Early slab collectors. Here's something you don't see every day

Weiss

Here's a short run of five really well-matched Morgan photoslabs, all San Francisco, in chronological order (1878-1882), all graded MS65PL by the International Numismatic Society.

INS was the second Third Party Grader after Anacs (though an earlier thread here at CU claims they beat Anacs by a few months).

If I understand correctly, this generation slab was contracted from Accugrade. These are all dated 1988:

Downtown1974

I’m not a huge slab collector, but those are pretty damn cool!

coinbuf

Very nice I have one or two of those slabs also, it was used by several companies in the early days and I rather like the slab myself.

brocmitchell

Seeing these photos triggered the "reach for wallet" involuntary impulse. I'm a sucker for a nice PL Morgan (much less five) and old slabs such as these! Please PM me if these can be found for sale somewhere!

johnny9434

Way cool, i like

ricko

I like those... Though I am not a slab collector, I likely would buy one or two of those at a show...Cheers, RickO

1630Boston

Very nice and interesting

ThreeCentSilverFL

Those are cool!

DCW

Would it be a lot cooler if the photo on the front of the slab was the reverse side of the coin? That way, you could look at both sides without turning tbe slab over 🤔

Weiss

PerryHall

The slabs are very cool but the assigned grades are very generous.

MWallace

Another INS item.

Weiss

@PerryHall said:
The slabs are very cool but the assigned grades are very generous.

I actually don't think the assigned grades are very generous.

Remember this was almost 35 years ago. Most collectors had cut their teeth on "Unc" and "Gem Unc" at this point. Most of us had never seen a "61" or a "64". Even 63s were an anomaly we were still getting used to.

So were these closer to a "Gem" than an "Unc"? I would argue they were.

As for the "PL" designation--they weren't calling them "Ultra Cameo" or "Deep Cameo". They were just indicating they had mirror surfaces. Definitions and standards have changed in the 35 years since these were slabbed. For them to have been within a point or two several decades later is pretty damn good in my opinion.

moursund

I was wondering why the pictures, but not so much the coins themselves, seem to have dmpl surfaces

Weiss

Here's the current PCGS standard for "Deep Mirror Proof Like"

And the current PCGS standard for "Proof Like":

Here's our home town hero. Remember, this isn't the grade, it's just the cameo & fields.
Which one is she closer to, DMPL or PL?

joeykoins

Awesome

Thanks for sharing.
Beautiful coins to boot.

BStrauss3

Honestly, I don't think these came from Accugrade. The Accugrade patent is for a 3 compartment slab. This is a 2 compartment slab, which - using a die cutter on the label - does a neat workaround of the patent. But I've never seen any convincing contemporaneous data, just some random claims in adverts that were disputed.

joeykoins

@BStrauss3 said:
Honestly, I don't think these came from Accugrade.

I agree.
However, they do look like a PCI product similar to my slab. With the photo of the coin right next to it.

ChrisH821

Those are really nice!

moursund

Top picture in this thread shows this guy, and I wondered why the picture showed more DMPL than the coin:

@Weiss shows this, where the coin clearly shows the mirroring

Where did that second mug shot come from? It shows the coin to better advantage!

pointfivezero

@brocmitchell said:
Seeing these photos triggered the "reach for wallet" involuntary impulse. I'm a sucker for a nice PL Morgan (much less five) and old slabs such as these! Please PM me if these can be found for sale somewhere!

I'm also in the market for an INS slab if anyone has one for sale at a reasonable price as it is a hole in my current collection (PM's welcome). There is one on ebay now but it is a bit expensive for my purposes, which is just to own the holder regardless of the coin it contains:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/274924800494

Tim

BStrauss3

@joeykoins said:

@BStrauss3 said:
Honestly, I don't think these came from Accugrade.

I agree.
However, they do look like a PCI product similar to my slab. With the photo of the coin right next to it.

Yes, the PCI and INS slabs are the same. Also used by INSG, Global, and CoinVault. Fairly recently at that. The newest coin I have in a Global slab is a 2014-D Sacagawea.

If the cert#s are trusty, Internation Numismatic Grading Service (INSG) did over 7 million coins in photoslabs (I have cert#s from 1644219 to 7623621)

There are two other INS label styles known, a dark yellow from Philadelphia (copyright on the text is 1992) and a bright yellow from Aston, PA (with a 1997 copyright date).

joeykoins

@BStrauss3 said:
Yes, the PCI and INS slabs are the same. Also used by INSG, Global, and CoinVault. Fairly recently at that. The newest coin I have in a Global slab is a 2014-D Sacagawea.

If the cert#s are trusty, Internation Numismatic Grading Service (INSG) did over 7 million coins in photoslabs (I have cert#s from 1644219 to 7623621)

There are two other INS label styles known, a dark yellow from Philadelphia (copyright on the text is 1992) and a bright yellow from Aston, PA (with a 1997 copyright date).

Hmmm? Interesting?

Weiss

@moursund said:

Where did that second mug shot come from? It shows the coin to better advantage!

It came from the fourth post above your original question?

Shooting mirrors accurately is difficult, and I try to avoid it.

BStrauss3

Rarely seen is the INS Grading Analysis...

Weiss

@BStrauss3 said:
Rarely seen is the INS Grading Analysis...

Awesome. And it reiterates my point: These were legit grades for the time and for this service that seemed to be sincere and honest graders. That they might not have overlapped 100% with current standards doesn't meat they weren't accurately and honestly graded back in the 1980s