By Mike Thorne, Coins Magazine

In Helpful Hints for Enjoying Coin Collecting, Bill Fivaz defines “cherrypick” as follows: “to purchase a coin with a variety on it (unbeknownst to the seller) for the normal price of the coin. The variety usually makes it more collectable or valuable. This term may also apply to purchasing an undergraded coin at the lower price.”

This is something we all want to do, right? Whether we’re buying a new car, groceries at a neighborhood store, or coins at a coin show, we all want to get a bargain. Nobody wants to pay full retail price for anything anymore.

So how is this possible in the case of rare coins? How can you buy desirable coins for bargain prices? The answer, in a word, is knowledge. In order to be able to spot a coin that’s under appreciated and thus underpriced, you need to know more about it (its unrecognized variety, its true grade) than the seller.

Unfortunately, I know of no courses you can take to acquire this knowledge, and you’re unlikely to find someone who will mentor you in this area. Painful as it may sound to those of you who didn’t (or don’t) like studying and homework, that’s what it’s going to take for you to gain the knowledge you need to cherrypick successfully. For openers, you’re going to have to acquire a numismatic library and read and study it diligently.

But what books should be in your library in order for you to learn to cherrypick? Obviously, I need to be much more specific.

To begin, I would advise you to buy copies of each of the major grading guides. These would include the The Official American Numismatic Association Grading Standards for United States Coins, (6th edition), New Photograde, and Official Guide to Coin Grading and Counterfeit Detection (2nd edition). Of course, it should go without saying that you need to study each of these books thoroughly, paying particular attention to the coin series in which you’re most interested.

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