What is your weakness as a collector?

BlueCole

What is your weakness as a collector? (Besides spending the children's lunch money!!!!)

I, for one, CANNOT spot corrosion on copper peices. I sent in a two center to be slabbed by ANACS, and yep, came back Net Fine for corrosion. I also sent a 16-p to Braddick, and yep, he said it was corroded.


Could someone post scans to show corrosion? it would help alot!!!

B.

What about you?

MastaHanky

My weakness (besides a lack of money to spend) is the inability to tell the difference between a weak strike and light wear on Walkers. Just can't figure it out for some reason.

darktone

BlueCole-Here's some pictures of indian cents I have with corrosion some have little corrosion and others very heavy. mike

picture1

picture2

picture3

picture4

picture5

clw54

My weakness is not having enough experience. Knowing if a coin is cleaned, real, things like that.

BlueCole

as far as cleaned coins, it's the color. if it looks diffrent, (besides toning) something's funky. (most of the time) of course, if it's in G4, and white, something's wrong. i don't have any pictures, but maybe another poster does.

Darktones--what about on copper that's not RB? sould i use a loupe?

B.

goyankeez

Everything. Especially Grading.

I'm getting there-slowly, but surely.

keets

i have trouble with washington quarters and franklin's. and with proof coins i need to look really hard to see hairlines.

al h.

Viper

Trying to understand what drives the prices of certain moderns whiles others are ignored

oldcameoproofsguy

I have spent many years studying silver issues of US coinage and my collecting interest has always been siver coinage. I have pretty much ignored copper, nickel and gold. I know tidbits of information of copper and nickel but my knowledge of gold coinage really lacks.

Twowood

Would an acetate bath remove that corrosion?

beelzebud

My weakness would have to be US gold. Limited knowledge, grading i.e any expertise in that area.

Bill

nwcs

Actually, I can answer what my weaknesses are by saying what I am good at. I'm good at seeing the luster and detecting hairlines. I'm decent now at detecting light wear on silver. I'm good at seeing the marks and hits on a coin. I'm OK on detecting artificial toning. But that's about all. Enough to do a decent job in all series but not good enough on any one series.

darktone

BlueCole- yes use your loupe if you suspect corrosion. I will try to look for some pictures of coins with other types of corrosion. Oh yeah my weakness other than series I am not familiar with is indian gold. mike

ccrdragon

Twowood - no! Acetone (or Acetate) on copper will always wash out the color and hasten the process
of turning the coin to a dark brown color!

DoubleDime

Grading

tjkillian

My weakness is trying to detect original versus recolored indian cents. The recolored ones look so good...

Tom

Tootawl

Grading...I have two GAEs graded by PCGS, one is a MS68 and the other is a MS69. I can't tell the differences between the two.

Tonekiller

COLOR! I buy the color then hope the coin is MS not AU later. Ouch!

TBT

RLinn

Hairlines, hairlines, hairlines. While I am pretty good at spotting receding hairlines and reseeded hairlines, the hairlines on Washington quarters drive me nuts. I rotate them, tilt them and use a loupe and I can still miss them. I think I need to experiment more with lighting. Coin shows are terrible for lighting and that's where I have my greatest hairline sighting problems.

Trime

Discipline! Discipline! Discipline!
I am working hard to buy only the best of what I can afford. My goal is to bypass what is nice and only purchase what is outstanding. It requires patience and committment. Patience is a difficult attribute when you see something that is nice and maybe fairly priced but not the outstanding piece you mght be able to obtain if you keep to a standard and waited for a better opportunity.

lordmarcovan

I can spot corrosion OK; it's lightly cleaned stuff that slips past me. I can spot a whizzed or polished coin. But dipped? Not usually. Certainly not from a picture.

I cannot grade Peace dollars or Pratt Indian coins. Fuhgeddaboutit. I can get pretty close in my guessing, but even telling a slider from a low-end MS coin is tough.

Darktone- ouch! That 1907 looks like the poster coin for the Intercept ads! (Too bad, it's got a pretty obverse).

Gilbert

Naivety.

I expect too much!

ARCO

Patience and discipline. Searching and buying coins is so much fun it is very, very difficult to pace oneself and buy only the primo pieces. I buy circulated coins so my outlay isn't so bad if I buy a mediocre coin. Because I love taking chances I buy coins that I may lose a bit or just break even.

But what is the fun of collecting if you can only buy a coin or two every few months?

Tyler

newbiecollector

My weakness is not being able to say NO to a coin that I like the look of. My problem is not having enough actual coins to "hold in my hand" to gais real experience. Normally, if I wanna see it........ I gotta buy it first..........from the net.

mdwoods

I think I have a pretty good handle on grading MS modern coinage, but circulated coins give me the most trouble. Especially from F+ thru XF. And on Lincolns, it is hard to tell if some of the 20 S cents are weakly struck from worn dies or circulated. mdwoods

BlueCole

yea!! My first thread to go over a page!!

Great responses, i just hate it that i didn't check it until now.

B.