In some cases thousands, in others...nothing

I recently had an experience that made me step back and ponder the question...how much do we pay for slabs? I'm not refering to the cost of submission, but the "extra" we pay for THE SAME quality coin in various holders.In my case lately it appears to be $300-400. I submitted 3 coins for re-grade{and these were PQ...I studied dozens of photos in auction archives of coins in this grade range}and 4 for crossover from PCGS to NGC...with special instructions that if they crossed-over, that they also be looked at for upgrades.I got a call from an NGC grader who said they would not know if they could be upgraded while in the holders, only whether they would cross...I said ok....I was confident in my assessment I said. He warned me then...IF they do not upgrade, you could lose significant money on re-sale by having them in a holder by NGC instead of PCGS.I was stunned that he said this{although very impressed with the service and honesty}and muttering to myself all day about the injustice of THE SAME COINS losing hundreds of $'s each just because of the holders!!! I went back to the auction archives and saw that it was true, these coins/dates/series sell for significantly less in a non-PCGS holder.How naive I was...I thought that my fellow collectors were like me....searching for beautiful, quality coins to fill a collection...not searching for that elusive slab with a PF70 typed on it.I guess it really is all business, the dealers must recoup their losses, after all, those PF69DCAM slabs usually sell for less than the cost of submission.I could build an entire set of PCGS PF69DCAM of all denominations from 1990-now for less than $10 a coin{except for a few of the silver ones}...ok, maybe I'm stretching it, but not by much. Anyhow, after saying all of that I still will buy only slabbed coins for my higher valued part of my collection...I know they are authentic and not cleaned/whizzed/tooled/artificially toned etc.. and usually pretty accurately graded..within a point or two...JAX