What's your "coin savant" skill?

Comments

• guitarwes Posts: 9,290 ✭✭✭

  October 23, 2006 4:21AM

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

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• sweetwilliet Posts: 2,315 ✭✭✭

  October 23, 2006 4:21AM

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

  Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
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• Coxe Posts: 11,139 ✭

  October 23, 2006 4:22AM

  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.

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• mgoodm3 Posts: 17,497 ✭✭✭

  October 23, 2006 4:23AM

  I have an good intuitive feel for coin photography.

  coinimaging.com/my photography articles Check out the new macro lens testing section

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• Russ Posts: 48,514 ✭✭✭

  October 23, 2006 4:27AM

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

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• cladking Posts: 28,748 ✭✭✭✭✭

  October 23, 2006 4:34AM

  
  
  << <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.

  tempus fugit extra philosophiam.

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• coinguy1 Posts: 13,484 ✭✭✭

  October 23, 2006 4:37AM

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

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• tcmitssr Posts: 1,570 ✭✭✭

  October 23, 2006 4:41AM

  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.

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• WoodenJefferson Posts: 6,491 ✭✭✭✭

  October 23, 2006 4:53AM

  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.

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• Barndog Posts: 20,516 ✭✭✭✭✭

  October 23, 2006 4:55AM

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

  JR Newsletter Online Edition

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• ccr Posts: 2,446

  October 23, 2006 4:58AM

  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.

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• PerryHall Posts: 46,885 ✭✭✭✭✭

  October 23, 2006 5:00AM

  
  
  << <i>I have the uncanny ability to call a dealer inquiring about the coin he just sold. >>
  
  Been there, done that many, many times.

  Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
  "Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
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• Coxe Posts: 11,139 ✭

  October 23, 2006 5:01AM

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

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• pharmer Posts: 8,355 ✭

  October 23, 2006 5:02AM

  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.

  Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
  
  Apropos of the coin posse/aka caca: "The longer he spoke of his honor, the tighter I held to my purse."
  
  

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• saintguru Posts: 7,727 ✭✭✭

  October 23, 2006 5:03AM

  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.

  

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• ABC123 Posts: 2,627

  October 23, 2006 5:04AM

  Using my Coin Dealer BS Meter !

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• stephunter Posts: 2,324 ✭✭✭

  October 23, 2006 5:25AM

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

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• Cladiator Posts: 18,256 ✭✭✭✭✭

  October 23, 2006 5:30AM

  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.

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• jdsinva Posts: 1,508 ✭

  October 23, 2006 5:32AM

  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. . .

  Jeff
  
  
  
  Semper ubi sub ubi

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• MikeInFL Posts: 10,188 ✭✭✭✭

  October 23, 2006 5:34AM

  
  
  << <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

  Collector of Large Cents, US Type, and modern pocket change.

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• saintguru Posts: 7,727 ✭✭✭

  October 23, 2006 5:37AM

  "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"
  
  

  

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• lkenefic Posts: 8,597 ✭✭✭✭✭

  October 23, 2006 5:45AM

  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

  Collecting: Dansco 7070; Middle Date Large Cents (VF-AU); Box of 20;
  
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