Call me skeptical

If a German company wants to dispense gold by vending machine, can a vending machine for slabbed coins be far behind?

I started having these thoughts when a colleague e-mailed me a link to a Fox News story. Perhaps you have already seen it as well, but just in case, here is a link. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,527055,00.html

Theoretically vending coins could work. The rationale for slabbed coins, which are coins authenticated, graded and encased in holders by a third-party grading firm, is that you could trade them sight unseen.

Vending purchases definitely would qualify as buying sight unseen.

Not attracted to the idea? I’m not really either.

Buying coins sight unseen has never really taken root in numismatics. Quite the opposite has happened. Hobbyists look at the slabbed coins closely to see if they could be ungraded on a resubmission.

So, as the results of the law of unintended consequences, coins are actually scrutinized much more closely in the professional field, because of slabs.

Perhaps the U.S. Mint could make this idea work. If U.S. banks don’t want to dispense current coinage, the Mint could place machines that vend Lincoln cents and Presidential dollars at those places around the country where collectors have been crying out for the them.

Yeah. Now there is an idea.