Learning how to properly grade coins is perhaps the biggest challenge new coin collectors face. Understanding the proper grade for a coin is core to establishing its value. Whether your goal is to make more savvy coin purchases, or to appraise your own collection, being able to grade your own coins is a skill that is not optional. Although grading services have certainly filled an important gap in the marketplace since their inception, the fact is that only a small percentage of all collectible coins have been slabbed (graded and put into a holder.) Even the coins which have been slabbed are sometimes misgraded, and experts such as Q. David Bowers will tell you that you shouldn't use the label in the holder to decide what the coin inside grades at, but grade the coin yourself and let the label be your confirmation. According to Bowers, if the grade on the label is too high, don't buy the coin. If the grade on the label is too low, you may have found yourself a nice bargain!
How can you begin learning how to grade? I've got you covered in Coin Grading Made Simple.
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What a SUPER useful article THANK YOU
Buy a PHOTOGRADE book,a PCGS coin grading and counterfeit detection book(offered by PCGS with an upgrade membership.(PAY THE MONEY)My idea is simple. If i believe a coin is worth more than $200 then it’s worth sumitting to PCGS. It will cost money to join the COLLECTORS CLUB but will pay off in the long run. DO NOT bring your coins to any coin shop!! They will be ultra conservative with grading and you will be offered a very small % of the acual value. This is how they make money.Your money.Ive had this experience with several different “reputable” coin shops. Even STACKS of New York. Get educated and certify your coins thru PCGS
Thank you for this post. Any coin collectors both advance and beginner can benefit from this post. Most of the coins are hard to grade so a little help or a guideline is always appreciated.
I use Scott A Travers book, the Coin Collectors Survival Manual. In it is a section right after page 168 that has color photographs depicting various grades in good condition up to the mint state grades. It also has a map of the surface of the morgan dollar & the importence of the areas that are going to affect a grade shown by the colored areas on the map. In those areas it tells you what is importent about how the mapped areas affect the grading of a coin by the marks, or lack of, in those mapped areas. Constent study & loking at coins in various stages of wear, will eventually lead to some expertize in learning to grade coins on your own.
There are time of frustration, where i think i’ll never get this down to a science. I’m not a good grader. I should leave it to the experts. But, then again, it can be done to come up with a ball park figure, when you finally pick it up. Sooner or later it starts to sink in. The more you learn, the faster it sinks in. If i can do it, any body can. The point is, not giving up. You can do it with practice.
coiny