To grade or not to grade….

Afternoon everyone ….

You can’t browse any on line dealer now a days without seeing slabbed new release coins for sale. Now I’m not saying that a few that have the potential to increase in value over time aren’t worthy. But it does seem that just about every coin released now there are dealers selling graded versions.

Just remember not all coins are created equally….

Here’s where there is an issue to me with current semi numismatic coins being graded. Dealers send in tons of these coins at a bull rate. They are pretty much promised a certain amount of MS70’s and MS69’s from their submissions.

I don’t personally have an example, because as I stated I don’t buy current coins graded unless it’s an extremely limited release and I really like the coin.

But….

While we were in Vegas at the coin show. @summertooth bought an MS70 silver Libertad. Upon looking at it closely with just the naked eye, there was an imperfection on the Libertad. @summertooth can attest to this himself.

Don’t get me wrong….

I’m a huge fan of grading coins. Especially numismatic coins, raw coins are great but if you ever try to sell these coins you will never get the true value without it being graded 100% guaranteed.

This is why people that have the ins on estate sales make tons of money on coins. They buy them up on the cheap, cherry pick the nice ones to send out and be graded.

The best advice that I can give you is if you like a certain coin or a few coins. Learn as much as you can about that or those particular coins and how to visually determine a fairly accurate grade. Find out the high spots of each coin obverse and reverse to know the first signs of wear. Buy a 10X or 20X power loupe, for checking for alterations or cleaning of the coin.

I know this all sounds like a lot of work, but it really is not. Within two minutes of inspecting a coin I can determine all of these factors and determine a grade range.

I know most of you are just stackers, but you are missing out on an opportunity to make far more money for yourself then just the precious metal content of the coin. As spot prices rise, I have always moved away from adding weight and concentrated on buying numismatic coins.

A perfect example was just recently in 2021, when the spot price of silver nearly hit $30 an ounce. I stopped buying silver bullion once it hit $25 an ounce. I instead bought graded Morgan dollars, Franklin half dollars, Buffalo nickels, and Peace dollars.

In just those two years the numismatic coins that I purchased have nearly doubled in price, some have more then doubled.

Example: In just a years time, a graded Morgan silver dollar that I purchased last year while in Vegas at the coin show has nearly doubled in price from what I bought it for. I paid $245 for this exact coin in March of 2022. They are currently selling for $450 or higher.

Here is the coin…