coin collectors survival manual

purchased this book few days ago and been reading it.Seems to me i must get another book for specifically learning to grade.This seems to be the point at which most newish to this hobby/investment go wrong.It is also very expensive to go wrong here.

unless you care just to purchase slabbed coins by the 2 top grading companies if you dont learn grading you will get burnt.still this book is a fascinating read and well worth the money.

What would be a good book to purchase to get more into the more subtle grades such as ms60-70 this is where the biggest diffrentce in value seem to lie and also the most subjective to grade correctly.Thus the most important to grade correctly.


Where can i find a book for this please ?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

No book can help grade mint state coins. Too much is dependent on eye appeal and luster. Now for the major grades of 60 to 63 to 65 that relies more on bag marks or contact marks. Above 65 that is where the men are seperated from the boys. (for a lack of a better term). This is based on quality of what the mint intended that the strike should be, and the amount of eye appeal. The ANA has a decent video on grading mint state coins. That is the best advice I can give you on that.

 

thx

the subject is so subjective as to be almost impossible to guage and even when you do think you have it down pretty good someone will have a differing opinion.

like you say after ms65 it does get much harder, this however is the point where a point diffrence can triple or more the value.I guess its this point where the dealers realy make there money, and the novice loses out.

 

on that poit i can see how ebay is not a good place to purchase mint state coins at all.

however lower grades i think it is

 

I will add my vote to the ones cast so far. No book can teach the grading of Mint State coins. However, the ANA has a video that can help.

My dissenting vote is that eBay is _NOT_ a good place for a beginner to shop. A beginner needs a mentor -- or mentors. Join a coin club. Find the dealers within an hour's drive of your home.

And you can buy only coins from PCGS and NGC and still be short of a bargain. Their standards have changed over the years. (And everyone makes mistakes. Some coins are graded wrong, inevitably.)

When I visited Heritage a couple of years ago, they were touting a recent sale of high mint state (highEST mint state, I think) Mercury Dimes, a complete set in MS-65 and above. Beautiful! ... but looking at it... I had question... or two... I mean, if this is a 66, then why is that a 67? and the other a 65? ... Not that I think they were graded "wrong" but that I did not understand the grading. I passed the ANA Grading class with high honors, but Mint State coins are a different study entirely.

(Not to overly complicate things, but the engine driving PCGS was Rick Montgomery who now works for NGC.)

Michael
ANA R-162953

 

an intresting point in this book is how much opinion varies betwwen people that have been involved in coins for years

i mean if they guys can agree then who can ???

ms65 to ms70 means major profit or loss and seems subjective to base part of this on eye apeal because one mans ugly coin is anothers beauty.

reading what i do i think it would probably be best for all to go back to a few grades then base price on eye appeal within that grade.

but keep the grading soley technical based


i will probably get put down by much more knowledgeble people than myself but realy seems the only way to stop all the disputes

 

Almost everyone in the hobby wishes for a better way of grading. Unfortunately the current system is based on market appeal. Getting multiple people to agree on anything is difficult. This isn't limited to coins.

 

well in my life i have been involved in antiques i worked for 2 london galleries and was brought up from a kid round antiques my father has a antique shop n scotland and my uncle one in inverness.And i got my first job through the antiques trade gazette in uk.

i know how book price often is not relevant to actual get price.Its subjective but once the actual item is known it works on what someone will pay.

Coins however deal in minute details and this is where the problem lies.And it will continue too.Its actually a ruin of the trade.

not because an item can be seen as a certain condition but because the diffrence in price been n iten in relatively the same state.

infact looking at it i believe this is mostly to the benifit of the seller ie the dealer than anyone else.Its obvious delaers must make money but what has happened to antiques is 3eeeeeeee/4e of th shops have closed down and dealers have moved onto the internetThis is the killer of the coin trade too.Everyone knows the value f a coin now they just need to buy a few books, same thing happened to antiques infact most people thought there items were worth more than they realy were.
nly way i can see to make money in coin game anymore as same as any antique buisness is to buy item at source, through bulk lots just like the money in any antiques now is often in house clearances you buy the lot then drag out the good ones.

To be honest anyone now can be a coin deler you just gotta have the money to put up

 

ya buy bulk you dump the junk on the like of ebay, you sell to youre customers and anything you think might get a good grade you send off.

even the dealers here will tell you they often submit the very same coin time and again hoping to get a higher grade.They dont know for sure what it will be graded at but you can be sure they will ay you 20-30% under the minimum grade they expect it to make.And fair play to them thats buisness.

But it aint rocket science if i can get a bsc degreee in enginnering in 4 years i think i could get o the equivelent of a msc grader in 2

 

i'm glad i don't have to use those grades... i think i'd give up and stick to VF coins.

 

Hold on a second. Grades benefit the dealer? Everyone, and I mean everyone believes that their coins are better when it is time to sell, and worse when time to buy. This is not only dealers.
Slabs don't make this approach any better. I hear constantly how the coin is weak for the grade, or just makes it. It is human nature to want a deal. Just because an individual makes a living buying and selling coins, doesn't make them any better or worse.

As far as resubmitting, that is also human nature. We naturally want the best grade possible. Who doesn't? When you buy a coin, do you consider the grade, or just accept whatever is written on it? If you believe the coin to be better, do you offer the next level of price on it?

It is so easy in the hobby to blame things on the dealers. When in fact, the grading system used was created by a collector, and was intentionally used to protect the collector.

No I don't enjoy shelling out the extra $28 per coin to get them slabbed. Now when you multiply that by the thousands of coins submitted each year, it would be in best interest if collectors would learn how to grade. Would buy me a nice new car each year. Because 99% of collectors choose the "EASY" way to coin collecting, we dealers must play the game along with them.

Now onto it only takes money to be a coin dealer.

If that is your view of the hobby, I am sorry. Some auction services allow anyone with a coin to be a coin dealer. There is much more to it, and some even do what they can to dispell this myth. All the money in the world won't make you a coin dealer. Just because someone sells coins, doesn't make them a dealer. I can install a toilet, but I am in no way a plumber.

I am sorry if this offends anyone, but the grading game is one we all deal with. The only way to come out on top in this game is knowing the rules.

Blaming the dealer when you can't grade coins may be the easiest thing to do, but certainly doesn't make it right.

 

I don't shell out anything to have them graded, cos i don't have them graded.

Maybe this is where i have trouble seeing eye to eye with alot of US collectors... i buy a coin cos i like it and then i chuck it in the coin cabinet and move onto tracking down the next one. (Alright maybe i don't really throw the coin but you get the drift).

Sometimes i pay more than catalogue price and sometimes less... overall i usually shell out more cos in my line it's more about not 'is it good for the money or shall i wait for the next one', it's much more a case of 'the catalogue hasn't got a clue and is guessing cos it's not something they see alot of, and will i actually ever find another one of these anytime soon?'. (usually i've bought the coin on that premise and yes for the most part i still haven't seen another example turn up even 2 years down the line).

For me it's not about making a profit, i couldn't give two hoots about making a profit, i'm even happy to make a loss as long as i get the coin i want in the grade i want it in and i can afford the asking price. I collect for the fun of it and i appreciate the coins and the history behind them that is why i collect, not because i'm interested in any material gain. I buy coins like i'd buy a car... if it looks good and has eye appeal then that's fine in my book, but just don't expect to get much for it later.

For me getting my money back is a bonus, getting a profit is even better.

 

ND i aint blaming dalers its there buisness thy have to make a living like everyone.

but when people cant even agree what a coin grade is there is something stinking about this hobby.

when eye apeal is counted into the grade it completely removes the science from the product.

As i said im my personal opinion there should be about 6 grades only

then you can all haggle over eye apeal within that grade,this way its so much easier for all to learn and so much easier to set a price and prevents all this crazyness about if omething is a ms65 or ms70 when most of diffrence is just eye appeal.


call it mint state bcause of soley the condition/luster then go haggle on price how much the eye appeal is worth.

This would save everyone millions on grading services,it would prevent most rip offs,it would bring lots more people into the hobby as they ewould feel they have a fair chance of learning about grades themselves, thus it would actually increase prices with more demand.

i think so many are put off because they cannot learn the silly grading system that is around.

to re-iterate remove eye appeal from grading alltogeher but sell your coin within its grade on eye appeal

 

saying this i know this will not happen for simple reason.

this grading system benifits too many people.It benifits the grqading companies,it beenifits the dealers who mostly make there living by re-grading or grading coins or buying coins at lower grades than they think they will make.it benifits all the people sitting on ms-68-70 coins as the paid high prices.

So i think this will never happen common sence would cost to much to to many people, and especially the movers and shakers within coin collecting.

 

Prior to the 1980's there were a handfull of grades, and people still complained about the same things. No matter what system is used, people will complain. It isn't always easy to deal within the given system, but that is what we have.

 

I'm happy with;

Fair, G, VG, F, VF, EF, AU, UNC, BU.

Stick and A for almost and a G for good on the front of them where necessary if a coin falls between one of the other and that's all the grades i've ever needed.

 

Actually AU is only a minor grade, cos really it just UNC with an A on the front. VG is probably the same but with a G.

 

Has anyone heard of the book Photograde By James F. Ruddy? It's called "Official Photographic Grading Guode for United States Coins.
Is it any good? I was actually just on my way to get it when I stumbled across this thread!