I am looking to learn how to value coins and all but no clue where to start. Is there a nack to it? Can anyone teach me or anything?
Look at many different price guides, ended auction bids. Greysheet In the end nothing is exact. Market conditions change and the prices change with it. But if you can not grade the coin properly then the price guides are useless
To estimate the value of a coin you must first determine its condition. You can trust the seller (not always the wisest thing to do), you can trust the grade assigned by a TPG (a better choice as long as they are one of the top-tier TPGs but still not without risk) or you can grade the coin yourself. Next you will need to refer to a pricing guide or auction records to estimate what a coin in that condition may be worth. There are a lot of intangibles that come into play, e.g., eye appeal, strike, toning, etc. Just because one coin graded MS-64 sold for $750 does not mean your MS-64 example will bring $750. The former coin may be a high-grade MS-64 (say an MS-64.8 if you will) whereas your example may be a low-grade MS-64 (perhaps an MS-64.2). The former coin may have a strong strike with almost all details while your example may be a weaker strike. The former coin may have some attractive natural toning while yours either has no toning or dark unattractive toning. In the end a coin is worth whatever a buyer is willing to pay for it. (And that buyer must be ready, willing and able to buy for his offer to be legitimate.)
Pick up a copy of the 2011 Red Book. You can get one in any coin shop for like 15 bucks. They have pictures of just about every US coin, ways to deterimine the condition, and listings for value. It looks like this:
I agree with this one 100%. But, I would put the most emphasis on the ability to grade a coin. Take for example an 1882-O Morgan dollar, which I recently purchased. MS64 goes for $110, while MS65 jumps to over $1200. To the average person, the coins do not look a whole lot different.
Well, I have to say The Redbook is a great wealth of information, but the prices are almost always inflated. I have found Coin World and Coinage's price guides pretty accurate to real market prices.
Sell coins, at first you will make a ton of mistakes and probably will lose money just attempting to be a seller, than after much trial and error you will find a time when you do better than breaking even. Once you have bought and sold coins for a while, there will come a time that you can hold a coin before you sell it and have a pretty close guesstimate in mind for how much you will have in hand if you sold it after all the dust settled (i.e. costs, fees, and shipping).
