I love grading coins. I find having a few books about grading and watching videos, along with pictures of graded coins help fine.
I will never be an expert, but I can assume I can grade circulated coins well enough. Nearly all of mine are Circulated anyway. Its the degree of Mint State and Uncirculatedness that throws me and 90% of other collectors.
Just give it a try - I mean grading to a level like UNC, AU, EF, VF, Fine, VG, Good and Poor can be learnt fairly easily.
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
Grading is definitely an art. A difficult one at that. I try to grade coins as accurately as possible but no coin is the exact same grade to everyone, even professional graders. The TPGs might be pretty good at grading–better than any of us–but no where near perfect. They can be wildly inconsistent at times especially with older coins with weak strikes so it's good to be able to tell when they're wrong. Many (American) collectors rely too heavily on TPGs and don't get good enough at grading themselves which is quite unfortunate. The best thing to do is to compare your self assessed grades to those of TPGs and other collectors to improve your skills. In my opinion, grading is the most crucial skill for a coin collector to possess so it's quite disheartening to see so many entirely relying on PCGS and NGC
Quote: "Moneytane"I love grading coins. I find having a few books about grading and watching videos, along with pictures of graded coins help fine.
I will never be an expert, but I can assume I can grade circulated coins well enough. Nearly all of mine are Circulated anyway. Its the degree of Mint State and Uncirculatedness that throws me and 90% of other collectors.
Just give it a try - I mean grading to a level like UNC, AU, EF, VF, Fine, VG, Good and Poor can be learnt fairly easily.
This exemplifies a great attitude IMO. [& I've learned the hard way] "AglsSilver" also has a healthy perspective though I think certifiers have become much better (more objective/consistent) than they used to be. Its true that it is somewhat subjective but no need to "throw the baby out with the bath water," just because you find disparities between collectors' opinions.
The thing is- if you don't learn to grade (as a collector should) than you are only handicapping yourself. The most lazy habit is to rely on the TPG's which is more or less a reckless approach to understanding what makes a coin attractive or more pristine than others. Don't become a parrot & echo what others are saying. Assess for yourself. At least try to get the hang of this skill: & all that really means is practice. I practiced over many years & often got it wrong. Often my wishful thinking (a bias towards over grading) got in the way of seeing things for their true state. That's okay (everyone makes mistakes). When you get it wrong its important not to give up & just keep at it.
