Slabbed Vs Non-Slabbed, NGC Vs PCGS. Options Needed.

Depending on how much your getting into world coins or the different series PCGS could be difficult. There are a lot of NGC 70s that are true 70s, its really splitting hairs at that point, they just grade more as 70s.

Trying to cross either to the other wouldnt turn out well in the long run. Really though if you have a 70 no need to cross it unless its from a basement slabber. The premiums will vary a bit from set to set, some will be close for PCGS and NGC and others will have a wide gap it all just depends on how many there are of that one.

You can check the populations for pcgs at http://www.pcgs.com/pop/ and see if your sets would be doable or not for what you want.

The other thing to mention too is be careful with new releases. At first they can sometime go for big money to later find out that a lot of them get the 70 and they lose some value. One of the things I do is check the population report and see the % that are getting graded a 70. If the percent is the norm you know itll probably climb substantially for the number of 70s. But if its like the 2012 ASE set where PCGS graded a very low percentage of the coins a 70 you can be comfortable the prices will hold or climb

I don't go after graded coins, I only have one so far, that I only bought because it was the coin I wanted for a good price. I didn't even notice it was graded when I ordered it online, so I was shocked to see it in a NGC slab (MS69 2009 1/4 Sovereign). I didn't like the slab at first, Fondling my coins/bars is a must for me . . . but . . . the slab has grown on me I have to admit. I would only buy a slabbed coin at a premium if it were a minimum of 50 years old. Otherwise I want my 'pretty' coins in a box with CoA, with as small a premium as possible.

It will more than likely grow in popularity over the years. Most of the people who dont like slabbing are the older collectors who didnt grow up with it or had been collecting for generations when they came out. The next wave of collectors is fine with it and the wave after that will have known slabs since day one. That and its a must for some coins anyway by now with how good fakes have gotten. The companies may change a bit along the way but I dont see it going anywhere

There are fake slabs, theres more you can do with a slab though to prevent that than with a coin. At some point theyll contain chips or other security features as technology allows, you cant go back and put chips or redesign old coins though

Yes, slabs have the potential for added security for existing coins, but for the time being I don't consider them a safeguard against fakes or coins that have been tampered with. Any benefit a slabbed coin has in the way of security is offset by other factors . . . the inabilty to test the slabbed coin for content/purity for example. As for coins yet to be put on the market . . . whatever security measures the grading companies implement could presumably be implemented directly by the mints themselves; several (government and private) are actively devising new security measures to try and stay a step ahead of the counterfeiters. This is an interesting topic, I think we can all agree that the more options we have, the better. I will stick to non-graded coins for the most part, but I'm sure I'll buy older graded coins on occasion, I have my eye on a few right now as a matter of fact :)

Well like silver said its more for numismatic coins that you would never test other than weigh or use a magnet anyway. It was also designed for numismatic coins but people have sent in bullion so they do bullion, there isn't much of a need for it for that though unless you like the look or to protect it or whatever. I personally dont see fakes of modern coins being much of an issue in the future far to many are made and far to many are preserved in very high grades. The old ones get their values from their rarity nothing in the modern coin place really suggests it will be rare for the circulating money.

There are things that can be done from the mint side, though thats probably more of a concern with gold. The silver coins theres enough places you can order where they get it directly from the mint that you dont have to worry for the modern stuff. The nice thing about slabs is it takes more effort to fake, you have to fake the coin and the slab and do both very well. They still struggle with the holograms but at some point theyll figure it out and the slab with get some changes.

Like you I keep my bullion coins raw, but the vast majority of my numismatic coins are slabbed. I guess the other thing worth mentioning would also be the US mint is really far behind other mints when it comes to things both is unique types of coins and trying to put security measures. When that will change who knows but they certainly arent leading the way on anything and by the time they implement anything the other mints will have probably moved on to the next measure

Needless to add in the ol hypithetical SHTF situation the 25k 1 oz gold slab may not hold its premium lol. End up trading it for 100 bucks worth of food perhaps.....