Product Description

THE GUIDE THAT EXPLAINS, ILUSTRATES, AND SETS THE STANDARD FOR GRADING UNITED STATES COINS

The world's largest and most prestigious coin grading organization has created an amazing, one-of-a-kind guide that reveals its grading and authentication secrets. From the introduction:

"By furnishing a simple yet detailed guide to grading coins, PCGS has made it easy to understand the number that appears on a grading holder. Reading this book will make you an expert."
– Jay W. Johnson, Former Director, United States Mint

This book illustrates and explains with precise descriptions and digital images how you can determine the exact condition of a coin. Here is a coin grading volume so complete that—like its author, PCGS—it indeed sets the standard for grading coins. Inside this illustrated guide you will find:

• The standards for grading all United States coins, including precise definitions of Mint State and circulated grades

• An all-new section on how to grade America's 50-State quarters

• The fundamentals of counterfeit detection

• The secrets of handling and storing your collection

• State-of-the-art techniques used to recognize 'doctored' coins

• Over 600 detailed illustrations

This detailed guide is the only book on the market that encompases so many facets of coin grading and counterfeit detection.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18502 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-09
• Released on: 2004-03-09
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

From the Publisher
What an undertaking this book was -- 48 pages of gorgeous color, spectacular black-and-white images throughout, the grading standards of the Professional Coin Grading Service published in a book for the first time -- this is truly the book no serious coin collector can do without! I worked with the top names in coin grading on this one, and I basically had to just sit back and marvel at their expertise. This was a challenge to produce, but an incredible achievement.
-- Randy Ladenheim-Gil, Editor, House of Collectibles

Customer Reviews

Very informative.
This book has a ton of useful information about coin grading and collecting in general. The grading pictures, however, are not terrific. But it still is a good and worthwhile book. The photos displaying conterfeit coins are close to useless but the book is still a pretty valuable addition for an amateur collector.

Coin Grading and Counterfeit Detection
I found this book hard to put down. Very Good....

Precision Coin Grading
The 2nd Edition of "PCGS Coin Grading" is an excellent reference. It is critical and required reading for beginning and advanced coin collectors. As I am the author of 7 coin books since 1977, I appreciate the difficulty of attempting to explain the subtle and challenging differences between "a few minor marks in the main focal area" (MS65 grading standards, page 28) and "a few minor marks or one or two significant marks with hairlines" (MS64 grading standards, same page). As a complete reference to the condition (grade) of all U.S. coins, this book does an excellent job. However, as noted on page 7, with reference to the 11 grades of Mint State coins (MS60 to MS70): "It would be desirable to have more space for them on the grading spectrum to reflect their degrees of difference more precisely." This is why I am now writing a new book about Precision Coin Grading that will supplement the PCGS Coin Grading guide by explaining how to determine the "decimal point grade" of your coins. (MS64.5, MS65.8, MS66.3, etc.) In today's market, there can often be a price difference of hundreds or even thousands of dollars between a "just made it MS65" and a "just missed MS66." (MS65.1 vs. MS65.9.) Whether you are buying or selling coins for personal enjoyment or investment, collectors need to know whether they should consider upgrading a coin of "the same grade" (like snowflakes, no two MS65 coins are absolutely identical.) You also need to know if you have a "high end" or "PQ" (premium quality) specimen of a numerically grade coin, from Carson City Silver Dollars to U.S. Commems to St. Gaudens Double Eagles. Rare coin expert Jim Halperin has also attempted to address this issue. I've known both Jim and David Hall since the 1970's. Both are brilliant numismatists who have made valuable contributions to the hobby. Coin grading will always be an art as well as a science, and the 5 critical grading factors (surface, strike, color, marks and eye appeal) may never be determined by a computer, as my good friend Jim suggests. In the meanwhile, the more you know, and the more you learn, the better. As a tool to educate collectors about coin grading, The PCGS Coin Grading guide should really have better photos. Fortunately, many such photos are available on the websites of both PCGS and Heritage. If you don't own this great coin book, and you plan to spend more than $100 on coin collecting in your lifetime, buy this book immediately!