I'm having trouble seeing your photo. But I don't think that matters.
Mark, I would think about it differently. If there are not many high grade specimens, it is, in my mind, because there is little point in submitting moderns, as they are nearly all high grade. Modern minting standards are high, and I would not waste my hard-earned dollars on certifying 21st Century coins. I certify coins that are very old; for instance, where the jump is, say, $500 to $3,000 from MS64 to 65; or where the coins are key dates and heavily counterfeited. My advice is to
1. Immediately stop submitting anything if you have been. In fact, slow down on purchasing and looking for coins altogether. There's an expression: "buy the book before you buy the coin."
2. Read our FAQs and tutorials thoroughly.
3. Buy a copy of the "Red Book."
4. Try to get to a coin show, join a club, take a course, subscribe to ANA, interact in online forums, start reading The Numismatist.
5. Budget for the purchase of coins (we don't find valuable ones in change, sorry), and buy one or two problem-free pieces from a reputable dealer after researching a particular sector, say, large cents or modern commemoratives.
Just my advice, if I could go back in time I'd have bought fewer coins, and better ones; skip the "bargains" you get with problem pieces; trust dealers and listen to them; sell periodically to get a feel for market spreads.
If you are in the Tristate Area, I'd sell you things at the N.Y and CT shows for what I charge my dealer-wolf friends, and make sure you're getting something at a price so good that if you sold it the next day you could get 85-90% of your investment back from a trustworthy third party.
Forgive me if this is jot what you want to hear; I try to tell people what they need to hear. The fact that you are thinking about this logically and asking questions is great. I don't want to discourage you, I want to arm you with understanding!
Good luck.
