Here at The Purple Penny we are committed to the concept of third party graded and slabbed Australian coins. We believe that selling coins that are graded and slabbed by one of the big three third party grading companies (PCGS, ANACS, and NGC) that we are giving you, the discerning collector, the most assurance possible with regards to the grade, originality, and authenticity of a coin. However, from time to time you may see ungraded or “raw” coins available on our website. There are a number of reasons for this, these are detailed below.
1. The coin is in ‘transition’. We have purchased it ungraded or raw determining it to be the quality and grade of coin we wish to sell. The coin will be dispatched to PCGS for grading and is just waiting for us to get our next submission ready. Submissions can take 2-3 months to return from PCGS so we’ll offer up the coin while it is raw at a lower price to provide you with a buying opportunity. However, once dispatched such a coin will be placed on hold, and when returned from PCGS the price will almost certainly change from the raw price.
2. The coin is a top grade coin or an interesting example of a variety or error, but is simply not worth extra premium of getting it slabbed and graded. The cost of getting a coin slabbed and graded is not small and when adding this cost to certain coins it is just not worth the extra expense.
3. A coin has certain historical significance that makes it collectable but has faults that will preclude it from getting graded and slabbed by a third party grading company. For example, 200 to 300 year old proclamation coins may well have been cleaned 200 years ago (as almost all 200 year old coins have been at some time or another). Such a cleaning may well not allow a coin to be graded, but it does not affect the collectability or historical significance of such a coin. Please note when a coin has problems that we believe will preclude it from getting slabbed we will note it as such with the coins listing.
4. A coin is contained in packaging (usually from its Mint of issue) and is best sold in it’s original packaging.