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 Replies: 16 / Views: 2,194 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
612 Posts |
I joined this site a few years ago but never really came here much. For the past few years I have been collecting raw un-slabbed Morgan and Peace dollars, mostly won from ebay auctions. I also mostly bought/won less expensive Dollars, generally in the $20 to $30 range, some a bit less and some more, but those that are more would be the exception rather than the rule. I have so far a little over 250 Morgan/Peace Dollars. On my own I tried to learn about evaluating and grading these coins I won in the auctions. The sum total of my education came from reading, watching videos on line, and utilizing various internet sites where I could see coins in different grades, e.g. ....... Heritage Auctions, PCGS grading images, ANA Grading Standards etc. I have encapsulated each dollar into those little coin snaps, sort of like my own mini slab, and then I put a small sticker on the corner of each snap with my opinion of grade and a number corresponding to the entry in my data base where each coin and snap is numbered, what I paid for the coin and what PCGS says the current value is, both bid and ask. What I don't know is whether or not any of these PCGS bid or ask values are un-slabbed raw values, or are all the values at PCGS or NGC only for professionally slabbed coins. And if all values you see on line are only for PCGS and NGC slabbed values, then how are un-slabbed coins valued? I think I've gotten pretty good at grading Morgan dollars and Peace dollars (I tend to think I'm better at Morgans than Peace). But there are some lingering questions I have that I hope this site (and you, the members) can help with. Where I live there are no good coin clubs that can help me with these questions, so I hope you all can. What I would like to do then is take really good pictures of my coins and little by little post each here and ask your opinions as to grade, and the why for the grade, and what you think the value would be. That way I can compare what you, the members here think with what my opinion was about grade and value when I entered them into the holders and my data base. I'm hoping that it will help me better hone my grading skills, to have in essence a critique of my unschooled opinions. I should also mention that I bought coins in various states of condition. I always tried to get bargains, but I've been burned more than once with cleaned, and even whizzed and polished coins, but the ebay pictures were either intentionally made to hide those conditions, or I bought them early on in my accumulating stage and didn't know better at the time. I would like to post them all, even the polished, cleaned, whizzed, dipped ...... everything in between coins. I will not learn unless I get evaluations on all, even my losers. Also I should mention, a few are near AG or G-4 or G-8, some in VF grades, many XF's, many AU's and some I would think are MS Grades. But I am not sure of myself and my grading abilities since I've never been checked, and other than I, nobody has graced me with their opinions or critiqued mine. So after that big build up, is it asking to much of the members to give me their opinions about this many coins? Not all at once of course, maybe only a coin or two a week or a bit more now and then. So what do you all think? Edited by KauaiHawaiiGuy
01/24/2020 2:23 pm
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Bedrock of the Community
 United States
18681 Posts |
 sure. you can post your coins regardless of grade. its best to post a single coin in a post. i'd keep it to 3-5 coins a day. make sure you are posting to the correct forum based on year. both obverse and reverse and crop the photos. you may need to optimize them using the free image optimizer on this site |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4085 Posts |
Welcome! I can't imagine you would offend anyone by posting a few coins a week for grading opinions, etc.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7621 Posts |
.... to the Community! We will be glad to render opinions on your coins. Just post each coin in it's on thread as multiple coins in the same thread lead to confusion. Please crop and properly orientate your pics. I wish you had came here earlier and I hope this turns out good for you!  |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
612 Posts |
Well thank you ............
to KenKat, I wasn't sure if posting this many was acceptable, I appreciate your answer stating that they would not be too many.
to Panzaldi, it certainly wouldn't be 3 to 5 a day, more likely 3 to 5 a week if that. And thanks for the tip about a free optimizer, I'll have to search out where that's at unless you have another tip for me on it's location.
to Westernsky, thank you, I will be sure to only post a single coin at a time, crop and orientate correctly. And I'm sure it will turn out good for me. The worst is if all my grading was off a lot and my coins have far less value than I thought, but even then, the education will more than make up for my loss of coin values and hopefully make me a better grader.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
6586 Posts |
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Moderator
United States
56855 Posts |
One coin per post,front and back and any close ups if needed. John1  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7621 Posts |
Quote:
.....the education will more than make up for my loss of coin values and hopefully make me a better grader. I call the coin mistakes I've made over the years "tuition". I've done some doozies the past 60 years! |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
5246 Posts |
Quote:
And thanks for the tip about a free optimizer, I'll have to search out where that's at unless you have another tip for me on it's location. If you click on "new topic" you see "free image optimizer" below "Upload image" beneath the box for entering text. |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3733 Posts |
, the membership would be happy to evaluate your coins, giving you our opinion on grades, as to value that comes down to what someone is willing to pay for a coin, and what someone is willing to sell it for.. Price guides are just that, I consider any online pricing just a starting point.. one of the best price guides I can recommend is ebay, just type in the coin and grade you are looking at, then click on sold items, then scroll through there and find something comparable,. Keep in mind there is a technical grade, or net grade, and then there is eye appeal. And eye appeal counts for a lot.. Usually an unattractively toned ms-64 coin, will sell for less than a nice clean example.. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4469 Posts |
The real coin value is what you can sell the coin for minus expenses. The NGC and PCGS price guides are for graded coins and the prices in the guides are Inflated above the typical selling price. Raw coins will typically sell for less than graded coins. If you want to know the value of your raw coins, the best sourse would be using ebay past realized sales of raw coins in similar condition/grade. Sell some of your coins as it will give you a true picture of their value and make you a better buyer. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6390 Posts |
Price guides on PCGS and NGC websites are intended to apply for coins graded by those companies. Most CCF members agree those prices are "high retail." You can probably buy most PCGS and NGC-graded coins at somewhat lower prices than the guides show. Looking forward to seeing some of your dollars! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1959 Posts |
This forum exists for the reason you want to use it. Have fun!!
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
Quote:
What I don't know is whether or not any of these PCGS bid or ask values are un-slabbed raw values, or are all the values at PCGS or NGC only for professionally slabbed coins. They're for their coins only. Quote:
And if all values you see on line are only for PCGS and NGC slabbed values, then how are un-slabbed coins valued?
Depends what it is. Some coins they're just a little lower such as common date common grade morgans, other coins there can be a rather significant difference especially series that are heavily faked. Quote:
even the polished, cleaned, whizzed, dipped ...... Dipping done properly is perfectly fine and undetectable. I wouldn't lump that with those others especially when whizzed and polished is about the worst thing you can do to a coin. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
612 Posts |
I certainly appreciate all the comments to my post and the answers to my questions so far. I will try and post the first few of my 250 plus Morgans and Peace dollars today. I have another question that I hope there are some tips for. What lighting is best? I have a pretty nice Panasonic 16 MP digital camera with a 60X zoom, and I have a small table top camera stand that can point straight down (I bought that to take pictures for ebay sales). But I have noticed that some pictures are so sharp that it almost makes coins look as though you were looking at the real coin instead of a picture, and other photos not so much. Any tips on lighting to make the coins really pop and show their full luster or lack of it, and true toning if any. I'm going to experiment with different lighting before I post today to try and get the closest to true pictures I can. So, any tips? |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4085 Posts |
There's a whole forum dedicated to taking pictures with people much better than me at taking pictures: http://goccf.com/f/81It takes lots of experimentation to find a setup that works. Then to try to be able to recreate it as needed - which is something I've found is hard over time. |
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Replies: 16 / Views: 2,194 |
Posted 01/24/2020 1:51 pm
