Roark's Bio
I started collecting in 1954 at age 7. A neighbor across the street gave me some tokens, which I still have. But I started collecting US coins by date, filling up the Whitman folders as best I could. Due to the US gov't taking silver out of coins, I lost interest in US coins by about 1970. I started collecting European crown sized silver coins until about 1980. Then I sold everything except the tokens I originally started with. Now I am back into coins as an investment as well as a collection. I have decided to look for PCGS, MS65 or better for US coins. For foreign coins, NGC does better. I am primarily interested in larger sized coins, so I may never get to half dimes, though I do have gold dollars, which are smaller than half dimes. When I collected earlier, I never collected gold as I couldn't afford it. Now I can afford it and find it very attractive.
Having set a general minimum grade standard of MS65, for some coins & sets it will have to vary. I have set a higher standard at MS66 for US commemoratives. For my Swiss Shooting Talers I set it at MS63. For my US Silver Dollar set (signature set), it will vary as low as EF40. I don't choose to own coins in lower grades where the detail is not easily seen. Nor do I choose to buy a coin to simply fill a slot in a book or on a webpage. I buy coins for their beauty and aesthetic quality. I don't think I would accept anything less than EF40 for any coin. If I can't own it at EF40 or better, I think I will simply do without. The field of numismatics is broad enough to put my attention & resources elsewhere than simply filling slots on a webpage or in a book. I look for beauty.