TOPIC:

This single clasp (Cape Colony) QSA has appeared on eBay with asking price of $834 USD. Apparently slabbing a medal warrants an inflated price.....



..

Only in the US of A!

I remember watching an episode of Pawn Stars several years ago. Although it wasn't a discussion point for the week, my eye caught some SA medals (some of them Boer War) in a glass case behind Rick. The prices were on display for a moment and I recall thinking to myself that those medals would never sell at those inflated prices! I wonder if they ever did.

Rory

Slabbing kills collecting. It is unsightly, discourages research and attributes value to an opinion of someone who may or may not be an expert in the field. It glorifies grade over historical value, it adds unnecessary cost to an item and floats on the false premise that ownership is the sole objective of collecting, ignoring the fun of the chase, the excitement of discovery or the value of learning from your own mistakes. In my main field of collecting, Gouvernement’s Noten issued by the ZAR during the Boer War, slabbing is changing the profile of the collector from knowledgeable enthusiast to ignorant investor, something greatly abetted by entities such as Heritage Auctions, a behemoth auction house entirely focused on profit, based on the workings of the bigger-fool theory. I fear the trend towards slabbing is irreversible as it coincides with the general dumming-down of society.