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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;johnmilton, post: 25417089, member: 101855&quot;]The Bechtler dollar was one of my goof ups with respect to price. At the time I bought that piece, the price in EF was, in round numbers, $1,000. In AU, it was $5,000. The Gold CAC sticker implies that the coin is under graded and might qualify for the next grade up. Therefore I paid much closer to $5,000 than $1,000. In retrospect, the coin grades closer to EF than AU because of lighthairing. </p><p><br /></p><p>Some people would have paid over the AU price because of the gold CAC sticker. The view it the sticker as a great rarity. I think that is irrational. </p><p><br /></p><p>As for grading such coins, it’s done by surfaces. If you have a talent, and for most of us, it you look at many thousands of coins over many years, you see that the surfaces of coins in given grades have a certain look if they have not been altered. </p><p><br /></p><p>Some people can never learn to grade coins, even if they study the grading books intently. Many collectors become pretty good at it over time. Some get better than “pretty good.” You need to learn how to grade well if you are to survive as a dealer. </p><p><br /></p><p>I am a coin nerd. When I was in college, in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, I studied the <i>Photograde</i> book as intently as I did some of my college textbooks. Before that, I have studied the Brown and Dunn grading book. Neither of those works were perfect, but they got me started. </p><p><br /></p><p>As for the Bechtcher dollar, it was the first gold dollar that was made in The United States. It inspired the Federal Government to issue the coin, which makes it an interesting little piece of history.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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