Who Makes The Slabs (And Where)

Lincoln, the laws of trespass don't apply when a bin is off the premises (paparazzi use this fact to snoop in stars bins) . Also even if they have the dumpster picked up from in the premises the waste (unless it goes to a secure document disposal firm) goes to a general recycling plant where hundreds of people may see it.
Any serious counterfeiter can do the necessary investigation to find out where the slabs are made. The specifications of the slabs are public knowledge once they ship the first slabbed coins.As PCGS owns the moulds/dies they already have a strong protection against them being misused.
I can find hundreds of brands that outsource to China and just as many who don't.If I purchase a piece of advanced technology (electronics for example) the packaging will specify country of origin.
And if for example they were to manufacture the slabs in China that fact would be known to the counterfeiters. So why should counterfeiters have that knowledge but not the paying customer?
Que Bono applies to the secrecy.If PCGS was so paranoid about secrecy then why did they advertise the specific technology that they licenced from Dupont for the labels? That is a perfect example of knowing who supplies what does not benefit the counterfeiters.

I doubt an external delivery service delivers straight to the slabbing facility. That is probably located on a secret location, since THAT would be a nice place to rob.

Lincoln. I'm in Australia and can easily go stake out the RAM (getting as far as the US and visiting shows like FUN is on my bucket list). Unlike a counterfeiting organisation I cannot recoup the expenses by engaging in shady practices. Finding the location is the easy part, getting access to the dies/moulds and the precise methodology of making the slab is the challenge (and then there is the equal challenge of the hologram and other security measures).
It is an exaggeration to say most dumpsters are on private property, but I will concede that for the PCGS facility it will be and there will be locked gates. For same day certification at shows they would have to have removed all identification as the dumpsters are open to the curious.
If a product is made in China then there are multiple levels of officialdom involved and therefore multiple levels of corrupt officials to pass on the information.
Of course the exact composition of the plastic is known once the slabs are released. It is a straight forward thing to analyse the composition of a plastic. It is the methodology of making it that is hard to reverse engineer and knowing where the slabs are made won't change that. My understanding is that the slabs are not a single uniform plastic but a composite with features such as anti scratch surfaces. Just like baking a cake you might have the full list of ingredients but you have to get a dozen steps right or you end up with a slumped mess instead of the perfect product.
You are correct that PCGS does not manufacture anything, but by owning the dies/moulds then they also probably own the programming used to make said dies/moulds. Without access to that information (which the staff at the manufacturer wouldn't have)the best a counterfeiter can do is make a second generation copy (if they can get access to the manufacturers plant). That is no better than a photocopy of the original (although it would still be better than copying off a slab as quality wise that is like a photocopy of a photocopy).
The grading itself is only half the service (if that, there is also services like registry sets, Trueview and the certification registration), slabbing is the other half and the main purpose of slabbing is to protect the coins long term. Many consumers do care where their product comes from and seek out details of origin. Ask any discerning motorist if they would choose a Mercedes made in Germany over one made in their plants in Egypt or Brazil. Or a Toyota made in Japan over a Toyota made in China. As a consumer of coin storage products I pay multiples of the price of Chinese rubbish for ostensibly an equivalent product to ensure that I get quality and long term peace of mind.
If it is a big thing to boast that Dupont developed the security labels wouldn't you also boast about the slab manufacturers long history of making superior products for prestige brands (or does the manufacturer have a bad reputation?).
I use PCGS even though I know they are more expensive. I have no intention of selling my collection and I would like to know that the slabs are archival grade so I can pass the collection on (hopefully) after a few more decades.

Have you seen the differnt generations of the fake slabs? The first ones were easy to spot, even easier to identify if you had them in hand. But they have been getting better and better. The slabs shells themselves are now VERY good.

And you might be surprised what the injection molding plants would know about how the molds are manufactured. Most if not all of them have their own mold shops and they have a great deal of experience in the making of these molds. I would be very surprised if their their mold makers could not duplicate the PCGS molds. Maybe not on a first attempt but after a couple of tiem they would get it right (which just so happens to be what has happened with the fake shells.)



Sounds about right. Prices have come down, used to be around $10K per mold. This is why the fly by night grading services didn't proliferate until Coin World began marketing their own shells and then when generic shells became available. The basement slabbers couldn't afford to have their own shells made.

Slabs is soilent green, that's why they don't tell you.

I'll try and have a look at the Kickstarter videos. Might get a better understanding of what is now possible with counterfeit moulds.

Can't tell you who makes them but I can give you patent info on the holder itself, patented by Keith Love, founder of ICG and ex CEO (retired now) and has since sold the business to go into injection mold projects. http://patents.justia.com/patent/6029807

Here is a patent that is for a device to allow various non compatible holders to mate together for stacking, in it, it lists many of the other slab patents.
http://www.google.com/patents/US20120189384

From the above list I'm sure you can dig deeper, then use cross reference information to figure out at the least how is capable of making them in the USA, the volume must be at least 100K units per month and probably a lot more.