Grading Practice

Veep

Maybe this isn't new, but it is to me. I've really been enjoying the zoom feature on Heritage's site. Today, I used it for about an hour to look at $5 gold. I had become concerned that I was grading them incorrectly (too tough) and as a result, was missing some buying opportunities. After looking at 5-6 coins, I started nailing them right on, or one grade away. Of course, a few made me wonder how they came up with that grade. So, I'm probably still going to be a little tougher. But, now I feel that I'm more in-synch with market grading for these coins.

I had to kind of hold my hand up in front of my face so that I could only see part of the screen. Then, when the image appeared, I'd click to zoom once and the grade would be taken off the screen. Then I could zoom and pan to my heart's content befor zooming back out to check my grade vs. the holder. As time went on, I got faster and more accurate.

Granted, grading from images is far from perfect. But the practice can't hurt when you don't have a chance to travel to an auction or show to see a few hundred coins first hand. Try it and see if it doesn't help you too.

darktone

Veep, are you talking about $5 liberty's? If so you can try grading mine. The Heritage pictures are pretty nice when you zoom in but some light hairlines don't show up and the luster can be tough to call sometimes. Overall I think their pictures represent the $5 liberty very good. mike

Veep

Mike,

You sure have some nice fivers there! They were fun to look at. I went through them and graded 'em out. I got most of them dead-on. Some I missed by a point. That '05-S I had as a 65. Do they knock these down for the copper spots?