Are most coins in museums not graded (Any grading company)?

TheGoonies1985

When I visited the coin museum up here in Canada all coins were raw. Is it the same in the USA or other countries any of you visited?

gumby1234

Most museum coins would be details graded due to being wiped and or cleaned. My guess would be most museums have raw coins

WCC

Yes, of the few I've visited or seen images.

BryceM

Well, coins can be graded without living in a slab, but I assume you're talking about coins in TPG plastic slabs with grades on the labels.

I've seen plenty of coins in museums and none of them were in a TPG slab.

I'm sure they exist, but not where I've been.

jmlanzaf

Why would you bother? It potentially interferes with viewing while creating confusion for the casual viewers.

Elmhurst

They are not graded and stored improperly without any climate control system, as such the silver tones black. They should all be released to collectors who know what they are doing.

TheGoonies1985

I imagine the Smithsonian is better in handling their raw coins?

MetroD

@PillarDollarCollector said:
I imagine the Smithsonian is better in handling their raw coins?

Since you mentioned the Smithsonian, link.

Steven59

I imagine people go to museums to see what original historical pieces looked like as they were used in society. If they want to see slabs of plastic then they can go to a coin show.

Sapyx

Museums would never entrap and entomb an artifact inside a plastic coffin where people could never examine it - for the museum mindset, the whole point of holding artifacts is so that professional experts in those artifacts can examine them. In the case of coins, that would be professional numismatists. "Putting them on public display" is of secondary importance, since a public display could just as easily be made using replica artifacts; only a numismatist would be able to tell the difference. A display of replicas is probably preferable in many cases, to deter casual theft.

Slabs were invented for investors, so that investors and speculators could more easily commoditize coins - to make it easier to buy and sell them sight-unseen. Such buying and selling of genuine artifacts is completely anathema to a museum. Museums do not care even slightly about "preserving the value" of their collection, since they will never be sold. TPGs themselves exist primarily to benefit collectors, and museums would not pay money to such an organization that enables, assists, aids and abets collectors. For the museum mindset, private coin collecting is wrong, and should be discouraged.

Museums may not care about "value", but they do care about conservation, to ensure the artifacts remain in pristine condition for future experts to examine. They also have complete confidence in their own ability to authenticate and preserve the artifacts in their care. Most of the coins in most of the museum collections worldwide have probably been waxed, which was standard practice for coin collectors too not all that long ago. Renaissance Wax was invented by the British Museum in the mid 20th century specifically for the purpose of preserving metallic artifacts like coins. Wax has most of the benefits of slabbing a coin in terms of environmental protection, while still readily allowing "in-hand" examination.

The university where I work has an antiquities museum with a small collection of ancient coins (about 250). When I last examined it a decade or so ago, just one of them is in a 2x2, which was how the museum received it as a donation from an anonymous benefactor who had bought it from a local coin dealer - the museum seems to be treating the entire object (including the 2x2) as a single artifact. All their other coins are "raw", and displayed in wall-mounted cabinets with mirrored backs (so you can see the other side of the coin, reflected in the mirror).

crazyhounddog

Most were donated long before the TPG’s existed. So with that said the answer would be yes, most are raw.

Tomthecoinguy

For the most part museums do not bother to grade and slab coins. Having a 3rd party grade is really only important for resale, if you have no plans to resell your coins there is no point to it.

I met with the curator of the numismatic collection of the Smithsonian, and got a behind the scenes look at their facilities last year. Their numismatic room had the huge trophies you would expect, but also had more attainable coins. They were meant for education and were attainable for collectors with even a modest budget. The point is that the Simonian is not against collectors, and do things to help inspire and promote the hobby.

JWP

I donated 5 civil war era coins to a small Civil War battlefield museum a couple of years ago and they were not graded. Alot of visitors to these museums are not collectors and have never seen some of the different type of coins. Thet nay never have seen a graded coin before either. I donated aC3CS, 3CN, and 3-IHCs. They people that ran the museum had never even heard of any of the coins, let alone seen one.

2ndCharter

For the museum mindset, private coin collecting is wrong, and should be discouraged.

Another reason I despise museums and will never donate anything to them.

horseyride

I was under the impression that slabs were invented for museum preservation then progressed from there.

Cant find proof of that, but from 2008 "Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History today announced a pilot project to assess the use of protective coin holders for the National Numismatic Collection housed at the museum. The 200 most rare, unique and famous American coins in the collection will be placed into customized plastic holders that will allow greater access to coins while improving their protection." at NGC

jmlanzaf

@horseyride said:
I was under the impression that slabs were invented for museum preservation then progressed from there.

Cant find proof of that, but from 2008 "Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History today announced a pilot project to assess the use of protective coin holders for the National Numismatic Collection housed at the museum. The 200 most rare, unique and famous American coins in the collection will be placed into customized plastic holders that will allow greater access to coins while improving their protection." at NGC

Slabbing most decidedly was not invented for museums. It was invented for sight unseen coin sales/investments. Museums, in fact, were more prone to coating coins in a corrosion retardant.

Now museums did "invent" the idea of storage under inert atmospheres and the prevention of oxygen from reaching surfaces. But their approaches were not individual encapsulation in a plastic slab. They either coated the artifacts in lacquer or put the entire collection into a nitrogen box.

For example, see the info sheets here:

https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-resources/caring-for-artifacts

Such as this one for brass/copper.

https://www.thehenryford.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/the-henry-ford-brass-amp-bronze-conservation.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Sapyx

@horseyride said:
I was under the impression that slabs were invented for museum preservation then progressed from there.

Cant find proof of that, but from 2008 "Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History today announced a pilot project to assess the use of protective coin holders for the National Numismatic Collection housed at the museum. The 200 most rare, unique and famous American coins in the collection will be placed into customized plastic holders that will allow greater access to coins while improving their protection." at NGC

A core aspect of these special holders developed for the museum can be found halfway down the linked page:

Placing the coins in these protective holders allows researchers to view and handle them safely. The holders are not permanently sealed and staff is able to easily access the objects if necessary.

Emphasis mine. These are not traditional slabs in that they're not sealed up - so "expert numismatists" can open them up and examine the coins directly, and put them back in, at any time.

They probably also take them out of the slabs to put them on public display. The "slabs" are just for storage.

And that article does date from 2008, where the slabs are a "pilot project"; you'd have to ask the Smithsonian if they were still using them, or had reverted to traditional trays.