CGS - A customer-facing business?

[jaggy 528]

I really don't understand where the problem is.

Just because a coin is 'graded' does not prevent the collector from making up his/her own mind. When I bid on Heritage lots I look at the coin not the grade the TPG has given it.

And just because a coin arrives 'slabbed' does not prevent anyone from breaking the slab and storing the coin as they see fit.

Of course, from the buyer's point of view, finding that rarity and paying a fraction of its value is always attractive. However, from the seller's point of view, that might be somewhat less attractive.

People collect coins for different reasons and enjoy them in different ways. Grading and slabbing is not about collecting. It is about protecting buyers and sellers in a global, online, market.

Sadly that is not the case at all. Forgeries already exist in forged slabs, it will not be too long before the forgeries become better and then your online protection is not worth the stamp it will cost to post it.

The rest of your post I have no argument with at all. If we all liked the same things, in the same presentation, the world would be a dull and very expensive place.

Unfortunately, you get forgeries in every collecting market whether it be antiques or art. There will be forgeries whether they are in slabs or not. But that, in itself, does not invalidate the practice of authentication.

[coin watch 1]

I really don't understand where the problem is.

Just because a coin is 'graded' does not prevent the collector from making up his/her own mind. When I bid on Heritage lots I look at the coin not the grade the TPG has given it.

And just because a coin arrives 'slabbed' does not prevent anyone from breaking the slab and storing the coin as they see fit.

Of course, from the buyer's point of view, finding that rarity and paying a fraction of its value is always attractive. However, from the seller's point of view, that might be somewhat less attractive.

People collect coins for different reasons and enjoy them in different ways. Grading and slabbing is not about collecting. It is about protecting buyers and sellers in a global, online, market.

Sadly that is not the case at all. Forgeries already exist in forged slabs, it will not be too long before the forgeries become better and then your online protection is not worth the stamp it will cost to post it.

The rest of your post I have no argument with at all. If we all liked the same things, in the same presentation, the world would be a dull and very expensive place.

Unfortunately, you get forgeries in every collecting market whether it be antiques or art. There will be forgeries whether they are in slabs or not. But that, in itself, does not invalidate the practice of authentication.

A true collector will know his stuff enough to not need the practice of authentication. For me a person who puts some detail to an item should only do so if they know the item in question inside and out, these slabbing companies cannot know every thing about every coin, like the old adage says "jack of all trades-master of none" To put a large amount of money behind something that person has got to have good knowledge otherwise leave well alone, but if entering for investment then that's a chance you take, like buying shares!

[TomGoodheart 403]

A true collector will know his stuff enough to not need the practice of authentication. For me a person who puts some detail to an item should only do so if they know the item in question inside and out, these slabbing companies cannot know every thing about every coin, like the old adage says "jack of all trades-master of none"

Weeeeell ... I'm not sure I'd go that far .. in that I'm sure there are collectors by date and so on for whom a Freeman, Sharp or Peck number not only wouldn't mean anything, but might just not be of interest. Because we all collect in different ways.

And poor beginners can't be expected to know everything from the get go. It's a learning process that never really stops as far as I can tell. And yet, we repeatedly tell noobs 'buy the best you can afford'!

But yes, I'd expect someone who adds detail to a coin's description to have the knowledge to back up their claims. And as for authentification, well, that's what dealers and auction houses used to do. And as far as I know, still do. Look at Chris Rudd's 'double your money' guarantee for example. In theory, if you buy from a reputable source, you should be able to expect to get what you are buying, at least in terms of authenticity.

Grading, well, that's another matter as I'm sure we've all observed how a coin graded nVF 10 years ago can be found to have crept up to gVF in the intervening years. But is that so different from slabbed coins being 'set free' and resubmitted in the hope of an upgrade?

[coin watch 1]

A true collector will know his stuff enough to not need the practice of authentication. For me a person who puts some detail to an item should only do so if they know the item in question inside and out, these slabbing companies cannot know every thing about every coin, like the old adage says "jack of all trades-master of none"

Weeeeell ... I'm not sure I'd go that far .. in that I'm sure there are collectors by date and so on for whom a Freeman, Sharp or Peck number not only wouldn't mean anything, but might just not be of interest. Because we all collect in different ways.

And poor beginners can't be expected to know everything from the get go. It's a learning process that never really stops as far as I can tell. And yet, we repeatedly tell noobs 'buy the best you can afford'!

But yes, I'd expect someone who adds detail to a coin's description to have the knowledge to back up their claims. And as for authentification, well, that's what dealers and auction houses used to do. And as far as I know, still do. Look at Chris Rudd's 'double your money' guarantee for example. In theory, if you buy from a reputable source, you should be able to expect to get what you are buying, at least in terms of authenticity.

Grading, well, that's another matter as I'm sure we've all observed how a coin graded nVF 10 years ago can be found to have crept up to gVF in the intervening years. But is that so different from slabbed coins being 'set free' and resubmitted in the hope of an upgrade?

I regard the likes of Sharp and Peck (also Freeman, but I have not much knowledge of this one) as guides, along with the likes of other illustrated guides like Spink, but they still don't authenticate a single coin. Like you say authentication was done by dealers and auction houses, and hopefully they still do, though they have also been known to be fooled by the fakes, as have these slabbing companies. What I'm trying to get at is no type of 'authentication' can be 100% guaranteed with a previously unknown coin/new coin to the market.

So putting aside the coins with proven provenance (illustrated from old collections etc) I personally would not trust to pay a premium for a slabbed coin just for what it says with it.

There is no other way for a beginner/investor to buy with confidence without a decent knowledge of what they are buying, without this it is down to chance and trust and therefore a gamble. Everyone has to start somewhere and still the best way (I think) is to research and to contact other like minded collectors/experts (dealers etc) who may specialise in the beginners likes. Then over time the beginner can make their own judgement and grow. This cannot be bought in a slab!

[Coinery 1,156]

'cabinet friction' is a myth traditionally perpetuated by some dealers to account for very slight wear on a supposedly UNC coin.

But aren't those lovely old toned-uncirculated coins, with the toning lightened at the high spots, but not worn, isn't that cabinet/storage friction/wear?

[Sword 1,477]

If plastic was invented two hundred years ago and coins were being slabbed since say 1816, then there is much less fun collecting milled coins today. For a start, you won't get the wonderful tones developed over the centuries. There will also be plenty of lustrous "uncirculated" (in all sense of the word) of Victorian and Georgian coins and owning one will therefore give little satisfaction. Personally, I think slabbing of recent coins to be pointless and see little benefit in slabbing mid grade coins unless they are particularly rare.

However, I do think there is a place in coin collecting for slabbing and have confessed that I have slabbed high grade coins (AU or UNC). I did that mainly for the protection of the coins as I can then look at them casually and frequently without fear of damaging them. I know many of us feel (probably quite rightly) that we can look after our coins properly. But accidents / mishandling are bound to happen as coins are passed through generations of keepers. For example, how many Victorian, 1902, 1911 or 1927 proof sets today are still in truly mint FDC condition? Very very few. Even that magnificent example of a 1935 raised edge proof crown that Azda has brought recently and will slab is not (in my view) prefect mint state. The official cases, although infinitely more handsome than plastic slabs have not proved to be ideal for storage. Even the 1937 Edward VIII model crowns, currently offered on sale on this very website have toning spots due to incorrect storage. I know that problems can develop in slabs too but that is comparatively rare. As Bill pointed out, most of the air is extracted when slabbing and that must go a long way to stopping problems.

Would I slab a 1927 proof set if I were to buy one (I won't as I have decided to concentrate on circulating coins)? No, because I cannot bring myself to take them out of the handsome case. But what if all 6 coins are truly mint FDC? Then I will probably do it in a heartbeat as there might not even be ten perfect sets now in existence and I don't want to be the one damaging one set. I will probably want to admire such a rarity regularly and easily.

Hence, I do think that there is a percentage of coin (the figure of course depends on the individual) worth slabbing and I am very glad that there is a TPG in UK.

[Sword 1,477]

duplicate post

Edited March 18, 2013 by Sword

[ski 1]

My collection consists of both raw and slabbed coins in the ratio of maybe 100 to 1, ive 10 slabbed coins by CGS and a few NGC coins.

i used to have more cgs items but have moved them on, including the the 3/- i bought from Rob which clearly was not an unc 85 by any stretch of the imagination, it had to go.

So CGS is the best for uk coinage compared to US slabbing companies, maybe so, but theyre going the same way.

CGS used to have standards that would reject a coin if it was corroded/scratched etc etc, but now like US tpgs, theyre happy to slab anyway.....i believe this has led to a drop in the integrity of the CGS system.

my question to Bill therefore is, how are these coins included in the CGS database?. i can understand that a very rare/valuable coin may still merit encapsulation for the purposes of preservation ( a point still to be proved over time) and a service that CGS offered without grading or inclusion into its database, but are they included in league tables etc etc. if so....i believe that is detremental to the whole cgs ethos of grading and reselling the best british coins.

or are these yellow ticketed coins in a seperate table/grade.....maybe they should be

are they given a uin for inclusion in tables?......maybe they shouldnt be.

i dont dislike the CGS slabbing idea, i have reservations about some of their grading ( the reason for selling most of my slabs, some of my unc 80's were better than my unc 85's!!!!)........i like the conservation idea, but only time will tell if this is to be completely believed.

But as dave and peckris have pointed out.....coins have been preserved by collectors over a few centuries without problems, so why the need to plasticise.

Also, i am concerned by the notion of buying the slab rather than the coin, its a phenonimum that has gripped the usa market, here in the uk?, maybe so...interestingly heres a quote from bill on the cgs site

"Interestingly I now seek to have at least UNC (when CGS graded) and if I see an UNC 82 I may buy it to replace an UNC 80 that may already be in my collection!"........even Bill if the 80 has more eye appeal?????.

Lastly, where does this leave us with eye appeal???........so CGS has a collection of coins as masters for all coins to be graded against...great so far. and 2 graders grade against these masters, also good.......except, it involves 2 humans.....and guess what, humans like eye appeal........and no matter how robotic you can make the human system with a standard set to grade to.......1 guys gonna like one coin more than the other, and thats going to affect the grade.....maybe by grading thats just 1 or 2 points, or maybe far far more..........as both myself and Rob has found out.

Ski

Edited March 19, 2013 by ski

[Paulus 1,975]

Just to add a few things I was told or witnessed when I visited CGS last week:

• there are 3 graders for every coin (not 2)
  
• 'cabinet friction' is graded as wear, in the same way as any other wear
  
• there is no specific plus or minus for 'eye appeal' (like there is for some of the US TPGs - apparently)
  
• rejected coins may be slabbed but are not graded or valued, and are only included in the population report as 'rejected'
  
• their photography is all indoors using a standard desk lamp bulb for lighting, and an Olympus SP500UZ camera with macro, 3Mb resolution, and a white balance adjustment
  
• the main factors in their grading (against benchmark coins exhibiting varying degrees of these factors) are:
  
• Hairlines
  
• Friction/Wear
  
• Striking
  
• Marks/Problems (bag marks, dings, edge knocks, etc)
  
• Lustre
  
• These factors are manually assessed against the hundreds of benchmark coins available and entered into a computer program that produces a grade for that grader's assessment. Although they wouldn't tell me the different weighting applied to these factors in their algorithm, I was told that of these 5 the 2 that would count most against a coin's grade were hairlines and marks/problems
  
• Coins will also be marked down for 'non-progressive spots' (e.g. carbon spots, haymarking, adjustment lines, fingerprints), and would definitely be rejected for 'progressive spots' (e.g. verdigris)
  

It was all very interesting! I recommended to them that this information should be provided to the paying customer, who currently only gets to see the final grade!!!

Incidentally, while I was there I asked more about what it was about my Northumberland shilling that gave the game away when it was (thankfully) rejected in March 2012 ... and I found out something about these forgeries that I didn't know before. Apparently one of the most telling factors is in the formation of the 6 - most of the forgeries have a sharper intersection between the top curve and the circular bit (pardon my ignorance on what these bits are called!):

Edited March 19, 2013 by Paulus

[Rob 3,152]

Interestingly the 85 bank token was noted by Steve Lockett in passing as 'Ooh, the finest known', but as a coin was in worse grade than the quite heavily toned ANACS slabbed 64 that I also had listed at one point and about which disparaging remarks were made by him. On balance I don't think that one had AT and certainly had less wear than the 85, but it did have a 2mm mark hidden in the legend, so sadly also had to go. One day I'll get a mark and wear free example to fill the 3/- denomination spot.

[Rob 3,152]

Comparing Paulus' with one that predates the Chinese pieces, the most striking thing is the porosity seen on the modern copy. Another consistent factor is 'bulkiness' of the characters, crown jewels and pearls and the lack of any 3D relief on the tops of letter. The border teeth are usually a bit indistinct on the copies too.

http://i1122.photobucket.com/albums/l530/paul_whittingham/1763_Shilling_Rev03_zpsed292dc0.png

[Peter 615]

Slabbing can cover up edge knocks...I've seen it via London coins CGS A £90 Farthing with a ding ends up in a slab.£150...Absolute bollocks.I don't go to a Merc garage to buy my BMW.Just learn your subject.

[Coinery 1,156]

[*]'cabinet friction' is graded as wear, in the same way as any other wear

Apparently one of the most telling factors is in the formation of the 6 - most of the forgeries have a sharper intersection between the top curve and the circular bit

So they acknowledge the existence of Cabinet Friction, they just mark it down for wear, which we all would do!

Can anyone further clarify the 6 thing as, comparing Paul's to Rob's, it isn't leaping out at me?

[Rob 3,152]

[*]'cabinet friction' is graded as wear, in the same way as any other wear

Apparently one of the most telling factors is in the formation of the 6 - most of the forgeries have a sharper intersection between the top curve and the circular bit

So they acknowledge the existence of Cabinet Friction, they just mark it down for wear, which we all would do!

Can anyone further clarify the 6 thing as, comparing Paul's to Rob's, it isn't leaping out at me?

Nor me. The most obvious thing to my eyes is the broadening of detail arising from the cast made. If any imperfections are tooled out in the resulting cast, the detail would broaden further.

[azda 979]

If plastic was invented two hundred years ago and coins were being slabbed since say 1816, then there is much less fun collecting milled coins today. For a start, you won't get the wonderful tones developed over the centuries. There will also be plenty of lustrous "uncirculated" (in all sense of the word) of Victorian and Georgian coins and owning one will therefore give little satisfaction. Personally, I think slabbing of recent coins to be pointless and see little benefit in slabbing mid grade coins unless they are particularly rare.

However, I do think there is a place in coin collecting for slabbing and have confessed that I have slabbed high grade coins (AU or UNC). I did that mainly for the protection of the coins as I can then look at them casually and frequently without fear of damaging them. I know many of us feel (probably quite rightly) that we can look after our coins properly. But accidents / mishandling are bound to happen as coins are passed through generations of keepers. For example, how many Victorian, 1902, 1911 or 1927 proof sets today are still in truly mint FDC condition? Very very few. Even that magnificent example of a 1935 raised edge proof crown that Azda has brought recently and will slab is not (in my view) prefect mint state. The official cases, although infinitely more handsome than plastic slabs have not proved to be ideal for storage. Even the 1937 Edward VIII model crowns, currently offered on sale on this very website have toning spots due to incorrect storage. I know that problems can develop in slabs too but that is comparatively rare. As Bill pointed out, most of the air is extracted when slabbing and that must go a long way to stopping problems.

Would I slab a 1927 proof set if I were to buy one (I won't as I have decided to concentrate on circulating coins)? No, because I cannot bring myself to take them out of the handsome case. But what if all 6 coins are truly mint FDC? Then I will probably do it in a heartbeat as there might not even be ten perfect sets now in existence and I don't want to be the one damaging one set. I will probably want to admire such a rarity regularly and easily.

Hence, I do think that there is a percentage of coin (the figure of course depends on the individual) worth slabbing and I am very glad that there is a TPG in UK.

Plastic was invented in 1855, 158 years ago, i think the problem lies in that there was no TPGs in 1856 and they did'nt think about plastic holders back then

[azda 979]

Just to add a few things I was told or witnessed when I visited CGS last week:

• there are 3 graders for every coin (not 2)
• 'cabinet friction' is graded as wear, in the same way as any other wear
• there is no specific plus or minus for 'eye appeal' (like there is for some of the US TPGs - apparently)
• rejected coins may be slabbed but are not graded or valued, and are only included in the population report as 'rejected'
• their photography is all indoors using a standard desk lamp bulb for lighting, and an Olympus SP500UZ camera with macro, 3Mb resolution, and a white balance adjustment
• the main factors in their grading (against benchmark coins exhibiting varying degrees of these factors) are:
• Hairlines
• Friction/Wear
• Striking
• Marks/Problems (bag marks, dings, edge knocks, etc)
• Lustre
• These factors are manually assessed against the hundreds of benchmark coins available and entered into a computer program that produces a grade for that grader's assessment. Although they wouldn't tell me the different weighting applied to these factors in their algorithm, I was told that of these 5 the 2 that would count most against a coin's grade were hairlines and marks/problems
• Coins will also be marked down for 'non-progressive spots' (e.g. carbon spots, haymarking, adjustment lines, fingerprints), and would definitely be rejected for 'progressive spots' (e.g. verdigris)

It was all very interesting! I recommended to them that this information should be provided to the paying customer, who currently only gets to see the final grade!!!

Incidentally, while I was there I asked more about what it was about my Northumberland shilling that gave the game away when it was (thankfully) rejected in March 2012 ... and I found out something about these forgeries that I didn't know before. Apparently one of the most telling factors is in the formation of the 6 - most of the forgeries have a sharper intersection between the top curve and the circular bit (pardon my ignorance on what these bits are called!):

Good info this Paul, here's hoping it does'nt get lost in time on the forum

[Coinery 1,156]

Good info this Paul, here's hoping it does'nt get lost in time on the forum

I've a funny feeling this CGS thread is going to be around for a very long time, it'll all come down to whether you can get a week off work to read it!

[Coinery 1,156]

What I did find interesting, given we have mostly said that buying a coin blind from CGS is a better option than from most other sources, is that they don't include eye-appeal. Namely, they haven't determined any markings for or against for toning, suggesting to me that a black coin or an untoned gem, or a half-moon-toned (coin on coin) coin, would achieve exactly the same grade, if all other components of the calculation were the same?

The TPGC soup is altogether enough to put you off collecting anything more recent than Charles I!

[TomGoodheart 403]

'cabinet friction' is a myth traditionally perpetuated by some dealers to account for very slight wear on a supposedly UNC coin.

But aren't those lovely old toned-uncirculated coins, with the toning lightened at the high spots, but not worn, isn't that cabinet/storage friction/wear?

Yes. But "cabinet friction" is of course still wear. Though I'm not sure about it being a myth. OK, I'm pretty sure nobody here with a cabinet sits their coins straight in the recesses without a felt cushion first. And the holes in the trays are appropriate to the size of the coins, minimising their sliding about.

But I can imagine that at a dealers, or in a museum, where all the coins are popped into a crown-size tray, if the felt inserts had gone missing and were the tray to be slid in and out of the cabinet all day long,... or even the coins just taken out and returned to a paper envelope over a year or two ... over time you'd get that very effect.

Whether it still happens, I don't know. Most dealers I've seen seem to sit their coins on felt or in 'Lindner' type trays. But possibly back a few years ago ....

As to the wear quotient, well, yes. It's been packaged up to make it sound more acceptable .. a sort of 'Yes it's worn,.. but only because it's been in a (possibly premium) collection somewhere!" ..

Acceptable or not? That's down to eye appeal and individual collectors maybe. I've a couple of coins that exhibit high point wear quite attractively, I think ..

Edited March 19, 2013 by TomGoodheart

[Bill Pugsley 0]

I think the more sterile coin collecting becomes the less new collectors we'll see. I think by encapsulating coins you're alienating the collector, or at least those who want to collect coins and not graded Holders.

Where will the fun be then when a slab Tells you exactly what you have, what grade/rarity etc.

The fun in this hobby is actually finding those rare pieces that the seller did'nt realise what he was selling, having it already slabbed is taking away quite a majority of the fun IMO.....

I agree about the "fun in this hobby is actually finding those rare pieces that the seller did'nt realise what he was selling". We all love to do that. What is also nice is to discover a new type of a given year/denomination and have it recognised. Some of the coins I submitted to CGS for grading have transpired to be new variations or on occasions scarce varieties that I had failed to recognise because in some cases I had accepted the description of the dealer who sold them to me (more than one example where the dealers are long established) to find the die pairing was scarce or rare, not catalogued etc. Mind you, I have submitted coins that I thought were a scarce specific die pairing to discover they were in fact common.

I am not aware of any encapsulated coin collectors who do not also collect raw coins (although I suspect there must be some). I can understand the concern about new collectors being dissuaded from the hobby if there were only encapsulated coins around but I do not see grading and slabbing supplanting the ongoing joy of having raw coins (for one thing the cost will deter most). Even where people do go for encapsulated coins I suspect the vast majority of the coins (contrary to earlier suggestions) that are submitted for grading will be for rarer, scarcer or superb items. The downside it is those same items that will inevitably attract the investor and perhaps remove the coins from the reach of most collectors.

[Paulus 1,975]

What I did find interesting, given we have mostly said that buying a coin blind from CGS is a better option than from most other sources, is that they don't include eye-appeal. Namely, they haven't determined any markings for or against for toning, suggesting to me that a black coin or an untoned gem, or a half-moon-toned (coin on coin) coin, would achieve exactly the same grade, if all other components of the calculation were the same?

The TPGC soup is altogether enough to put you off collecting anything more recent than Charles I!

The 'lustre' component of the grading would take this into account, the point was made to me that there wasn't a specific category for 'eye appeal'.

I also asked about the location of marks, dings etc, and yes, if there are problems in the middle of the face, for example, rather than half-hidden in some design detail, then these would count as more 'serious' problems and the coin would score less.

Edited March 19, 2013 by Paulus

[Nick 329]

What I did find interesting, given we have mostly said that buying a coin blind from CGS is a better option than from most other sources, is that they don't include eye-appeal. Namely, they haven't determined any markings for or against for toning, suggesting to me that a black coin or an untoned gem, or a half-moon-toned (coin on coin) coin, would achieve exactly the same grade, if all other components of the calculation were the same?

The TPGC soup is altogether enough to put you off collecting anything more recent than Charles I!

The 'lustre' component of the grading would take this into account, the point was made to me that there wasn't a specific category for 'eye appeal'.

I also asked bout the location of marks, dings etc, and yes, if there are problems in the middle of the face, for example, rather than half-hidden in some design detail, then these would count as more 'serious' problems and the coin would score less.

That seems rather a subjective judgment. A bagmark is a bagmark no matter where it is located. Although the location of the bagmark may well help you to choose one ahead of the other, it shouldn't affect the grade.

[azda 979]

I'm just going to toss everything in the Mix here and say, if i was to buy a slabbed UK coin blind it would be a CGS coin because i cannot trust American TPGs to properly identify/grade and hope its actually not a fake as has been seen from NGC, looking back at the last stacks auction i think there was 3 Coins in there with Labels stating that what was inside was extremely rare when they were normal issue coins.

I also spoke to a Canadian seller on eBay who also sold UK Coins graded by NGC and those were also labelled as rarities when they were'nt. Soooo for me, American TPGs won't get very much of my money.

[azda 979]

What I did find interesting, given we have mostly said that buying a coin blind from CGS is a better option than from most other sources, is that they don't include eye-appeal. Namely, they haven't determined any markings for or against for toning, suggesting to me that a black coin or an untoned gem, or a half-moon-toned (coin on coin) coin, would achieve exactly the same grade, if all other components of the calculation were the same?

The TPGC soup is altogether enough to put you off collecting anything more recent than Charles I!

The 'lustre' component of the grading would take this into account, the point was made to me that there wasn't a specific category for 'eye appeal'.

I also asked bout the location of marks, dings etc, and yes, if there are problems in the middle of the face, for example, rather than half-hidden in some design detail, then these would count as more 'serious' problems and the coin would score less.

That seems rather a subjective judgment. A bagmark is a bagmark no matter where it is located. Although the location of the bagmark may well help you to choose one ahead of the other, it shouldn't affect the grade.

Grading is subjective Nick lol

[Gary1000 41]

If plastic was invented two hundred years ago and coins were being slabbed since say 1816, then there is much less fun collecting milled coins today. For a start, you won't get the wonderful tones developed over the centuries. There will also be plenty of lustrous "uncirculated" (in all sense of the word) of Victorian and Georgian coins and owning one will therefore give little satisfaction. Personally, I think slabbing of recent coins to be pointless and see little benefit in slabbing mid grade coins unless they are particularly rare.

However, I do think there is a place in coin collecting for slabbing and have confessed that I have slabbed high grade coins (AU or UNC). I did that mainly for the protection of the coins as I can then look at them casually and frequently without fear of damaging them. I know many of us feel (probably quite rightly) that we can look after our coins properly. But accidents / mishandling are bound to happen as coins are passed through generations of keepers. For example, how many Victorian, 1902, 1911 or 1927 proof sets today are still in truly mint FDC condition? Very very few. Even that magnificent example of a 1935 raised edge proof crown that Azda has brought recently and will slab is not (in my view) prefect mint state. The official cases, although infinitely more handsome than plastic slabs have not proved to be ideal for storage. Even the 1937 Edward VIII model crowns, currently offered on sale on this very website have toning spots due to incorrect storage. I know that problems can develop in slabs too but that is comparatively rare. As Bill pointed out, most of the air is extracted when slabbing and that must go a long way to stopping problems.

Would I slab a 1927 proof set if I were to buy one (I won't as I have decided to concentrate on circulating coins)? No, because I cannot bring myself to take them out of the handsome case. But what if all 6 coins are truly mint FDC? Then I will probably do it in a heartbeat as there might not even be ten perfect sets now in existence and I don't want to be the one damaging one set. I will probably want to admire such a rarity regularly and easily.

Hence, I do think that there is a percentage of coin (the figure of course depends on the individual) worth slabbing and I am very glad that there is a TPG in UK.

Plastic was invented in 1855, 158 years ago, i think the problem lies in that there was no TPGs in 1856 and they did'nt think about plastic holders back then

They used to vanish them, not a lot different really.