What you are seeing is a reality behind grading companies. They are not what their marketers make them out to be. They are businesses that exist to make a profit (not a bad thing), but their claims of expertise often do not match their product. It is not too hard to find things like you have as well as other problems.
There are die hard collectors who have invested a ton of money into these slabbed coins who will fight to the death to try to get others to believe the grading companies are necessary for the hobby and THE last word in numismatics. All of the spent money "needs" to have the product be what it claims.
Reality, such as your coin, shows otherwise.
Facts:
http://goccf.com/t/346174#2967242And a very realistc view from our now passed and missed member:
http://goccf.com/t/130186Slabbing, was pretty much seen as a money making scheme when it first came out. Most of the opinion pf people outside the US has been to ask why we Americans would pay someone to do something we can do ourselves. Thus slabbing is nowhere near as popular outside the US. Having more disposable income than a lot of other countries (especially when these businesses started) made the US a prime place for businesses like this to grow in. The advent of the internet and
ebay made slabs more prominent in the market, and so more and more online buyers just started to accept slabbed coins as what the marketers wanted the people to see them as.
Having said all of this - the facts are also that this is a hobby. If a person enjoys slabs for what they are, then all the more power to them in their hobby that they are enjoying.
As is said over and over on this forum, "Buy the coin and not the slab." Now you know why.
Posted 02/03/2020 07:53 am
