John,
To answer your question, "How do you do it?", I would first refer you to page 31 of the Spring 2009 edition of Curry's Chronicle. The article "The Aftermath of a PQ Epiphany" describes a pivital part of my personal journey from "bozo-hood" to reasonably respectible amateur collector.
As I stated in the previous posting to Gar, the knowledge and resources are at the fingertips of every C4OA member. Our membership includes some of the finest numismatists in the world. Many of these people share their knowledge regularly in Curry's Chronicle.
You might now be asking, "OK, but how do I tap these resources when I live way over here in Mentor, Ohio?" My answer is, please read my "PQ Epiphany" article first. Afterward, we can pick up the conversation in any level of detail you care to address.
Mind you, I am learning fast but am still quite low on the totem pole. There are many C4OA members who have learned the correct way to acquire coins and who are a lot more advanced than I. Some, post regularly on the C4OA website. One such member is the Drummer. I know for a fact that he gained much of his imposing set of skills from the same source as have I. However, he didn't make the same magnitude of mistakes along the way.
Another very sharp, up and coming collector who has had the good fortune of learning the correct way to select coins from the beginning, is our very own Maya. At a mere 21 years of age, she is already a formidable proponent of knowledge based coin collecting. John, I'll give you two guesses who the source of this knowledge and training is.
Hopefully, these senior members and others will jump into this discussion about "knowledge based coin selection" and we can all benefit from the shared experience.
Belay Off
C4OA Lifer!
