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For most of his life, Merced's Jim Stofle has been interested in coins. His knowledge and appreciation of coins have led to a much-heralded ability to evaluate rare examples.

When Stofle was about 8 or 9 years old, his baby sitter brought along a shoe box full of coins to entertain her new charge. Stofle, now 56, still has one of those coins, known as a Fugio cent, which today is worth about $5,000 on the collector's market.

A life member of the American Numismatic Association, Stofle entered his first-ever grading contest last month at the Long Beach Coin Expo. He correctly judged 12 out of 20 coins and missed six others by only one point. His prize was a Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle $20 gold piece valued at $2,500, along with considerable bragging rights.

Stofle said he had 20 minutes to judge 20 coins; it only took him only five minutes to get the job done, but about a minute of that time was spent analyzing one tarnished coin. He got that one right, too; three other contestants got nine right out of 20 samples.

Stofle's friend Bill Shamhart of Morris County, N.J., said Stofle is a natural at grading coins. Shamhart teaches advanced grading classes and says not everyone knows how to grade coins. Some students eventually will learn grading skills, but Stofle's talents will only get sharper as he practices, his friend said.

Stofle modestly says professional coin graders regularly get 18 out of 20 coins right. Some of the more brilliant younger collectors who have an eye for grading coins have been recruited by professional grading companies to grade coins rather than deal in them. Shamhart said that if Stofle graded coins every day, he also would get almost all coins right quickly.

Coincidentally, Stofle discovered that Shamhart's father, a B-52 instructor pilot at Castle Air Force Base, was stationed here in the late 1960s and early 1970s and Shamhart lived in Merced during that time. Stofle and Shamhart have met numerous times at the annual collectors' conventions.

"Most coins are pretty easy for me to grade," Stofle said. "I can't explain it, but I just look at the coin and know what the grade is. Due to the recession, coins have decreased 20 to 30 percent in value, except for extremely rare ones."

Coins are graded between one and 70 points, with points subtracted for flaws. Stofle uses three magnifiers to spot the scuffs and nicks that coins accumulate over time. When they are lumped together in sacks, coins get marks as they rub together, and that detracts from their value.

Stofle, a certified public accountant who's lived in Merced for 46 years, said he is more driven by the history of a certain coin than the fact it's rare. He said there's quite a bit of speculation in collector coins but the average old coin, like houses, is down about a third in value today.

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Merced coin collector has national reputation as assessor