A Slabbed $50 Coin..... Really?

Hi Ryan , the cost of slabbing a coin depends , if it's gold or silver coin , modern issue , if you want secure plus, how many coins you wanting to slab best to have a look at this
http://www.pcgs.com/gradinglist.html but in short the answer is yes it around $30 for that coin, but you need to be a member of pcgs first.
Not all coins are worth slabbing.

Ryan have a look at this cc topic too https://goccf.com/t/124264

That is a $25-$35 coin , It is a nice technical example but it isn't a crowd stopper.
That is my main complaint about slabbed coins, the cost of the slabbing is passed onto the buyer.
Without the slab this would struggle to get $20 raw.
This would be technically an ms60 or unc coin but it is a plain ugly coin
It looks unloved and IMHO isn't worth the $50 tag

edited because I slipped up and used a NO NO word

It's an excellent example of what we were talking about in Ausjack's thread, about the difference between "eye appeal" and grading.

As for RyanS' question about the cost of grading, yes, the PCGS fee for "regular" grading service is US$30, but slabbing can be done slightly cheaper; this coin would qualify for the "economy" price of US$18. And don't forget that the TPGs give away "free submission" vouchers - members of their "Collectors Club" get zero, four or eight freebies per year, depending on how much they pay to join. If you've paid your US$219 international-platinum joining fee to get your eight-freebie voucher but only have seven coins you really wanted to slab, you might grab any old coin you've got lying around and toss it in the box, just to see what it slabs as, rather than "waste" the freebie because if you don't use them all at once, you lose them. I believe registered dealers get even more freebies. That, as far as I can guess, is how most of the why-on-Earth-did-some-fool-slab-that-piece-of-junk slabbed coins come into existence.

Of course, an Australian submitter has extra costs: US$52 for return shipping and insurance, plus whatever it costs you to ship it over there in the first place (I assume roughly the same amount? I have no idea how much it costs to securely ship a parcel to America these days). PCGS also requires coins to be sent to them housed in "2 1/2 inch x 2 1/2 inch mylar flips". I've never seen dealers here in Australia sell those, so you'll probably have to buy a boxful of those before you begin, too.

So if someone pays the joining fee for international-platinum-class membership and sends in their eight "free" coins, that shipment will cost a total of about US$320 to get graded and returned - or about US$40 per coin.

That coin is in an older slab so it would have qualified for economy submission which was $16 when that coin was slabbed. If it was sent with a decent sized submission (say at least another 40 coins) you'd be looking at around $6 postage and handling on top of that. So call it $22 in a slab. If the dealer pulled it out of scrap (which is where most of these lower MS grade common coins come from) the cost of the coin is negligible.

However, none of those costs hold true now. Any non US coin that is pre 1956 must now be slabbed using the PCGS secure plus service. This would take the cost of getting this coin graded up to at least $30 and more likely $32.

By the way SAP almost everyone in Australia submits their coins in regular 2" SAFLIPS without a problem. But if someone really does want to submit coins in 2.5" SAFLIPs then you'll find that PP sells those.

This is an interesting coin because if the dealer in question actually got this coin slabbed he's actually taking MORE of a risk than someone who just sells coins raw. Think of the extra time and money needed to be invested in this coin for what will likely be just a few dollars more profit than just trying to sell it raw? What if it doesn't grade? What if it grades very poorly? Compare this with dealers who just buy coins out of Status Auctions and Downies Auctions and slap them straight up on ebay with a 80% markup (there's some newly listed 1923 1/2d's on ebay that illustrate this). Other than viewing the coins at an auction what value have these dealers added exactly?

There is no real point to collecting slabbed coin to me.
After all it's all about someones opinion of grade.
It used to be a quality assurance thing, if it was graded and slabbed then it was guaranteed to be a good coin, but not anymore there are fakes and backyard slabbing now days.

I don't really like any sort of grading anyways, I don't exactly collect uncirculated proof highest quality coins, and my grades are "icky" and "ooo shiny"

Don't give me ideas

I buy slabbed coins, because I'm a novice grader and honestly cbf getting dissappointed with cleaned/whizzed coins. I'm learning though and it's interesting. At the recent ANDA SHOW, 90% of dealers had everything slabbed, at least to me, the idea attempts to give everyone a level and even playing field. I don't think it's like 'i have training wheels on' hence I need to buy slabbed coins, it's more because majority of dealers are moving in this direction I guess. I have some coins which are different grade and I'm still stratching my head !

Is this because the dealers prefer the slabbed coins for resale and can pass the cost of sending the coin to a TPG onto the customer.
Or is it simply because the dealer is unable/unwilling to grade his own coins accurately.
I know of a lot of dealers that consistently grade their coins accurately and in doing so they put their reputation on the line every time they do it. I have a feeling that a lot of dealers are unwilling/unable to be unbiased in their grading and prefer to let the TPG's wear the responsibility for the quality of the grading.
I feel that this is a sad state of affairs As a new collector has to wear the extra cost of the TPG grading and slabbing, The worst part of it all is that IF eventually all coins are only sold in slabs then the new generation of collectors will never learn how to grade themselves and simply rely on someone else to do it for them