Assurance for the Investor

For the investor interested in buying quantities of Uncirculated Morgan dollars, or Saint-Gaudens $20 pieces, or other popular series, slabs offer the assurance that many if not most other buyers and sellers will agree at least approximately with the numerical or technical grade, and that slabbed coins are readily salable at a generic or sight-unseen price. In a market in which investors dominate the market for Uncirculated and Proof coins in higher grade levels, slabs would seem to be a blessing for the uninformed buyer; not the ultimate answer, and not the be all and end all, but an extremely valuable service nevertheless. In general, low-end and unattractive slabbed coins tend to be sold to investors and unknowing buyers, who are more interested in "good buys" than in quality, as I noted earlier. Many investors don't even know about quality, for they have been conditioned to believe that one coin graded MS-65 is just as good as any other coin graded MS-65.

Satisfactory Experiences

Many people, undoubtedly the majority of investors and a goodly number of collectors as well, have had thoroughly satisfactory experiences with the leading certification services. Writing in Coin World, Maurice Rosen, a grader for NGC and publisher of The Rosen Numismatic Advisory, defended the certification services against criticisms made earlier in the same publication by others. Excerpts:

"`Not a change for the better in our human housekeeping has ever taken place that wise and good men have not opposed it - have not prophesied that the world would wake up to find its throat cut.'- James Russell Lowell...

"Rather than being subject to hyperbole, the buyer has been unburdened of confusion and danger by the PCGS and by NGC. Rather than suffering losses, the high-end `slab' buyer has been cleaning up profits while the buyers of low-end coins may have been gaining hours of enjoyment but little or no profits. Rather than buying coins before a soon-to-become more conservative grading standard, the buyer has seen a consistent standard in effect for four years, backed by hundreds of dealers and rock-solid guarantees.