I will be returning from Afghanistan a couple of weeks before the summer seminar begins so I have conviced the wife that it will make an excellent vacation My question is How basic is the "Introduction to Grading United States Coins" I belive I could skip it and head at least to the Intermediate but I would like to hear from someone who has taken the course on what they thought of it. In your reply please note how long you were a collector before taking the course. My only reason for thinking about taking the Introduction is becuse I am not where I want to be with gold coins but I am fairly coffident I am above "Introduction" status. Thanks, Joseph
Thanks for your service! If you understand the sheldon scale at all, go for the Intermediate grading class with Tom H. and Jerry B. I took it and it was real helpful for gold among other coins. Unless your wife is into coins, it wouldn't make for a fun vacation though. I do think it would be perfect for a returning service member. Perfect setting to unwind. Take care, matt
I want to make sure you understand that my comments are not intended to reflect on you personally, but it has been my experience that most people, and I mean almost all people, typically have a very misguided opinion of their own abilities when it comes to grading coins. And far and away the best way to rectify any inadequacies or misunderstandings in your own level of knowledge and experience is to start at the beginning. For that reason alone I would suggest that you take all the classes. If I may present a corollary. In my professional life I was considered to be the best there was. Yes, I had equals, but there were none better. And as such it was always my responsibility to teach my assistants and others so that they might learn my methods, share my knowledge, and move up as their careers progressed. That being said, whenever a new man came to work for me, even those who had quite a few years of experience under their belts, the very first thing I told him was to forget everything he knew. Now as you might expect, even given my reputation, that statement inevitably caused mouths to drop open and look of "yeah right" to appear on their faces. However, without exception, in later years every person I ever trained and even those who no longer worked for me would come to me say - you were right. So as I said - start at the beginning. You will be better served for doing so.
From what I saw the people in the beginning class were pretty bummed that it was so basic. Didn't even look at coins into the 3rd day. "This is a coin" and this is called a "planchet" kind of stuff. If you need that kind of intro, great, but don't spend bucks on it. JMO Matt With all due respect GDJMSP, this hobby doesn't have to be that hard. Although there are certainly people with lifelong devotion to the study of coins, they don't achieve some sort of Holy status. It really takes an astute person a few years at most to get current and enjoy coin collecting. The Intermediate class outlines what are problem coins and what clean grades should look like, and that makes purchases much more confident and enjoyable. That IS worth the tuition, and I don't remember the instructors telling us how awesome they are either. As an instructor, Tom H. really gets into the meat of it and you wouldn't even know he was the Pres of the ANA. Matt
Thanks for the response you two. GDJMSP: I agree (to a point) with what you stated. When I first joined the military, we were told the same thing about marksmanship. I grew up shooting and hunting so of course I did not heed the advice because “I probably knew more than the instructor”, well needless to say my first day on the range was an embarrassment. I quickly started to follow every piece of advice that was offered. That said, If the course is so basic as to discuss what a planchet is or the difference between the obverse or reverse then I believe I would be so bored that it would not be fun. However, my wife has told me that we “WILL be in the same class” so… looks like I am going to the Introduction….
Probably one of the best moves a collector can make is to make the one closest to them a part of what they do. This is from a divorced collector as we could not find enough things that we both could do together.
Well, I am trying to prepare her for the day when she will have to watch the shop when I am off at shows.
