"The only ones that will ever get slabbed are the more expensive and high grade ones. Those will probably go up in value, but they have and will continue to do that with or without slabbing."

Not exaclty true here Walter.

Define "EXPENSIVE"?

Who decides what will be sent in for slabbing?

Who is to stop someone from grading current very limited material?

Who decides what is MORE EXPENSIVE?

And why is there such a difference in prices between one point in grade?

Why do the slabbing companies and pro slabbers want a grading system with SO many different grades?

Read this message and check out the links.

http://www.thechipboard.com/cgi-bin/tcbarc04/tcbarc04.pl?read=123793

The potential seller MUST first believe that their item is worthy of being slabbed. BUT it's the grading company who has the final end all say as to what the final grade is. You only have your worthless opinion as to what grade you believe your PRE SLABBED is (after all you are going to PAY someone else for their opinion). And too many times the grade will come back to the seller as a BIG disappointment. Why else would there be more slabbed grades 7,8 & 9 Baseball cards out there that are not worth squat compaired to that Mint Gem 10.

Casino Chips are markedly different from baseball cards in that recently there have been some VERY LIMITED editions. And there are some chips that were pulled from play by gaming, for instance the Riviera XXX Stars, which created a very short supply and made them expensive so how long before these are slabbed? Or the recent $25 chips that were limited to 100?

As for the slabbing of the Baseball card in the link I provided, why should one prefessional grading companies MINT GEM 10 opinion be worth more than anothers? After all we don't know who the person is that actually graded the cards.

And who is to say that the exact same person didn't grade the same MINT GEM 10 card for both companies due to the scenario I followed up with here..

http://www.thechipboard.com/cgi-bin/tcbarc04/tcbarc04.pl?read=123910

My concern regarding the Baseball card slabbing industry is: That with the millions of that one particular baseball card that were printed, why are there so few MINT GEM 10's compaired to the exact same ones graded at the next level down. "My OPINION" here is that the slabbing companies do so in order to keep the market for those few MINT GEM 10 cards more valuable.

The last part of your statement makes no sense for slabbing to take hold.

"Those will probably go up in value, but they have and will continue to do that with or without slabbing."

So why then, should someone have pay good money to have the item slabbed if they will only continue to go up in value?

The only difference I see regarding slabbing is the $$$$$$$$$$ in the eyes of person selling the MINT GEM 10 vs the person who has the exact same item for sale NOT SLABBED!

The other problem I've seen in the Card hobby is that if it isn't a MINT GEM 10, it's TRASH. Why else could I purchase a MINT 9 card for $2? I know it costed the person who had it slabbed a lot more than that!

I am trying to believe that most pro slabbing people believe that they have their potential buyer's concern regarding grading as a high priority when it comes to a sell, but I really don't belive that Slabbing companies can do a better job at this than most of our club dealers and collectors who have been in the hobby much longer than the slabbing companies have.