There are many experts here on this forum, thus, the reason many of us return. You can become an expert in a variety of areas in Numismatics. I believe some areas can be conquered quicker than others. When it comes to being a generally accepted expert in Numismatics would you subscribe to Malcolm Gladwell's theory in Outliers that it takes at least 10,000 hours of hands on experience to reach that level? Obviously, someone can spend that long working on something and be no smarter than when they started, but, that should typically be an exception to this principle.
By that metric are only an expert in grading if you spent 5 years at grading company grading coins from 9 to 5 every weekday.
Exception? Maybe not! The majority of the people I've met playing pool are no better, today, than they were 40 years ago. Most of the top players in the world have a natural talent for the game that can't be taught. Chris
I disagree . . . one might first spend 10 years leisurely collecting coins, and only 2 years working in concentrated fashion in a grading room full time, yet still achieve expert status. I do think Gladwell's theory holds water, but the numbers are obviously not universally applicable. Moreover, there are also some economies of scale available for divergent careers heavily dependent upon same / similar skillsets . . . vibrations engineer / musical composer.
Perhaps for straight-on shots, but I've never met anyone who intentionally employed spin on the cue ball without being taught to do so first.
Take the word of someone who has played pool for more than 60 years and has played with some of the best players in the country in every decade since the 60's, it doesn't work that way. You can't teach anyone the advanced concepts when they don't have a natural instinct for the game! I've known a lot of people who had a "good eye", but as soon as you tried to teach them the mechanics of "English", they'd blow every shot. I never had anyone teach me. I started playing Straight Pool (14.1 Continuous, for the old-timers) when I was 9, and by the time I was 13, I could run 100 balls almost all of the time. Chris
Chris's point is valid, there are some who simply have an innate talent for some things, so they don't need to spend as much time learning as others do. But those people are the exceptions. And Gladwell's rule is valid as well, but it applies to people who are not the exceptions. I've told the story before but I'll repeat it again. At one point, quite a few years ago, there was a young man who worked in the PCGS grading room. And he was readily acknowledged, by his peers, as being the best grader they had. Yet this young man was only 18 years old. Bottom line, general rules apply, but exceptions apply as well. There's just a lot more of the one than there is the other.
