Confused about inexpensive slabbed coins

KevyKevTPA

So, as I stroll through the coin store known as EBay, I see all these slabbed coins for $15, $30, $50, even $75.

For some of these, the cost of getting it slabbed is more than the resale of the slabbed coin, or darn close as the values go up a bit. Why do people slab those coins? Are people just gambling it'll come back as a 69 or 70 (or, depending on the coin, a number that sends the price skyrocketing) and lost?

I don't get it, can someone explain it to me?

Kev

jerseycat101

Some people do bulk submissions of many coins for a much lower price. For example, PCGS offers a program where you can submit 100 coins for $14 each.

On the other hand, naive submitters think their coins are better than they are.

jmlanzaf

@jerseycat101 said:
Some people do bulk submissions of many coins for a much lower price. For example, PCGS offers a program where you can submit 100 coins for $14 each.

On the other hand, naive submitters think their coins are better than they are.

Actually the true bulk submitters can pay as low as $4 or $5 per coin.

I bought 1000 coins fresh from PCGS on Monday for $10 per coin from such a submitter. This is the entire submission, actually 7 submissions, still sealed in the shipping boxes.

To the OP, some of those slabs are grade mistakes by the submitter. A $5 coin in a $40 holder is still a $5 coin. Others are bulk submissions as outlined above. The guy I bought the submission from submits approximately 250,000 coins annually between NGC and PCGS.

For what it's worth...

LanceNewmanOCC

@jmlanzaf said:
Actually the true bulk submitters can pay as low as $4 or $5 per coin.

.
doing these between ngc and pcgs REALLY opens up a whole new segment of numismatics to those that have access/buy enough coins or can piggyback off a friend. especially lower dollar varieties and/or maybe mediocre toners. those that usually have these priviliges don't have much trouble filling those quotas because they usually have friends that can piggyback and are happy to do so. i think it is great for those that want to put together slabbed affordable full sets.

i'm surprised now this has been mentioned, we've not really talked about this around here or have a couple of bst threads soliciting coins to do ride-alongs for established members. say 50-100 coin minimum. get 10-20 people together and viola! the submitter would REALLY need to have private insurance in case of a worst-case scenario though so the claims process could go off w/o a hitch in a reasonable time frame.

i've participated in one of these a couple/few times and works out quite well and the person doing the submitting just adds a nominal handling fee because it does take a lot of work to go full circle on one of these big boys qty orders. if i had any sense i'd participated in more over the years.

PapiNE

The value of a coin is not the only reason to slab it.

jmlanzaf

@LanceNewmanOCC said:

@jmlanzaf said:
Actually the true bulk submitters can pay as low as $4 or $5 per coin.

.
doing these between ngc and pcgs REALLY opens up a whole new segment of numismatics to those that have access/buy enough coins or can piggyback off a friend. especially lower dollar varieties and/or maybe mediocre toners. those that usually have these priviliges don't have much trouble filling those quotas because they usually have friends that can piggyback and are happy to do so. i think it is great for those that want to put together slabbed affordable full sets.

i'm surprised now this has been mentioned, we've not really talked about this around here or have a couple of bst threads soliciting coins to do ride-alongs for established members. say 50-100 coin minimum. get 10-20 people together and viola! the submitter would REALLY need to have private insurance in case of a worst-case scenario though so the claims process could go off w/o a hitch in a reasonable time frame.

i've participated in one of these a couple/few times and works out quite well and the person doing the submitting just adds a nominal handling fee because it does take a lot of work to go full circle on one of these big boys qty orders. if i had any sense i'd participated in more over the years.

I don't think 2000 coins per year will get you there.

And you won't get $5 submissions on classic type coins. Those are bulk moderns, mostly. You might get $10 on others, but I don't think they can be onesy submissions.

lilolme

The 'Rules' at:

https://www.pcgs.com/services/bulksubmissions

Aotearoa

Nobody asked but this is one of my favourites from this genre. $15, postage included.

Namvet69

Interesting business model. Peace Roy

ricko

@KevyKevTPA.... Welcome aboard. Along with the information above, some people submit coins that are family heirlooms, or a special gift from a parent. The slab preserves the coin and the memory. Cheers, RickO

KevyKevTPA

@jerseycat101 said:
Some people do bulk submissions of many coins for a much lower price. For example, PCGS offers a program where you can submit 100 coins for $14 each.

That's much better than $38, but I don't own 100 slabbable coins, even at $14 ea. I may in the future because I've decided to invest some of our retirement money into bullion silver and gold, but those (usually) don't matter unless you took a sledgehammer to 'em lol...

@LanceNewmanOCC said:
i'm surprised now this has been mentioned, we've not really talked about this around here or have a couple of bst threads soliciting coins to do ride-alongs for established members. say 50-100 coin minimum. get 10-20 people together and viola!

Great idea, I'm in! When are we starting? I can submit all 8 of my Morgans (one of which is in an NNC slab at MS-66, and I think it might be accurate (though looking at the picture grading confused me a bit, because to my eye, the 66 looked better than the 67, at least on the obverse), and maybe my 3 peace $1s. I think they're MS, but I'm no expert.

@Aotearoa said:
Nobody asked but this is one of my favourites from this genre. $15, postage included.

If you're selling one of those for $15, I'll buy it! I've got 4 of them, but they're in horrible shape. A dip might help, but no idea what's safe to dip steel into, and even then I very much doubt they're MS. They almost look copper they're so discolored, wouldn't that be something If one was!

@ricko said:
@KevyKevTPA.... Welcome aboard.

Thanks much!

Kev

KevyKevTPA

Oh, I forgot to add that pretty much everything everyone said makes sense. But 250k coins a year!! Wow...

smalltime

@jerseycat101 said:
Some people do bulk submissions of many coins for a much lower price. For example, PCGS offers a program where you can submit 100 coins for $14 each.

On the other hand, naive submitters think their coins are better than they are.

I guess you can call me naive cause I send in coins a few times a year and am disappointed more often than not at the grades they get. I compare my coins to the pictures of already graded coins and photograde coins and mine look better, but still come back a grade or two lower. I can't afford to send em back for regrade. Seems like if I sent in a coin that was absolutely perfect it would come back as a 68.

jmlanzaf

@lilolme said:
The 'Rules' at:

https://www.pcgs.com/services/bulksubmissions

That is only the public bulk submission rules.

lilolme

@jmlanzaf said:

@lilolme said:
The 'Rules' at:

https://www.pcgs.com/services/bulksubmissions

That is only the public bulk submission rules.

I under stand that. It does however answer some question about what is eligible (particularly the 'classic'). How many different types of coins (in this case pcgs coin #) can be submitted. And other stuff. It states whom to contact if you have something outside of the 'rules' as I called them

I high/higher volume submitter will get a discount over this, just like they do with other types of submissions.

jmlanzaf

@lilolme said:

@jmlanzaf said:

@lilolme said:
The 'Rules' at:

https://www.pcgs.com/services/bulksubmissions

That is only the public bulk submission rules.

I under stand that. It does however answer some question about what is eligible (particularly the 'classic'). How many different types of coins (in this case pcgs coin #) can be submitted. And other stuff. It states whom to contact if you have something outside of the 'rules' as I called them

I high/higher volume submitter will get a discount over this, just like they do with other types of submissions.

Yes. But I really don't know if any of those rules apply.

For example, the slab deal I bought had submissions as low as 75 coins and the 75 coins were not identical. It was 15 SMS sets, for example.

lilolme

@jmlanzaf said:

@lilolme said:

@jmlanzaf said:

@lilolme said:
The 'Rules' at:

https://www.pcgs.com/services/bulksubmissions

That is only the public bulk submission rules.

I under stand that. It does however answer some question about what is eligible (particularly the 'classic'). How many different types of coins (in this case pcgs coin #) can be submitted. And other stuff. It states whom to contact if you have something outside of the 'rules' as I called them

I high/higher volume submitter will get a discount over this, just like they do with other types of submissions.

Yes. But I really don't know if any of those rules apply.

For example, the slab deal I bought had submissions as low as 75 coins and the 75 coins were not identical. It was 15 SMS sets, for example.

My post was directed toward the other posts in this thread talking about people getting together and combining coins to have group of coins and submitting for bulk. This sounded like nearly all of the coins would be different in either series, date or mm. I thought I would post the 'rules' because I didn't think the idea would be viable according to these 'rules'. Just wanted to let others in the post talking about this to know that it might not work that way.

KevyKevTPA

@lilolme said:

My post was directed toward the other posts in this thread talking about people getting together and combining coins to have group of coins and submitting for bulk. This sounded like nearly all of the coins would be different in either series, date or mm. I thought I would post the 'rules' because I didn't think the idea would be viable according to these 'rules'. Just wanted to let others in the post talking about this to know that it might not work that way.

That makes it sound quite difficult for anyone but a dealer or major collector, especially the restriction on date, mm, etc. But, for what it's worth, I've got 8 Morgans I would love to get dated, which would require breaking it up into two separate groups because none of them have the same date or mm, and 3 Peace for a total of 11 if there's enough folks with similar coins who are equally interested.

Mine are as follows:
Morgan $1
1878 7TF
1880-S
1883
1883-O
1884-O
1887
1889
1897 (This one is slabbed in an NNC slab at MS-66- If PCGS agrees, it's an $1,100 coin, but if it's "just" a 65 it's half that.)
1898-O
1902-O

Peace $1
1922
1923
1926

KevyKevTPA

Graded, not dated. Dates are pretty obvious...

Glen2022

To the OP, some of those slabs are grade mistakes by the submitter. A $5 coin in a $40 holder is still a $5 coin. Others are bulk submissions as outlined above. The guy I bought the submission from submits approximately 250,000 coins annually between NGC and PCGS.

even at four dollars per submission/coin, has over $1 million per year and grading fees. That's quite a chunk.

jmlanzaf

@lilolme said:

@jmlanzaf said:

@lilolme said:

@jmlanzaf said:

@lilolme said:
The 'Rules' at:

https://www.pcgs.com/services/bulksubmissions

That is only the public bulk submission rules.

I under stand that. It does however answer some question about what is eligible (particularly the 'classic'). How many different types of coins (in this case pcgs coin #) can be submitted. And other stuff. It states whom to contact if you have something outside of the 'rules' as I called them

I high/higher volume submitter will get a discount over this, just like they do with other types of submissions.

Yes. But I really don't know if any of those rules apply.

For example, the slab deal I bought had submissions as low as 75 coins and the 75 coins were not identical. It was 15 SMS sets, for example.

My post was directed toward the other posts in this thread talking about people getting together and combining coins to have group of coins and submitting for bulk. This sounded like nearly all of the coins would be different in either series, date or mm. I thought I would post the 'rules' because I didn't think the idea would be viable according to these 'rules'. Just wanted to let others in the post talking about this to know that it might not work that way.

Understood

jmlanzaf

@Glen2022 said:

To the OP, some of those slabs are grade mistakes by the submitter. A $5 coin in a $40 holder is still a $5 coin. Others are bulk submissions as outlined above. The guy I bought the submission from submits approximately 250,000 coins annually between NGC and PCGS.

even at four dollars per submission/coin, has over $1 million per year and grading fees. That's quite a chunk.

He actually spends $2 million+ between NGC and PCGS

cmerlo1

Sometimes, a dealer will be short a few coins to meet the minimum for a bulk submission, so they'll add a few 'cheap' coins to get the quantity where it needs to be. I've seen this a number of times.

PerryHall

@cmerlo1 said:
Sometimes, a dealer will be short a few coins to meet the minimum for a bulk submission, so they'll add a few 'cheap' coins to get the quantity where it needs to be. I've seen this a number of times.

This above and collectors/dealers who think their coins will grade higher than the grade it actually receives probably accounts for most of the low value coins seen in slabs. I remember a coin show many years ago where a dealer had a nice flashy full luster AU58 buffalo nickel in a PCGS slab for $7. There was a note with it that said "The cheapest slabbed coin you'll find at this show." At first glance, it looked like a high MS grade coin. Whoever submitted it must have had the same thought.

jmlanzaf

@PerryHall said:

@cmerlo1 said:
Sometimes, a dealer will be short a few coins to meet the minimum for a bulk submission, so they'll add a few 'cheap' coins to get the quantity where it needs to be. I've seen this a number of times.

This above and collectors/dealers who think their coins will grade higher than the grade it actually receives probably accounts for most of the low value coins seen in slabs. I remember a coin show many years ago where a dealer had a nice flashy full luster AU58 buffalo nickel in a PCGS slab for $7. There was a note with it that said "The cheapest slabbed coin you'll find at this show." At first glance, it looked like a high MS grade coin. Whoever submitted it must have had the same thought.

I don't know about "most". See my earlier post. I've got about 200 slabs here that are $15 and under that were intentionally submitted that way.

KevyKevTPA

@jmlanzaf said:

@PerryHall said:

@cmerlo1 said:
Sometimes, a dealer will be short a few coins to meet the minimum for a bulk submission, so they'll add a few 'cheap' coins to get the quantity where it needs to be. I've seen this a number of times.

This above and collectors/dealers who think their coins will grade higher than the grade it actually receives probably accounts for most of the low value coins seen in slabs. I remember a coin show many years ago where a dealer had a nice flashy full luster AU58 buffalo nickel in a PCGS slab for $7. There was a note with it that said "The cheapest slabbed coin you'll find at this show." At first glance, it looked like a high MS grade coin. Whoever submitted it must have had the same thought.

I don't know about "most". See my earlier post. I've got about 200 slabs here that are $15 and under that were intentionally submitted that way.

Do you mean the "to get the qty where it needs to be" reason, or some other?