor the buyer to start with unless you're a massive account. Even the middle range accounts can be at a disadvantage from the get go when a claim is opened.

If you're a new selling account with little to no history you absolutely are at a disadvantage to the buyer right off the bat. If you had sold a raw key like that and the buyer claims that it's fake you're putting it in the hands of a customer service representative to deem in your favor and you're basically going to lose every time unless they make certain mistakes which I am not going to say because I don't want to write a guide for how to scam.

However if the coin is graded the seller can provide the evidence of the slab ect saying that they have not only a professional opinion, but a professional opinion endorsed by ebay saying the buyers claims are false. In the raw coin instance the money is generally refunded and they get to keep the item, for the graded coin the seller generally gets protected if they offer a return if the buyer is unhappy and it then becomes an unreasonable buyer if they refuse. There's always exceptions but the seller has a FAR better chance with the graded coin to avoid being scammed than the raw.

The unfortunate truth is there are people out there that do hunt for new sellers selling valuable raw coins to do things like that too. It's terrible that it happens but it is a reality that needs to be understood to better help protect the honest sellers who may not know.




I've been in more than a few shops and more than a few coin shows and I'm sure many dealer posters could tell stories of things they've heard of where if someone comes in with something like that raw those shops would either extremely low ball it or even go so far as to convince them it's fake and buy it for melt. I've seen stories of dealers paying widows double face for double eagles and morgans ect.

This isn't by any means to say every dealer or every shop is bad as there certainly are some great ones, but there are a number of them that have no shame when they sense a chance to make a killing. I'm younger so if we went into a shop you would very likely get treated much better and probably even get better pricing in the vast majority of them. I've basically heard it all from extreme low ball offers, prices going higher on their items for me, to trying to convince me my PCGS CAC coin (which I submitted to both personally) was in a fake holder ect all because they thought I was a mark.

Not everyone is lucky enough to live by a great shop, nor is there a guarantee the heir or widow would be treated the same as the long time customer. The slab at least gives them a fighting chance as it becomes much easier for them to look up real world value ranges and increased their options for quick sales.