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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 2023047, member: 112&quot;]I would add a couple of things. Pictures, don&#039;t trust pictures too much. In the first place whoever is taking the picture is trying to present the coin in its most flattering light. In other words they want the coin to look as good as it possibly can. So whether by intent, or complete accident, it&#039;s all too easy for a picture NOT to show you what you really need to know about the coin. Also, it is extremely easy for pictures to be manipulated, edited, altered.</p><p><br /></p><p>Know and understand the difference between sight seen and sight unseen. Plain and simple sight seen means being able to hold the coin in your hand and look at it. Looking at a picture of a coin is NOT sight seen. Sight unseen means having a picture of the coin to look at, or not having a picture to look at - both are sight unseen.</p><p><br /></p><p>Don&#039;t try to learn to grade by looking at pictures, it&#039;s a waste of time. Yes, pictures can help you when trying to learn how to grade, but because of their limitations <u>they can also be harmful</u> if you do not fully know and understand those limitations. To see and understand this for yourself go find 5 pictures of the same coin in the same grade. All 5 of those coins are going to look completely different. But just because they look different that does not mean they are graded incorrectly. The only way to learn, and I stress <u>the only way</u>, to learn how to grade is to first learn the various grading criteria and then examine thousands of coins in hand while judging and applying those criteria to the coins you are examining.</p><p><br /></p><p>Learn the coin market. Now some folks don&#039;t understand what that means. Learning the coin market has nothing to do with learning how to grade, they are completely different things. Learning the coin market means to become familiar with not only the pricing of various coins in various grades, but also understanding why those various coins in various grades have the prices that they do. And just because 2 coins are graded the same, and graded by the same TPG, that does not mean that those 2 coins are worth the same amount of money. One can easily be and often is worth double, or more, what the other is worth. And just like any market the coin market is not static, it goes up and it goes down. So just because a coin was worth $1250 last year it may only be worth $650 today. That is not uncommon. The coin market is in a constant state of flux, change. And it does not always go up.</p><p><br /></p><p>I would counter one point previously made in the thread. Buying coins just to become familiar with them is not necessary. Yes it is most definitely important to become physically familiar with the coins. But you don&#039;t need to buy them to do that. You can do the same thing, and do it better, simply by going to as many coins shows as you possibly can, or even visiting a local coin shop on a regular basis. And this allows you to save your money and spend it on books, and/or coins that you really want for your collection.</p><p><br /></p><p>And along that same vein, do not buy coins with the intent of upgrading them later. It is almost a certainty that you will lose money by following this route. If you do not have enough in your budget to buy the coin you really want, then save your money until you do have enough. You will be happier and you will have nicer coins and more of them, and for less money than you will have spent doing it the other way.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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