Buy a book and then practise on 100's of coins, then practise some more. And when I say practise - I say look at them in hand. Grading from pictures on high quality coins can be tough. So get a book at practise. I think at some of the larger coin shows or some where they offer grading classes - but still practise with coin in hand.
Like Mark said, a book is key. If it was me, I would pick up the ANA grading book. It's considered by many to be the standard of grading. Now, with that in mind...all the TPGs use their own grading criteria, but the ANA is considered the "gold standard" by many collectors and is an excellent way to learn. Plus, it is an inexpensive book. I tell people, the first book you need in this hobby is the Red Book and the second is the ANA Grading Guide. http://www.amazon.com/Official-Amer...d_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239482877&sr=8-1
I would also suggest buying Photograde. It's a bit easier to use and comprehend when you are starting to learn to grade. And look at the many grading threads on CoinTalk. It won't do you much good to grade coins on your own without having a second opinion about the result. You could potentially be wrong on every one and think you are learning something unless you have an experienced opinion to compare to.
Coin Values has a new photograde book out which looks really good. It's about $40 but looks like it is worth the high price. Grading doesn't change so you can have it forever.
I will get flamed for this, but, attend as many coin shows as you can, and look for NGC and PCGS slabs in the series you are interested in. This will provide a referance point as to what the markets grades at, and will help you bigtime. TPG's make mistakes on ocassion, but overall, I think a direct referance like this will help.
There's lot's of good advice on this thread. BOOKS : Try "Grading US Coins" by Jim Halperin. "ANA Grading Standards". PRACTICE : of course. But how ? Read the books. Go to coin shows. Look at LOTS of slabbed coins. Compare. Ask lots of questions. Ask dealers how they grade coins. Pick a series you enjoy (e.g. Lincoln 1c, Morgan $1s, whatever). Put in extra time on that series. Focus on that series as you dabble with others. Look at auction catalogs. They're free from major auction houses and other major players. PM me for details. Ask lots of questions. Ask lots of questions. Ask lots of questions. Look at coins on major auction house websites. Try Heritage at www.ha.com Very best wishes, dude. :hug: And oh, one more thing... hang around here ! :thumb:
I think this is a great point. What ever guides you read and use, it's still important to understand market grading as well. Technical grading and market grading are different and lets face it, both are very important to understand.
EXCELLENT advice, Jack. To carry Jack's advice a bit further, after buying and reading the book (ANA Grading Guide, PCGS Grading Guide, Photoshop, etc.) and looking at LOTS and LOTS of coins consider putting together your own grading set for the series you plan to collect. You can do this by buying one coin in each grade (raw or slabbed) so you can compare and learn the differences between each grade. Like others have pointed out, learning to grade requires practice. Lots of practice. With actual coins - not photos.
.........the only way to know for sure the coin is correctly graded is look for a slabbed coin with the coveted CAC sticker on it. (big grin here)
In addition to all the practice, asking a lot of questions, as mentioned above, reading and studying is one of the best ways to learn. The ANA (www.money.org) sells a video on learning to grade called "Grading Mint-State U.S. Coins", and my favorite book that I recommend to my customers is "Making the Grade" published by Coin Values (Coin World). It has full color photos of each grade for most U.S. coins - here's a site that sells this book and other coin books close to wholesale: http://www.jakesmp.net/CSD_Books/CSD_Bks_138_M.html Learning to grade coins well is the best thing you'll ever do for yourself as a collector. Putting a PCGS or NGC grading set together of each grade (circulated and uncirculated) of your favorite series is also very helpful. You can study each coin and see for yourself what determines the assigned grade. The hard part is, since grading is subjective and coins are graded by human beings and each human being has his/her own idea of what constitutes eye appeal, there will be variances - that's what makes grading so contoversial and so widely discussed! Don't give up and best of luck to you!
Practice, Practice, Practice. The books are great, and I think many of the guess the grade threads on here helped me greatly. Just look up all the old threads and try to grade them, and then see what the actual grades are.
I agree with Jack and Hobo and will add. I feel it's important to understand that not all series of coins are graded just the same. One needs to watch for these differences. Ike dollars can be a really tricky example.
Why would someone flame you for good advice? I forgot I did that to start with - now I have several low grade large cents and IHC's that I still plan on keeping in my collection. So - good advice. And the theme is learn and practice with coin in hand.
Honestly, the first problem is that most people don't understand what grading is about, and in truth, there is much debate as to what grading is. Obviously it has to do with what the coin's current state is as compared to some standard. But what that standard is and what is acceptable aspects to grading are, is debatable. All that being said, the hobby still needs coherent and understandably applied rules for grading. As for better or worse we have come to a hybrid of market grading which is most clearly articulated in the ANA grading guild. The problem is that all of this doesn't provide a core understanding of the issue of grading. What is grading? Read this thread and you will understand the first and most important cornerstone concepts of grading coins. Afterwards read the ANA introduction and general grading standards. You'll then be on a solid foundation and from there you can read everything else with an educated point of view.
