United States Coins Literature

I wanted to discuss US Coins Literature. We could share thoughts and ideas and give recommendations. Right now I am reading the ANA Grading Standards for United States Coins. I desire to learn how to Grade coins. Right now I am consistently 1 to 2 points off up or down when I grade coins here on GTG threads and when I practice in person. As I am reading the ANA Standards I am somewhat overwhelmed. Lots of ideas to digest.

 

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One of these years I'm going to find the time and money to make it to Colorado for the ANA summer seminar. I would love to take their grading class among others.

 

I, too, use the ANA Grading Standards, but more as a reference than anything else. One thing you have to remember about the grading services, nowadays, is that they employ market grading standards that can be a bit contradictory and confusing for the newcomer who employs standards such as those in the ANA book.

Chris

 

I take that you are referring to technical grading vs. market grading. What are your thoughts on how coins get market graded? I still don't know what market grading is.

 

Well said. I use the ANA standards and guess a bit on what the services are going to say. There is another book I enjoy that was published by PCGS. Official Guide to Grading and Counterfeit Detection. I also enjoy The Art and Science of Grading Coins. It was wrote by Jason Poe. I'm proud to call him a friend and he is also a member here. We also have several members here that I call experts. I can't give names for fear I would leave someone out.

 

My thoughts? I'll leave market grading to the services. I don't want to get caught up in "who shot John".

Chris

 

I wanna know who Shot John, and Kennedy, and....

 

I went 3-4 years ago.
I generally graded low because I found I was technical grading.
I got better as the week went by.
I closed the gap but still often finished up lower than what the slabs indicated.

 

PCGS has a youtube series as well about their grading which is like a crash course of the grading classes they do

 

Would you say ANACS is not as loose as the other TPG's?

 

Books are great but just practicing with coins in hand is what really helped me improve a lot in the little over a year I've been at it. If you have local auctions go to them even if you're not a buyer. They'll have hundreds of graded coins out that they're happy to let you look over.

 

I did that at the Heritage Auctions at the ANA World's Fair of Money. I ended up looking at only MS-66 to MS-68 CC Morgans though! They were beautiful and I got a good feel how to grade at that high of level. MS-60 to MS-65 I still struggle with though. I have a dealer that would let me go through his graded Morgans. Will probably go up there this Saturday.

 

Wow, I assumed them to be the opposite. I have a guy from my coin club that teaches a coin grading class that I have attended a few times. He's old school and sticks to 1985 standards. He told me better to be conservative rather than loose on my grading.

 

66-68 Morgans especially have to really be seen in hand. You can only judge so much from pictures on the internet...I bet a lot of the ones you looked at in person wouldn't have near the wow factor in images, that's why I wouldn't be too worried about being a few points off with GTG's here. I know personally as I have a bunch of 65-67 morgans and I can't do them any justice with images.

 

Agreed. Pictures are a good basis for ballpark grades when dealing with mid to high MS grades.

 

So the book only had 43 pages of reading before it gets to the catalogue of all coins. I'm going to the catalogue next, with emphasis on Ikes and Morgans. Any suggestions for my next book?

 

For Ikes
http://www.ikegroup.info/