What's in the future for the encased cent hobby?

As I was going threw my daily ritual of searching for encased cents on eBay, I discovered an auction for an encased penny that had been, again encased into a slab. It was a fairly common piece, a 1949 Rexall Encased Cent. The grading company labeled it as a "Token" and gave the piece a grade of "MS-68 RED". The thought of slabbing an encased cent for grading had never crossed my mind. I'm still not sure what I think about it. Could this be a new twist to the hobby of collecting encased cents? Will it drive the prices of nice "MINT" pieces to outrageous amounts as it has in the coin collecting hobby? And even more, will it drive the prices of less attractive, ungraded pieces down? I am sure there will be some good debate within the club and on other levels of the coin collecting world on this issue.

I have mixed opinions about this. This could actually benefit the long time collectors who have acquired thousands of pieces back in the day while they were still readily available for a very small price. Many of us have noticed that the prices and amounts people are willing to pay have risen in this decade. But could it also drive away some of the newer collectors, or even some of us with lower budgets? Someone odiously felt that this piece was in such immaculate condition that they felt it was worth the cost of submission to a grading service. My guess is that it was a dealer who gets discounted prices from the grading company because of the volumes in which they submit items. Is the collector willing to risk spending the amounts it costs to have their collection graded?

My initial feeling is that many collectors collect encased cents for a variety of different reasons. As some focus on finding as many different kinds as they can, others narrow it down to different types, or subjects. Some collect just pieces from their home state, just Indian head pieces, or other time eras, Chevrolet pieces, and so on... I cannot imagine that many collect encased cents as an investment for the future, but that could change with slabbing too?

I could be jumping the gun on this entire issue, and perhaps nothing anytime soon will ever change because of this. But I was very surprised to stumble across such a thing, that had never crossed my mind. And if it did take off, you would probably see a big difference in who the people are that collect them. You would soon get a lot of new interest in the hobby from people who never collect encased cents before, and they would approach it with an attitude of making money.

At the same time people who just collected for fun, or a variety of other reasons, will start to leave the hobby. What's in the future for the encased cent hobby? This and many other questions are sure to be asked. Many of our questions may have to wait to be answered as we sit, wait and watch to see what the future brings.