This is one of three numismatic books I received during Christmas. Overall, I found the book to be good in general. For a novice to intermediate collector I believe it has a lot of really good and insightful information. Personally, I feel I am more of an advanced collector, and quite a few of the details I feel I had a good knowledge base already, but there are aspects of the book I found I benefited from as a collector. I really like his approach in grading coins taking into consideration strike, luster, eye appeal, wear in a systematic approach to gain an overall sense of the coin. Again, just personally, I feel I am strong in the wear and luster component. Having insights to the importance of strike, die life and overall eye appeal serve as good reminders in that I need all components to accurately grade a coin. I may need to work more on the latter as a collector. I feel the book does well in allowing me to reflect on how I grade, where my weak points are and gives me the ways to begin to practice and learn to do better. Hopefully, this will allow me for more consistent grading among peers here at CoinTalk! I really did like the toning chapter. I fall in the "white is king" camp, and I think reading this book allowed me to figure out that it is because I am unknowledgable in not only how toning occurs, but how to differentiate artificial from natural. Being as such, I don't take the risk and look for the natural blast white or circulated look. Still, having the knowledge base of how toning occurs detailed in the book was insightful, and at very least, has me questioning my toning bias. Cons: I hated the printing. About every 3rd page was lightly printed and difficult to read at times. This did the author no favors when he would refer to a coin printed on the lightly printed page. Furthermore, I wished the pictures were of better quality, but I understand that may have cut into cost given the need of better paper source to print the better images. So, would I recommend the book? Yes. It is a quick read and I feel it did provide me with some useful insights into the grading world. If it leads to self-reflection on how you grade and how you can improve the process systematically for your collection, then it is all the worth the read.
Thanks, I should pick that up, sounds like it would be worthwhile for me and I appreciate your review. @BuffaloHunter Is the author really on here sometimes? That's kind of awesome. I'm guessing to myself who it might be.
I like that book -Great information and I agree that the printing makes some of the pictures difficult to interpret.
