Grading Coins (the hardest endeavor known to man)
lambert
1,166 Posts
Maybe a few of you have been in this position: inherited a family members coin collection and decided "Hey, I can grade a record pretty well, these coins should be a snap!". Well, I got my first dose of the hard truth leafing through a beginners guide to coin grading that would equate to a small encyclopedic set in size.First off, they have a 70 point grading system, and that's just for certain series coins. Secondly, if you don't know what kind of coin you're looking at, there's an entirely different system to just idnetifying what the thing actually is. What's hilarious, too, is that these systems are in place for u.s. series coins, and the rest of the world uses an entirely different set of grading standards.I am tempted to sell all that shit in a lot, at a loss, but it seems like just getting it right with a little bit of work, and the purchase of a 50x magnifying glass, could yield some nice spending cash. Browsing through some of the ending prices on ebay is certainly increasing my greed. Lot of unknowns reaching 4 figures!?!? Hmm.Anyone else been in a similar position?
Comments
the dealer i met wasn't cheating on me. he was very honest. it was almost like selling gold. most coins seem to have a fixed value and dealers will pay you just a little less. unless you seem to have no clue at all, dealers probably won't rip you off.
it's just too hard to find out what kind of stuff you have on your own. i had two coins that were repressings. but they still looked very old. selling very old coins on eBay can be tricky. i'd avoid selling old coins on eBay. buyers are very sensitive and would probably complain if you sold a later pressing or maybe even a fake.
maybe you can find a store that will grade your coins. that's what i did some years ago. i only had about 10 coins, so the store graded them for free. and told me what they were. i guess you would need to pay for getting a huge lot of coins graded, but it could still be worth it.
it's not like with records. take an expensive record to a dealer. most won't even know what the record is and probably won't pay more than a buck for it. that would never happen with a coin dealer. those guys are pros. and very serious about their business.