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How long do you think you could last as a professional coin grader?
291fifth
Posts: 23,945 ✭✭✭✭✭
I suspect most couldn't last very long. Eye strain must take a real toll on professional graders. Can you imagine grading ultra-modern proofs all day long ...
I wonder how long a typical coin grader lasts at a major TPG?
All glory is fleeting.
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I'm with you.
By lunchtime, my eyeballs would roll out of my head and out the door toward home, leaving the rest of me to my own devices.
Here's a warning parable for coin collectors...
I'd only last until someone noticed the inconsistency in my work....... In a handful of series I could hold my own, at least in a narrow grade range of what I collect. Beyond that, it would get ugly real quickly.
As far as eye strain, lots of professions require prolonged concentration.... hand surgery, microscope lab work, hunting guide (lots of binocular & scope time), etc. The trick is to take breaks. Even then, I'd go bonkers working through my seventh monster box of ASEs for the day. Looking at top rarities would be fun, but even that would get old after a while.
I tried it for a while. 8 hour days were easy. Three straight days was easy. But 40 hour weeks were brutal. Of course, everyone is different.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
24 / 7, I'd grade 'em all. DW would have to drag me away.
I'd be interested in how many coins they grade in a typical day or shift.
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i dont know how long but i know it would cause what little sanity i have to go by the wayside or it would simply cause my demise.
ive sat and looked at coins for hours on end for weeks on end and i became a shell of my former self. did it for buying/selling and for big estate appraisals. thousands of coins with seemingly no end.
one needs be very well hydrated, rested, fed and probably most important, motivated.
doing a narrow range would in ways be easier but much more mundane.
i could do attributions all day mostly no prob. - so long as politics didnt kill it for me.
the right person could bring big bucks in attributions but they would need free reign. honesty and thoroughness would be key. after a year, efficiency would go through the roof as one became acclimated.
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Until the finalizer realized what was going on.
About as long as I would last assembling widgets in a factory. Not very.
"Everything is on its way to somewhere. Everything." - George Malley, Phenomenon
http://www.americanlegacycoins.com
Moderns ? A lot longer than if they were classics. What are there , like 2 grades ?
I do think I can grade coins, that said, maybe 15 minutes as I dislike monotonous work.
I require far more excitement and variety than that job could ever offer.....Cheers, RickO
Zip Minutes. Eyes are Shot. Would get Fired within 5 minutes or less.
What are the typical requirements to be a grader? Do you have to be a professional coin dealer? I'm pretty interested. Wonder if they are hiring... LOL!
My eyes are already shot.
Radiologists look at chest X-Ray after chest x-Ray much of the day. I did a rotation in diagnostic radiology as a student and enjoyed the experience, but could not see myself doing that. But I appreciate that some sharp and skilled people do it for a living.
Same with coin grading.
Five years, seven months. But of course the first four months we were not accepting submissions, and the next few months were not that busy.
Considering I would have the same success rate by either, A) Looking intently at every coin, or 'B) Randomly assigning grades without looking....My eyes could be fresh and unused!
Then again, I'm sure you have to enter the grades into a computer, or something. Nope...my eyes would still be shot.
I've worked many demanding physical jobs which are a lot less nerve-wracking than jobs requiring constant mental effort and visual acumen. It would probably be sink or swim. Or you get better fast. Training under an expert, at least 30 other graders with a real esprit de corps. Many here in good shape with excellent eyesight could hack it. I've been using dollar store 1.0 reading glasses--no way could I use junk like that and grade accurately at a grading company. OD'ing on vitamin A and carrot juice might help, nutrients like lutein is supposedly good. Eye exercises.
I kept a small stuffed buzzard on my desk. When I needed to unwind I would fling it at Rick Montgomery or Mike Fahey or Mike Fuljenz or one of the other graders that worked for me. Whoever got it would fling it at somebody else. After a minute or two of this we would get back to work.
Up until lunch time
What's the pay?
I think I might do OK at it and even like it.
Don't know until you're there but....I'd give it a shot.
It would be sort of like Chaplin trying to fix the huge machine in Modern Times...
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
For me it would be like any big city east of the Rockies: a nice place to visit, but wouldn't want to live there.
I'd probably be able to stick it out a few weeks.
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
No thanks. I'd rather get poked in the eye with a sharp stick on a daily basis.
I own my own companies. I cannot stand being tied down or answering to others to set my schedule.
Did the corporate american management stuff, faced mountains of monotonous data crunching, meetings that existed because there had always been one, etc.
Now, my income is limited by my work.
Therefore, I would make a lousy grader. I am probably ADD, but I am too old to be that, as that did not exist when I was a kid. You were either the beater up or the beaten up.
Besides, I would probably drop the 1933 $20 gold on a concrete floor.
I wonder what material their floors are made of?
I can tell you that after having written numerous auction catalogues, when you are in crunch time doing it all day, what you see is different in the afternoon than what you saw in the morning, and not in a good way. You tend to miss things when your eyes are tired.
I think you mean a full-time graders. Dealers should be considered professional graders.
First, you have to have the skills to be accepted as a grader. That eliminates over 99% of us. And to be selected probably means you have spent the equivalent of years actually grading/evaluating/buying coins out in the market, typically hundreds of thousands to millions of coins....something very few of us have done. I know when grading a coin auction I do about 800-1000 lots in a day. And the vast majority of those only get a 1-2 second look because I don't like them. I couldn't imagine grading EVERY coin, 8 hrs per day, for a week. I think having to write down the grade of every coin would bother me more than looking at it. I only consider the upper 5-10% of all dealers as professional graders. The rest are just average. You don't need to have TPG quality skills to run a coin shop or be successful as a retail bourse dealer. In general, the wholesale dealers do tend to be the better graders as they make their living on arbitrage with their peers.
Coin grading as a living? Like watching paint dry.
For modern commens it would be easy to last. Just use the following (MSXX or PRXXDCAM)....
69, 69, 69, 69, 70, 69, 69, 69, 69, 70, 69, 69, 69, 69, 70, 69, 69, 69, 69, 70, 69, 69, 69, 69, 70, 69, 69, 69, 69, 70, 69, 69, 69, 69, 70, 69, 69, 69, 69, 70....
Recipient of the coveted "You Suck" award, April 2009 for cherrypicking a 1833 CBHD LM-5, and April 2022 for a 1835 LM-12, and again in Aug 2012 for picking off a 1952 FS-902.
Not long.
I'd be too slow for them, and also too conservative on a fair number of "the classic coins." I also don't do as well with the dark room bright lights setup that is supposed to the atmosphere for grading coins. I have to adjust every time I go in to view auction lots. If I worked in that environment for very long I'd get a head ache.
I'd also go stir crazy working with the modern coins and the nit picking involved with grading PR-68, 69 and 70.
At first it might sound as glamorous as judging wet tee shirt contests.
However that would quickly dissipate and make it feel as repetitive and mentally stimulating like raking leaves all week.
It would be more fun in the shipping department.
Coin photography is also fun when just imaging a few items at a time.
When asked to shoot 5 boxes of 20, crop, template in a day even for pay it becomes quite a chore.
Reading X-rays is a lot more fun than grading moderns! Much more variety.
Wonder how they control productivity between graders?? There are go getters and slackers in every business.
Also, authenticating, counterfeit detection, filed rims, doctoring.... all of that is a step more difficult than strict technical grading.
I've taken it upon myself to submit incredible toners just to break up the monotony of the graders staring at ASE's all day.
Check out my iPhone app SlabReader!
It would be too monotonous and eye straining for me.....I would last a week or two. If I were able to do it part time, then I'd likely be okay.
“I may not believe in myself but I believe in what I’m doing” ~Jimmy Page~
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947)
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
I hear they get paid over $100K a year which is a big motivation.
I think Fred has the best gig.
i would do it so long as they would let me keep every 10th coin graded. i was going to say every 4th, but i'll settle for 10. then i would probably last until i got a really awesome 10th coin.
I like looking thru coins at shows or that come in or other dealers inv, but would not want to do it full time hour after hour day in an day out, especially modern stuff. It would be neat to see the different stuff, but working for somebody else , ill pass. From what I hear pay is a lot better than 100k , closer to 250K +
100K a year, now we're talking!
My YouTube Channel
Yes - it's fun, interesting, informative, but I wouldn't want to be a grader full time.
I don't grade the errors - I just authenticate and describe them. 85% of the errors
are very easy to describe, 13% take a bit of thinking, as far as a 'tag' description,
and sometimes (not every group) 2% are what I call Stumpers - I know the error
is real, but can't quickly figure out exactly how it occurred, or how to describe it.
It takes 2 to sometimes 3 hours to go thru just 125-150 coins so - most of the time
is figuring out the wording for the tag, and then making sure (with my Assistant
Kathy, who enters the info on a spreadsheet we then forward to PCGS) that
the wording fits the 24 characters/spaces for the tag.
for PCGS. A 49+-Year PNG Member...A full numismatist since 1972, retired in 2022
Till they figured out that I have the visual acuity of Stevie Wonder and I was the one playing braille on all the coins!
It would be fun for about an hour then the eyeball strain would just be too much.
Great point BryceM. The modern day collector "grades" a coin in a slab, that already has a grade on it. How hard is that? All we have to do is to be able to figure out if it's low end, average, high end for the grade or possibly not the grade assigned....vs. the price being asked. None of us hardly ever thinks about the coin being fake or doctored....hard work already done by the TPG that few of us are really good at. Crack a coin out you haven't seen yet and then grade it blind. That shows how good a grader you are.
Fred, thank you for the write up, pretty much what I figured.
You say you do not grade the coins. Do you also let the graders detect the counterfeit (not faked errors) errors struck from counterfeit dies or is that part of your job description?
I think I could last 3-6 months.
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Tom