Is it worth the cost of joining a grading company for person who is not sending in hundreds of coins? If one wanted to just send in a few dozen modern commemoratives and other similar items sold at the mint?
I guess one would have to work out the cost for submitting the coins as a member and as a non-member and then choose which is the best price,also consider if you will benefit from any membership benefits(i.e.; magazine subscription,newsletters,other stuff) and weigh that into the mix and also if you might send in more coins later on in the membership time alotted per dues.
Even if i join ANA is it worth the cost to send in modern coins? If i get PR69s back will i be able to recover my money on resale?
Exactly. $28 a year and you have submission priveleges to NGC. As to the cost, it depends on what tier you use. I think if you have at least 5 coins valued less than $300 each it's $16.50 per coin. If you can't make the 5 coin minimum it's $30 per coin. "Modern" coins (minted 1955 and later) are $12.50 per coin with a minimum of 5 coins. I might be off a bit, but those are ball park figures. Your best bet is to have at least five of something.
Follow this link to see NGC pricing.http://www.ngccoin.com/services/services.asp Sorry, I don't submit many moderns coins for slabbing or resell, so I can't help you with your additional questions. I suspect there is no clear answer to your question, you may win or lose depending on the series. Also. I would use the search feature of CT and read all the numerous threads that have already discussed similar questions.
Do you think it would be worth buying some common PR69s and PR70s before hand so i have a good since of what coins in that grade look like?
It would most likely be cheapest to just buy the coins already slabbed. For most moderns submitting and getting anything less than a 70 will be a money loser.
Only if you want the coins for part of your collection. To me the bottom line is this - if you cannot tell with reasonable certainty the difference between a 69 and 70 - then there is no sense in you submitting modern coins for grading. Of course the same is true of any coin - if you are not reasonably certain in your own ability to grade a coin then you have no business sending it in for grading. Of course you don't have any business buying it either. Now I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just being honest. It's foolish for people who don't know what they are doing to spend more than just a few dollars on coins. It's just too dang easy to lose your shirt doing that. There's nothing wrong woth enjoying the hobby, I love to see people enjoying the hobby. But it enjoy it without wasting your money. If you want to learn how to grade then instead of spending your money on buying coins that you can't grade, spend that money on going to coin shows and buying books. The more you learn about coins the easier it becomes to learn how to grade. And you'll see all the graded coins you could ever want to see at coin shows. And you'll learn a lot just by being there besides.
I wasn't going to spend that much, On eBay you can buy PR69s and some PR70s for less then the cost of sending them in. i figured that if a spend $200 dollars i would get enough examples to be able to look at the coins in my own hands and inspect the 69s to see what prevented them from hitting 70 and use the 70s as a reference point on my own coins. I would be looking at this as im spending $200 for the knowledge and the coins would just be a plus.
There aren't any. You can find specialized books on pretty much all of the various coin types but they all deal with coins that were minted over 50 years ago. There is nothing specific to modern coins. You can find just about everything you need to know, including the books, here - http://www.cointalk.com/t14179/