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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Kasia, post: 8644153, member: 31533&quot;]I recently in the past few years joined a coin club and I actually go sometimes to the meetings. Hey, who knew? Anyhow, this year I signed up to do an educational program and I am scheduled to give it this week. I just finished writing it up but haven&#039;t proofed everything. But I thought I would share the first part, which is just the books I chose to use to start to prep for it. Later on this week I expect I will add to the thread and show what I did for the main portion of this.</p><p><br /></p><p>I chose the Kennedy Half Dollar to talk about.</p><p><br /></p><p>_____________________________________</p><p><br /></p><p>The Kennedy Half Dollar.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Books:</p><p><br /></p><p>I have brought along five books I used to prep for this today. They can be looked at if you want, and I will explain what I see in these that are good.</p><p><br /></p><p>I have two specialty books for identifying valuable errors or varieties for the Kennedy Half Dollar.</p><p><br /></p><p>1)&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; Cherrypickers Guide, 5th Edition, Volume II. 2012.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;This guide has pictures and descriptions (along with prices of Varieties vs. ‘normal’ versions for MS/PF 63-67 coins) and covers several dates that have shown doubling, tripling, or `quadrupling on some dates, a variety for hair detail on the Kennedy device, repunched mintmarks, missing designers initials, inverted mintmarks, and changing mintmark in a year (as one is scarce).</p><p><br /></p><p>This guide, though in some respects outdated, is a good one as it shows pictures of the PUPs (Pick Up Points) for the various coins already identified as of the printing date and provides a good way to kinda organize in your mind what you might be looking for when you encounter a Kennedy Half if you are looking for a coin that for errors and varieties might be more valuable than the normal ones.</p><p><br /></p><p>2)&nbsp; &nbsp; Treasure Hunting Franklin and Kennedy Half Dollar Doubled Dies, 1st Edition, 2003.</p><p><br /></p><p>This one is the older one and has a ton of pictures (it’s mostly pictures) of the coins pick up points, but also listing die markers to look for and the classification of the doubling, i.e., type of hub doubling, as explained at the beginning of the book . If you don’t already know, die markers are things like die scratches that are common to every single example of the variety or error in a coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>I like this book a lot for a lot of reasons but I myself have not used it as much as it could be for knowledge or learning about types of doubling, the minting process, etc. I have basically just used it for figuring out which dates to ‘hold back’ if I come across them and then refresh my knowledge as to which doubling to look for.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Then there are basically three specialty books for grading or valuing a mint state coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1 )&nbsp; NGC Grading Guide For Modern U.S. Coins, 1st edition, 2004.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;Just going to say this is not my favorite book to go to but it still gives me a bit of an idea of what a major grading service had in numbers of coins graded for the various mint states in modern coins. For reference, modern coins are coins that are dated 1965 or later, being outside of the silver coin era that was previously had for dimes, quarter, halves, and silver dollars. This book is extremely dated in that it was printed in 2004, so it is not super useful now, but it does show the coins and varieties that were recognized (at that point) by this service for grading. One thing it does do is to be able to focus a person’s eyes on the 2 to 3 mint states that are overwhelmingly (mostly) the grades that are common and easily found in their holders at that time. This I think is useful in that it can help determine if you might think a coin is worth getting graded (it might not be at all if it falls below the majority, and it might if it falls above) or not. As it is dated, it is just a way to do a quick initial survey. For example, for Kennedy Half Dollars, say I have a 1965 one that is quite nice looking and I know it is a mint state coin, If I honestly thought it might be a MS 64-65, I would like to perhaps determine if I would at some point want to have it graded by a TPG. I could just use this book to see that as of 2004ish, NGC had 2 graded as MS63, 8 as MS 64, 30 as MS65, 3 as MS66, 2 as MS67, and none higher. This tells me that in a historical moment, the majority deemed possibly grading were to attain a MS 65, and that some fell short. But that of the ones submitted back in the day, only 5 out of 45 got a MS 66 or MS 67 and that if I have one that I honestly think would not be higher than a MS65, it might be wiser to not get it slabbed, but that if it is a higher grade, I need to look a bit more as to current population of slabbed coins, both for PGCS and NGC to really determine if I should or not.</p><p><br /></p><p>This book also has a short description of the coin, highlighting basic information one should at least understand about the coin series.</p><p><br /></p><p>3)&nbsp; &nbsp; ANA Grading Standards, 6th edition, 2006.</p><p><br /></p><p>Going to say this is a nice book overall. It is very useful as it gives pictures of coins in various mint states and the descriptors saying what to be looking for to have a coin make that grade. This one is not super useful for Kennedys in particular as it only has them on two pages, and the photos are not large or actually show a great example of a coin in a particular state.</p><p><br /></p><p>4)&nbsp; &nbsp; Coin Worlds Making the Grade, 2008</p><p><br /></p><p>I find this one for grading to be the most useful one I have seen yet. It is a bit awkward in fitting into a book section in that it is short and wide when you open it, but that is a great way to show what they do in an easy-to-use format. Many of the coins photographed to show various grades are either in black and white, but there are colored (violently so) to delineate the areas and importance of the high points for wear and/or for blemishes that affect appeal. Because of this, it is very easy to get to know where you should focus to look for wear. Because wear on the coin (and coin wear is metal removed through handling in circulation) starts on high points of a design. For the Kennedy Half Dollar, this coin has only one Obverse design in it’s history and only two reverses, as the bicentennial reverse showing Independence Hall made it’s showing in the singular 1975-1976 issue. And Kennedy halves in particular have very easily remembered high points. For the obverse, it is the cheek from the back of the eye down to the smile line, the front part-line of the hair, both going vertically above it and horizontally along it, and then a spot closer to the back of the head, still in the hair part, and lastly midway at the bottom line of the device bottom, just above the We in “We Trust”. For the regular eagle reverse, the high points are basically as easy to remember. There is a “1” that covers the eagles head, neck and upper portion of the shield, the middle bottom section of the tail feathers, and lastly, a small portion of the arrows in the eagles talons. These are the areas that will naturally, get the wear first, as they are the highest points in the design, and also for this coin, all are pretty easy to spot.</p><p><br /></p><p>As a note, this book does not show the Independence Hall reverse for high points and it is not really necessary as any of those can easily be graded for wear by the obverse only, though of course there might possibly be some time where you encounter one that is still in uncirculated condition on the obverse, but you do notice some wear on the reverse.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Lastly, the book I really use more than any when I am looking at a series is my Mega Red 3rd Edition Red Book. This is huge and heavy, but at home I have no issues having this. It is filled with information and pictures that help me understand the coins I am looking for in here. The third edition was published in 2017 and this one also covers nickel 5-cent pieces from post-Civil War to now, so because I love nickels as well, this will always be in my library. There is no way I can succinctly say what is best about this book, but for basic info on the various years minted (of say Kennedy’s in particular, since this talk is about them), is just perfect. You get the mintage, some values of various mint states, occasional auction record info, population certified, etc., along with some really nice photos of error or variety details.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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