Reddit reviews Photograde: Official Photographic Grading Guide for United States Coins, 19th Edition
We found 3 Reddit comments about Photograde: Official Photographic Grading Guide for United States Coins, 19th Edition. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Used Book in Good Condition
I didn't have the ISBN's handy for all of these it was easier to find Amazon links and a link to Rick Snow's site for the Indian books. These are the books on my bookshelf which aren't the common ones: (Some are hard to find.)
First, learn how to grade (and identify coins) the best resource for this would be photograde, although you can no doubt find some decent references online.
Depending on what your collection mostly consists of, a specialty reference might come in handy. For example, early large cents have multiple varieties that can make a $20 coin a $20,000 coin, however these books are usually expensive ($50 or so) and so if you've only got like a single large cent, its not going to usually be worth it to buy a reference book just for that one coin.
Coinflation helps you with silver coins. For US coins, all dimes, quarters, dollars and half dollars are 90% silver from 1964 and before. For half dollars, coins dated 1965-1970 are 40% silver. For quarters, dimes, and dollars made for circulation dated 1965-present are not silver and neither are halves dated 1971-present. Melt value gives you a price "floor" meaning that a coin isn't going to be worth less than the silver in your coin, but it can be worth more. Many later-dated low grade silver coins are just worth melt, for example a 1964 quarter is only going to be worth whatever silver melt is, but earlier or better grade coins are worth more, for example a 1916-D dime is worth quite a bit, even in worn condition.
I'll start with your last question. The coins were left to my brother and myself. He wants to cash out his half entirely. I'd personally love to hold on to many of the coins - although I will have to liquidate some. The idea is that we want a decent appraisal, so that we can divide the collection without just liquidating it all. It's kind of a sin to break up the half dollars though, the only ones missing are a 1794 and stuff past the 1940s. And most of them are in AU or better condition.
Most of the coins went to PCGS for your reason #2, there's a fairly big jump in value depending on the grade. The idea was that getting them slabbed would definitely increase the value more than the grading fees. Somehow I don't think a "PCGS Genuine - AU Cleaning" holder does that. In most cases, anyway- there were a few items that do fall into your category #1.
I've already picked up blue and red books. Is this the photograde that you recommend?