Am I A Barbarian For Doing This?

I have heard of others doing that. Particularly with coins, the slabbed items take up a lot of room and cannot easily be displayed in a collection where everything else has no slab.

As long as you don't plan to sell them and they are as well protected as they are in the holders, I do not see that it is a big deal.

I've occasionally done this, like when completing a series of raw notes, where the cost of grading won't be appropriate for the lower values.

I'm cautious about doing this, though, you can lose some serious money by reverting a note to raw status. As long as it isn't too much, I'm OK with it. I agree that once I've got the note in the grade I wanted, I can do what I like with it, keep it graded or revert to raw. I've returned exactly ONE graded note for condition this last year, but returned over a dozen raw notes for condition. Let's face it, there are good reasons for buying graded notes, some vendors just can't bring themselves to grade honestly, for one reason or the other.

Where it is too much, I'll either keep it slabbed for the investment, and purchase another raw note, or just build the series in all graded examples.

Collecting TYPES of banknotes.
Refreshing to know about that !

I do the same with coins. (un slabbed)

This is no different from cracking a coin out of a slab to put into an album. I have not done it yet, but I will to fill those last holes. Resale is not my problem.

From the tone of the replies, it seems I am in the minority on this one. My problem is that I find the slabs so ugly, especially since I have different ones from different companies. Sometimes I have thought about sending them all into one company and have them regraded so at least there would be some consistency in size and colour. As well, there are not many albums available for slabbed currency and since there is not a standard for the sizing of the slabs, it is going to look messy.

I guess I could keep them in a box but it is not as interesting as an album. As well, to be honest, I have not yet taken the expensive ones out of their slabs (1923 $1 64PPQ, 1935 $1 64, etc.) but have only taken out the common ones that didn't cost me a large amount. I have a bunch of devil's faces coming in soon (all 64s) so I might leave them in the slabs. All these first-world problems. :)

And to the comment above about types of banknotes, I am surprised that this is not more popular. My goal is to get one uncirculated bill of each denomination from Canada. I realize that for many, I will have to settle for lesser quality but I should be able to get most of them. I need the $1000 bills and three more devils faces and then I start with the 1937 series. If I ever see a nice 1935 $1 French, I am going to get it because I could at least say I have all the $1 bills from 1923 in uncirculated. Most of the stuff I see in the auctions are signature variations and consecutive runs of serial numbers or serial number patterns and I just don't see the attraction in collecting like this. Again, to each his own. I just want one nice copy of each in order to appreciate the artwork.

As mox says above, raw (cut here) notes will typically sell for less than those in holders. Same with coins. I would never cut/crack unless I intend to resubmit.

Banknotes from 1937 and onwards are very easy to find in raw condition.

There are much fewer pre-1937 banknotes to be found raw but it is possible to find them, especially for low denominations.

I keep mine in Lindner albums, using the two-pocket currency pages, the slabs fit nicely, and the black background sets the notes off quite well.

An alternative might be like I do for raw notes, they're in sleeves in Globe-Weis file boxes, those heavy green file holders you see in offices. They have a letter-size file box that sits on a shelf like a book, and opens up to reveal a cavity within, for the storage of loose files and documents. Simply remove the slabbed notes and rummage through them as you like. You could look into those, see if you like them. I kind of like them because it eliminates the need for a currency page entirely, saving me $1.25 per note at $2.50 per page. They also cost much less than the special Lindner albums. Pages and albums together are running $2.98 per note for slabs, almost $2 per note for raw notes.

I'm seriously considering converting the graded material to the Globe-Weis storage book. I did this for my raw note collection, dropping the cost of storing a note from $2 to $0.40, a substantial savings going forward. For an active collector, it's something to consider. As of yet, I've less than 150 graded notes, so my investment in albums and pages is nothing like it was for the raw note collection.

I've been able to buy some off-brand graded notes for less than the price of similar raw notes, I open these and revert them to raw status. Some I've left in the slabs, I'll ship the notes off to my favorite TPG service and get them graded into the same holders as the rest of the Series. It's a few dollars, but worth it, the largest TPG service seems to also enjoy the largest premiums for graded vs. raw material.