Ancient Coins: Should you slab your coins?

Third-party grading and slabbing is very popular on modern coins, particularly on the US market. The slabbing of Ancient Coins, however, is a relatively new thing and has caused quite a bit of division between ancient numismatists.

Today, lets go over a couple of positive and negative sides of slabbing your ancient coins, so you can determine with a little bit more information if you want your coins slabbed or not!

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[druzhynets]

Handling coins is the most important part of collecting, at least for me

[officeguy]

Excellent topic. I’m 63 and have been collecting since I was five. Out of the thousands of coins I have in my collection, only four are slabbed. It is incredibly satisfying putting on a pair of gloves and holding a coin in your hand that someone else held all those years ago. Being able to examine the coin from all sides is important to me. In a slab the coin becomes just an object in a piece of plastic. It loses that sense of history and wonder of who hands it has passed through before getting to me. When I watch YouTube videos of people sending out coins to be slabbed, they rarely say they are doing it to protect the coin but talk about how much more money they can get for the coin if it gets the grade they want. To me slabbed coins are more for people that are just flipping coins to make a quick profit.

[JohnnyProfit]

Hello chat. I am an american and have been collecting coins for 20 years. This has become one of my favorite channels. If I may, I've been all around my Country to coin shows. I've made some big scores and I've made some purchases that I dont like. Graded coins have always been a "plus" for me, but in today's times I find that I dont agree with much of NGC's grades. Furthermore, on ancient coins you need to know quite a bit about the coin when you send it in, otherwise they not grade it anyways and charge you. This wasnt a big issue before. But they haveost many of their good ancient graders. Retirement, PCGS, etc. I will say that as an american ancient coins are so scary to many of us. There are so many fakes, and horror stories. So on big purchases I have bought from a slabbed seller. But I've since cracked many of them open. I will shorten this some. I want to thank Classical Numismatics. I love your passion. The correct way to pronounce Latin and other languages on these coins. You also gave a teaching style that is fun and very informative. I've become more confident on purchases of late. I will ask for us that do most of their purchasing on eBay. Sending coins in that I'm not sure kf can take months. By the time I get an answer that ebay seller may be gone or may not care since the 60 day guarantee is up. Is there a website for ancient coins where the lovers and collectors of them could perhaps post pictures of them for help? I have 3 very close ones I'd love help with. Also. I have a slabbed Athena Tet. It shows authentic. However I've never in my life seen one like this. Full crest. And perfectly placed. It looks authentic but I am wondering if this looks to anyone else like. Special engraving was done and careful striking. I mean the obverse is nothing like any I've seen personally of Athena. I'd love to see a video that may go over special dye engravers of popular coins or if when like a tournament was on Athens if they struck special ones for the contestants or something. I've been told by local dealers that the Athens Tet I have was possibly engraved by someone special. I'd be so grateful for help on any of these questions. Thank you again chat for your patience and again Classical Numismatics. You really are special and the time it must take you to do these videos is not lost on me I have my own YouTube channel (not this account) I dont like using my channel to post in comments and take away from the creator that I'm visiting. It's also an EDC channel and even though I carry a coin with me daily as a pocket piece and at least one day a week it is an ancient coin. I still would not like to post that name here now anyways thank all of you god bless and I'd love to hear your thoughts on a good site and the distinction between engravers.

[Numischannel]

Excellent! I would only add: slabbing also makes impossible close examination that would allow you or an expert to jugdge the authenticity of the coin; you cannot, for instance, check the edge. Although they are now including the weight, they do not include other physical data (such as diamater, thickness, etc.) which may be important if you are conducting a study. Finally, slabbed coins are difficult to compare when you are making a die link study, which is essential specially in Greek coins.

[BopWalk]

Another option is also DIY Slabs like Lighthouse QuickSlabs and other brands too. They have a nicer black background and you can reopen the cases anytime you like. Also a good option if you want to display your coins too.

[richardlindquist]

Excellent video. A word that might help newer collectors -
I have selectively had several coins graded and slabbed, mostly to help my kids figure out what they are. Although they all graded as CVF or higher with good surfaces and strikes, most also had comments “brushed” to which I would say “no shit.” Even the nicest hoard coins have been cleaned and conserved to some extent, so such comments on a nice piece are often meaningless. On these particular pieces the cleaning was done in the past and enhances the overall piece. If it’s a sound coin and you like it, that’s probably the most important thing.
YMMV.

[peterleffler]

I fully agree with the final statement given in the video. I love to interact with my coins - feel, smell, breath it. So I would never cover them with plastic. Again congrats for the great video!

[madblazer]

excellent points. Can never understand imprisoning beautiful coins in a slab. I guess it comes to whether you look at coins as an investment or an emotion. :)

[BopWalk]

Excellent video. This was a much needed explanation outside of coin collecting forums.
I personally don't like handling coins but I favor DIY Slabs which you can reopen whenever you want and I love displaying them that way. Plus the black background is better than the white background of NGC slabs. I have tray holders that fit 6 slabs each tray and it's been a real joy so far.

[nsi-nbsecretary]

I have bought many NGC coins and have unslabbed all of them. I appreciate the additional opinion on the authenticity but do not always agreed with the attribution (ancient coins). The unslabbing is for the reason others have expressed here - I like the physical connection with the past. So if you are collecting to invest, keep the slab, otherwise enjoy the experience

[markp]

Very much prefer countermarks and ancient damage.. that is your coolest coin.
This video is excellent, can't wait to share it with all my slabber friends!!!

[jarrodcain]

I like buying from my dealer because he puts them into custom slabs where they can stay protected, has a tag with a description but they are also easy to remove and handle if you wanted too.

[jodydotson]

I have some slabbed and some raw. I like having some that I can actually hold in my hand and feel the history.

[fredpierce]

Being 72 years old, i remember when a VF was NOT called an XF and a XF was not hiked to AU by either dealers or Grading Services. Today we are told it’s a matter of opinion…..BS….. it’s a matter of greed!

[Juan.M.santos]

Personally, I hate those coin prisons that prevent me from appreciating them to their full extent. However, I find a great success those capsules that can be opened and closed easily and safely, and that incorporate a material designed to protect the coins.

[tanishjain]

i am a beginner collector with no source of income (still 17) so as of now, I prefer cheap ancient coins, worn and torn, within my budget I just wanna hold a piece of history in my hands, look at its features, frequently touch it with my hands (carefully of course!), so in conclusion I would prefer unslabbed coins, probably in the future too, when i would be able to buy iconic coins i just want to touch them physically, if i wanted it inside a plastic container, from which i can't remove the coin, why would i buy it in the first place?

[romulus]

I could never slab my coins. I have to handle them with my bare hands. If I wasn’t able to do that, I wouldn’t want to collect them.

[jackdaniels]

here is my opinion.

i own both slabbed and raw coins (us and ancients, 80% ancients are raw). i believe that with slabbing ancients, it is fine however they should include more information on the labels and guarantee it for sure like david sear does (sear certfies coins without slabbing them, very trusted in the community).
i own slabbed ancients bc i transitioned from 10 yeaes plus of US Coin collecting (i still do). most of my ngc slabs are of valuable coins; i love to hold and own my coins when i can, i 100% agree with you that there is nothing else like holding an ancient. however for people like me who have a skin condition (eczema/certain allergies, makes it hard to always carry coins raw) & people converting from US, slabs are not bad at all.

Only issue with slabs are the lack of authentic guarantees & lack of info. also some scrupulous individuals price slabs much higher than they should be, but not many do this in my opinion. i have found several good deals on nice slabbed ancients & have paid high too.

if they started doing all this, would you buy coins slabbed? ill continue to buy both lol!

keep in mind this is only a summary of the slab problem, so i haven't addressed everything.

u/savixe, if you ever wanna talk/see some of my slabbed ancients or raws, hit me up on my reddit.

cheers!

[wollin]

I would never buy a slabbed coin, unless it's so beautiful that I want it, to free it at home (not to manipulate it frequently, but to see it on an elegant medal showcase). Anyway, I really don't need a third party (nor even a first, actually I only trust myself to evaluate if I find a coin beautiful or not). I collect coins I like and I can afford, simple as that.

[Buzzygirl]

I can understand why people would slab some extremely expensive or rare coins, but I own no slabbed ancient coins myself.