Building & enjoying a lifetime collection and making a profit when you sell isn't rocket science but it is a LOT of work. Whether you specialize in US coins, world coins or ancients there are two simple rules you have to follow. #1: You must learn to sight-grade raw coins accurately without relying on slabs as a crutch. ANA, Photograde and PCGS publish excellent grading guides that you can start with but knowledge really comes from looking at LOTS of coins and making a few mistakes. Eventually you will be able to tell what coins are nice for the grade, overgraded or undergraded and spot the bargains. #2: If you specialize in a certain area in world or US coins, study it carefully. Get familiar with better dates and mintmarks, varieties and which coins are typically weakly or strongly struck. In other words, when you buy coins at a show or from a dealer you have to know at least as much about the coins you are looking at than the person selling them, preferably more! Photos and websites are great but I've always preferred to buy coins when I can see and examine them personally. I periodically check my skills acquired over the years by looking at encapsulated coins without checking the assigned grade on the holder, come up with an opinion and then look at the grade on the slab. In most cases, I grade tighter!
I would like to +1 that entire post, every nuance of it. I'd add only one more thing. The Internet is a source, not the source, or even a good source. Treat it accordingly.
Excellent advice. I might add some coin show etiquette tips as well, mistakes often made by beginners that might SEEM like good ideas but mark you as a newbie or even as a target for derision or anger by some. 1) Do NOT bite pre-1933 gold coins as a test for authenticity. This is considered rude, even if you think you can see where a bad plating job has worn off. 2) "Is this real?" is considered rude in some regions of the country, as is banging a coin on a glass display case. 3) Although it's fun and telling, some dealers frown upon you taking a diamond bejeweled ring to a coin to see how deeply it scratches, even if you explain that you are a metals expert and can immediately tell if the coin is not real gold or silver.
The major grading services do provide one invaluable service-weeding out most counterfeit, altered, artificially toned and cleaned coins submitted to them. With the Chinese fakes becoming almost impossible for even experienced dealers and collectors to detect, this alone IMO is worth the submission price for frequently faked issues. When you've been around coins as long as I have, you acquire a sixth sense that tells you if a coin is really BU or that the toning doesn't look right, especially "rainbow" toning. I remember attending the TNA show in Ft. Worth in the early 2000's and looking at a guy's case with several rows of rainbow toned Kennedy halves in no-name slabs with the toning on BOTH sides of the coin! I just chuckled a bit and walked on. The previous poster is absolutely right about one thing-proper coin show etiquette. You don't knock another dealer's coins even if they are overpriced and/or overgraded or put your briefcase on top of his display case. You also need to keep all 2 X 2 boxes or individual coins you are looking at on TOP of the table in plain sight!
