What's your "coin savant" skill?

kranky

Do you have one exceptionally well-developed, yet perhaps unusual, skill with respect to collecting? Maybe like the guy who can determine if a gold coin is a counterfeit by the taste, or you can tell a matte proof Lincoln from a superb business strike from a foot away. Not something you built up from years of practice, just something you realized that you really have a natural ability for.

Mine is being able to tell 1960 Large date/Small date Lincolns apart instantly. (Although I WISH it was the ability to determine wear vs. rub.)

guitarwes

Mine is to GET ripped every chance I get because of my LACK of knowledge!

sweetwilliet

I have the uncanny ability to buy only low-end coins for the grade for my collection. Wish I could lose that skill.

Coxe

I try to know the likely reverses of the coins from their obverses. It is not an inate Rain Man skill but one groomed over years as a shortcut over asking a dealer to show me every coin in his case.

Another one VAM guys and other variety folks like me get in time is a decent predictive ability to know what varieties should exist out there yet are undiscovered or a state that is likely rarer than another.

mgoodm3

I have an good intuitive feel for coin photography.

Russ

I can spot an Accented Hair Kennedy in a proof set while hovering at 20,000 feet.

Russ, NCNE

cladking

<< <i>Do you have one exceptionally well-developed, yet perhaps unusual, skill with respect to collecting? Maybe like the guy who can determine if a gold coin is a counterfeit by the taste, or you can tell a matte proof Lincoln from a superb business strike from a foot away. Not something you built up from years of practice, just something you realized that you really have a natural ability for.

Mine is being able to tell 1960 Large date/Small date Lincolns apart instantly. (Although I WISH it was the ability to determine wear vs. rub.) >>





I'm an idiot savant who has most people convinced it's more savant than idiot. They're wrong.

I can smell coins from a quarter mile and tell the silver from the clad.

coinguy1

My skill is finding the finest coins for the assigned grades, but in the most badly scratched and/or scuffed holders.

tcmitssr

I am terrific at selecting silver classic commemoratives from other 3rd party grading services that will cross over to PCGS at the same, or higher, grade.

WoodenJefferson

Maybe it was just instinct or maybe it was the savant side of my brain poking out, but I could pick out a 1970-S small date out of a roll of Lincoln cents that were just poured out on the veiwing table. That's before my eyes went ~kaput~ now I have to magnify each coin.

Barndog

I have the uncanny ability to call a dealer inquiring about the coin he just sold.

ccr

Back in the mid-80s with pennies, I could tell if it was a pre-1982 or post-1982 by looking at the reverse of a penny. Kind of a lost skill now but, probably pick back up again as it`s really in the color alot of times.

PerryHall

<< <i>I have the uncanny ability to call a dealer inquiring about the coin he just sold. >>

Been there, done that many, many times.

Coxe

Oh, almost forgot yhe skill from youth...being able to predict the dates of dateless Buffalo nickels.

pharmer

Finding hitherto undiscovered rpm's and doubled dies which are routinely deemed too minor to be listed. That, and $10, gets me a cup-o-Joe at Starbucks.

saintguru

Knowing which coins in my arena are underpriced based on "sheet" price and availability.

I've paid UP on just about every coin I have and the next one to sell would always be higher...and continues to do so. granted, Saints are hot now.

ABC123

Using my Coin Dealer BS Meter !

stephunter

I can usually identify a Jefferson nickel as full steps without a glass. I'm 41 so that probably won't last much longer.

Cladiator

I seem to be very skilled at finding coins that I really need for my collection just as I spend the last of my numismatic funds on something else.

jdsinva

When I worked in a store, I could hear a silver coin as it hit the counter. . .

I'm trying to develop the Morgan skill described by Coxe, learning the reverse based on the obverse to keep from pestering dealers about their coins. . .

MikeInFL

<< <i>My skill is finding the finest coins for the assigned grades, but in the most badly scratched and/or scuffed holders. >>





I have no "savant" coin skill per se, but I'm OK at taking photographs of coins...Mike

saintguru

"I have no "savant" coin skill per se, but I'm OK at picking out invisible minutia that only a flea can see in photographs of coins...Mike"

lkenefic

At long last I seem to be overcoming the uncanny ability for finding [and paying for] problem copper coins...seriously though... I do have a good knowledge [ability...whatever...] for accurately grading Indian Head Cents. A couple of AU55/58s that end up slabbing at MS60-62...I just wish I could do this more often. Leo