Do medal collectors care about slabs?
PutTogether
Posts: 2,141 ✭✭✭
I have essentially zero experience in the world of medals. I've been playing around, buying stuff I think is neat, just getting my feet wet. My preference with sub $1000 coins is generally to break them out of slabs. My question is, since I don't really know how long medals will keep my interest, are they a giant pain to sell broken out of slabs?
If I knew I was keeping them forever, I'd break them out immediately, but I don't want to do that just yet if they are impossible to sell raw.
I'm mostly talking about Assay Commission medals and So-Called dollars. Nothing crazy expensive: $300-$1500 range. (not sure if that matters)
If I knew I was keeping them forever, I'd break them out immediately, but I don't want to do that just yet if they are impossible to sell raw.
I'm mostly talking about Assay Commission medals and So-Called dollars. Nothing crazy expensive: $300-$1500 range. (not sure if that matters)
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In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
I prefer my medals in inert protective slabs, and on that basis, I wrote an article for the Journal of the Medal Collectors of America (MCA) titled "In Favor of Encapsulation."
I can tell you that I was resoundingly blasted by the membership with comments posted in response to my article. I was chided that medals were "intended" to be handled, so no harm could come to the medals from such handling, and that once I had matured and "learned" how to handle raw medals properly, I would see that slabs were totally unnecessary. I found that viewpoint to be quite a biased response from those collectors trying to tell other collectors what they "should" do with their own property. I will also say, those same collectors admitted that they when it would come time to sell, they knew they would get better prices if the medals were slabbed before sale!
I like the security of having medals encapsulated, knowing that no matter how many times I examine them, no harm comes to the medals, and they remain preserved for the future. (Remember every worn VG Lincoln penny shows the results of being handled raw over many years.)
If some future owner is unhappy with a slab, they are welcome to crack it out themselves, just like you are considering to do now, and if some future owner wants a medal encapsulated, they can do that on their own also.
There are certainly plenty of medals out there that would grade G to AU, and I can say that in most cases I would much prefer a mint state example. "Cabinet friction" which is very common, especially on 3 inch hunks of brass, can be distracting on a medal that is otherwise flawless. It's a good day when you find a large, 150 year old medal without it.
As for so-called dollars, I think that's a completely different game that I can't really speak to. I think for this realm of collecting the slab and grade can be super important to enhancing the value.
Their making everything in China now.
No thanks. We've all seen stellar coins that are incredible...except for that staple scratch or rim bruise! That's not going to be me if I can help it.
100% slabs for me.
--Severian the Lame
For me, finding a raw medal also has more of a sense of adventure and discovery, like finding an item that was tucked away for a very long time yourself.
That being said, slabbing does provide protection and value. On the purchasing side, the opinion and guarantee can provide additional peace of mind while on the selling side, they can help if the pieces had to be sold by someone unknowledgeable, or quickly. Like coins, TPG grades can be especially important for realizing values for condition rarities that are not monster toners.
For coin-size and smaller, I actually have come to prefer flips because you can rotate the piece and see the entire edge and the adjoining face of the coin. I'm not sure if slabs will ever have that much visibility but it's something to think about. But for protection and especially resale, I do appreciate slabs.
So I love raw medals, but I really appreciate slabs for protection and resale, especially when combined with TrueViews.
Most of my medals are bought raw. I protect them all with airtite holders or similar.
I like to protect them as best I can.
I can't see any reason to crack out a nice, uncirculated example.
If it is a lower grade, circulated example and you want to crack it out and hold it
go ahead. You usually don't find these in slabs anyway.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
Recently I bought a very scarce Tiffany Brayan dollar in a slab. The whole thing a is moose, and it's larger than it needs to be. I'd love to crack it out, but would probably loose a few hundred dollars if I did.
I put my Libertas Americana medal in a custom made Capital Plastics holder before there were slabs. It's still there. My other pieces are mostly in Safe-T flips and flannel pouches unless I bought them already slabbed. I've never had any preservation issues using this method.
I don't like medals in slabs because the slabs are so darn big. You can hardly store them in a safe deposit box because they take up so much room.
Recently I bought a very scarce Tiffany Brayan dollar in a slab. The whole thing a is moose, and it's larger than it needs to be. I'd love to crack it out, but would probably loose a few hundred dollars if I did.
I put my Libertas Americana medal in a custom made Capital Plastics holder before there were slabs. It's still there. My other pieces are mostly in Safe-T flips and flannel pouches unless I bought them already slabbed. I've never had any preservation issues using this method.
I agree that slabs take up space -- sometimes a LOT of space! For example, one of my recent purchases was a 2015 restrike of the Libertas Americana medal (I know...it's just a modern creation) stuck in one full kilo of silver. The medal itself is 100mm in diameter, and the PCGS slab expands its space to 140mm wide by 218mm tall. That is a considerable amount of extra space taken up just by the slab.
For me, the thing is, though, I like to let other people see the medals in person through public displays, and even provide the opportunity for the medals to be seen up-close and in-hand, so that a person might be able to examine something they may have never seen before. Of course, if this all took place in a very secure environment with the only attendees being well-known seasoned collectors, it would probably be fine to have these pieces passed around raw. (Before Walter Husak's epic large cent collection was sold by Heritage, Heritage hosted just such an event at an EAC Conference, and the attendees got to handle each and every coin raw. BTW, the rims of all of those coins were pink at the end of the event.) However, if we're talking about a truly public display at a coin show, where there may be newcomers to the hobby, accidents certain can happen. I have seen my fair share of coins dropped at coin shows over the years; those that were slabbed survived just fine, and those that were raw? Well, let's just say that's what insurance is for!
If the intention is for the coins or medals to spend the majority of their time in a safe deposit box or other secure storage, then the cost of storage may be the deciding factor. For myself, the extra safe deposit box rent for the extra storage space is well worth it, and the total annual fees are still a very small percentage of my annual budget for buying coins and medals.
This was our conversation --
From AVW:
I am not a blogger on the PCGS Coin forum but just read your response to the MOA criticism of slabbing medals. So here's my response:
I've collected rare historical American medals since the early 1960's and have a better coll'n than John Ford , altho not as extensive. I doubt anyone owns a equal or better select coll'n of pre-1900 silver and gold American medals.
That said, there is no one prescription for slabbing rare medals.
My preference to have a medal with its original presentation case and I'd say at least 1/3rd of my medals are in their orig cases, some quite ornate. The cases tend to "disappear" when a medal gets slabbed. They are "part" of the medal itself.
NGC does a miserable job of grading slabbed medals ignoring noticeable arms-length rim dents and high relief raw rubbing as seen with the recent McClure/Newman IPM's auctioned in Long Beach.
So many historical medals have edge markings from the Paris Mint id'ing them as restrikes of a certain time frame and these rim markings are no longer clearly visible in slabs.
So many IPM's, for instance, are brz silver plated and one of the keys to discerning if they are skillfully deceptively plated is to examine how just how thin the planchet is- quite difficult when a medal is slabbed. The US Mint was very "chincy" in making silver IPM's and their silver planchet thickness is noticeably thin for the width or diameter of the medal- one of the 1st things I look at when I examine a silver IPM. .A thick IPM is invariably a plated brz.
So-called dollars, by and large, were poorly regarded in our hobby and valued insignificantly until NGC started slabbing them. So many so-called dollars in high slab grade ie MS-67 up, are priced and possibly sell at enormous and totally unwarranted prices with no regard to just how rare they are in that grade. So-called dollars, in the main, are totally unsaleable unless slabbed. Few oldtime collectors appreciate or collect so-called dollars, remembering well how common the vast majority is even in ex high grade.
Certain ex high grade rare historical medals, for their own protection like my Virgil Brand-- Logies Libertas Americana silver must be slabbed.
Virtually all of my medals are raw and in some cases actually removed from slabs - this is my preference.
So there is NO rule as to slab or keep raw a medal. It depends upon the medal series and the collector's expertise and the collector's preference. And the rarity of the medal and whether an original case is present.
You have my permission to send this response to the MOA Journal (I'm not a member) for publication consideration or post it on the PCGS Forum.
Response by ML
Thank you for your email! I truly appreciate your perspective. You are a true connoisseur, and the consummate numismatist! I would trust any raw coin or medal to your hands any day!
I agree with you that the original presentation cases have great importance, and would make very worthy holders for a medal collection. Sadly, the original presentation cases I have in my collection date no earlier than 1976, and mostly are really no more than modest shipping containers and of negligible meaning. Yours, of course, are valuable pieces of Americana themselves!
While I mentioned NGC in my article for the Medal Collectors journal, I did that only for completeness, as I agree, NGC does a HORRIBLE job with grading medals. I have been helping PCGS as they have been expanding their services for medals, and while they still make mistakes at times, they truly try their best and do a far better job than NGC.
The issue of the edges remains to be dealt with properly for slabbed medals. In my most recent work with PCGS, they have been willing to examine the edge and include the edge-markings on the label. For most of their holders now, there are openings in the gasket that allow the edge to be seen, which helps as well. I believe it would also be helpful if the PCGS photography would capture the rims, in addition to the obverse and reverse, for those medals that warrant it. For historical medals, many do have edge markings as you say; with most recent medal emissions, the mints of the world are keeping the edges plain.
A big part of my preference for slabs is my tendency to feature coins and medals in educational public displays. When I had displayed my Large Cent type set at Long Beach several years ago, one elder gentleman remarked to me that he had never seen an actual Chain Cent in person, and said he had always believed those were just a concept chronicled in history books but never made. Seeing my Chain Cent in person was the highlight of his visit, seeing something he never knew existed!
With public displays like that, security becomes a paramount issue, as the items on display generally get handled by more than just the owner. Visitors may get the (supervised) opportunity to look at a coin or medal in hand, and with the item encapsulated, there is lesser worry of damage or theft. (I once saw a dealer drop a Pan-Pac Octagonal $50 from chest height onto the cement floor of the Santa Clara convention center. The PCGS slab it was in cracked up greatly, but the coin itself was unharmed.)
For public displays, the slabs also help with set-up and inventorying, to keep everything accounted for. For a display of just a dozen or so pieces, that may not be a big deal, but for larger collections, that can be a significant concern. For example, for the display I'm planning for the Libertas Americana pieces, I already have 35 distinctly-different specimens of the original medals and official restrikes, plus 101 distinctly-different specimens of the 1876 Centennial-era tokens, making for a total of 136 pieces so far, ranging from 23mm to 100mm in diameter. Their encapsulation will be most helpful when those go on display.
The marvelous Brand-Weinberg-Logies Libertas Americana medal remains raw thus far. It is magnificent, and I have enjoyed examining it immensely! It will, of course, be encapsulated before becoming the star of the upcoming display!
Thank you for your permission to forward your response to the Medal Collector's journal and/or the PCGS forum! I am sure the membership will be very pleased to hear your perspectives! I am currently working on an article for the Medal Collector's journal regarding the notable die states of the original Libertas medals, and it was your Virgil Brand specimen that documented the key diagnostic to my eyes for the first time. (As luck would have it, the lower-grade silver Libertas medal I have turned out to be from the very earliest known state of the dies, which made the later die state of your Brand piece jump out to me.)
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
I respectfully disagree about SCD value in high grade--but what do you expect from someone who chases them?
I do agree big time on the original cases and the greater likelihood of their getting lost or discarded. I was reluctant to slab my 1930 Iceland 10 Kronur for that very reason. In the end, that became part of the reason: The potential rub from the case itself.
--Severian the Lame
As a medal collector, and an IPM collector in particular, that was a wonderful post. Thank you
US Civil War coinage
Historical Medals
By the way, what is an IPM?