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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cladking, post: 146271, member: 68&quot;]Start a collection of whatever you&#039;re looking through if you expect to do it for a period of time.&nbsp; This may sound like very obvious advice but you&#039;d be surprised how many people look through something like half dollars and don&#039;t have a collection of them.&nbsp; They&#039;ll just pull out silver and good varieties they&#039;re aware of.&nbsp; The great thing about a collection is that you&#039;ll learn a great deal more about the coins.&nbsp; You&#039;ll be able to spot things that stand out as being different after a time.&nbsp; Sure a 1971 kennedy will never sell for much even in gem AU but you&#039;ll never know the coin is tough if you don&#039;t save the nicest one you see.&nbsp; It&#039;s also much easier to spot varieties.&nbsp; You&#039;ll learn what your collection looks like and spot coins that are different.&nbsp; A collection also serves as a handy reference when you do suspect a variety.&nbsp; You don&#039;t have to look and look for a coin of the same date for comparison.&nbsp; Remember that a very high percentage of lightly worn coins are special in some way.&nbsp; Frequently they are lightly worn simply because a collector noted something special and saved it for years.&nbsp; Then they get accidently spent or the heirs take it to a dealer who invariably will tell them it&#039;s junk and they should spend it.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Don&#039;t get bogged down in the mundane.&nbsp; If you pour over every beat up old coin looking for something special it will deduct from the time you have to search.&nbsp; You&#039;&#039;ll miss a few coins but at least mostly it will be junk that you&#039;re missing.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>It is imperative that you learn the good dates, grades, and varieties.&nbsp; This will be a daunting task at first but you&#039;ll quickly start picking it up.&nbsp; After time you can almost smell the rarities even if it&#039;s disguised as beat up old junk.&nbsp; At first you won&#039;t be able to go very fast and will have to look stuff up but the pace should pick up rapidly as you learn what is junk.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>I make three piles; rejects, keepers, and questions.&nbsp; These go into the piles very quickly and a roll takes only a couple minutes.&nbsp; In my specialty there will be 990 rejects, 4 keepers, and 6 questionables.&nbsp; These questionables are usually coins that I looked at wrong at first.&nbsp; A brief look will reveal that they are just run of the mill coins or are better dates but just aren&#039;t quite nice enough to keep.&nbsp; Many of them are good enough and go into the keeper pile.&nbsp; A few will be varieties which I&#039;ve never seen before.&nbsp; If they are significant then it&#039;s added to the list of things I look for.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Keepers are divided into multiple types;&nbsp; Those which are so nice they are compared to the coin in the collection,&nbsp; coins that aren&#039;t good enough for the collection but are scarce enough to save, and unc coins gem enough to save.&nbsp; These categories each get processed differently.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Use a glass but don&#039;t get bogged down with a glass unless you&#039;re collecting very minor varieties.&nbsp; The more desirable ones can be spotted with the naked eye (or smelled).&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>If you&#039;re just going through a bag or something then that&#039;s an entirely different matter.&nbsp; The process may be equally complicated but it&#039;s much different.&nbsp; There&#039;s no need to have a collection of something if you&#039;re just going through a batch of coins looking for anything special.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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