To heck with the slab!

I'm fairly new at numismatics (only two years or so) so what I am about to write may very well be based upon my own ignorance -- so be it, i've looked like a fool before!

Why is it really necessary to have coins (at least relatively modern issues) slabbed at all? I can see issues that have a great deal of fraud involved, especially gold and (from what I am hearing) trade dollars. But there are other methods of acquisition and conservation out there that don't involved NGC or any other company. Why not go back to the "good old days" of building a collection for the joy of having it, "rank" be darned? I'm sorry, I guess this thought really stuck in my head when I saw an NGC PF70 silver Delaware quarter sell for over $2700.00. After taking a loupe to the same exact type coin in my collection, I saw no difference. Is that $2700.00 the value of the coin, or of the slab? What are we really collecting here? Just my ungraded, unslabbed, two cents worth.

By the way, speaking of my two cents, here is my newest acquisition -- a nice two cent piece for my type set collection. I call it an AU-55. No slab, but from a dealer with many years in the business and a great reference list.

18652cent.