I am sure that many of you share my experience regarding people contacting you to "grade their coin/coins". For those of you who charge for this, what/how do you charge? Percent of total collection? Per coin? Hourly?

Some who do appraisals charge by the hour, some charge a percentage of value and some charge a flat fee. Some will even do it for free. It all depends you ask to do the work.

Doing one right now. Its for my bosses mother. I am doing it for 5% commission on anything I sell. Plus eBay fees, shipping fees, etc. That is pretty cheap but then sometimes there is more reasons to do something than just money alone. I figure I am sucking up but so what, when it comes time for raises and or, god forbid, layoffs, who do you think will get a raise or still have a job? Thats right, me.

It also depends on what it's for.

Hourly would be normal if a written appraisal is needed for a large collection for legal purposes (ie. insurance)
Percentage would be more common for an informal appraisal with intent to sell.
Fixed-fees are usually only used in cases where the collection is small.
Free is also available usually on a casual basis (ie. asking a dealer what they'd pay)

BTW, there are answers posted to a thread from several months earlier on the same topic:

http://www.coinpeople.com/index.php?showtopic=10254&hl=

The library I work for has hired an appraiser to give a written report on our coin collection. He is charging $250.00 per hour. Is this a reasonable amount?

not unless your library has a world class collection.

I'd say $250/hr is pretty steep. I've known of some who charge up to $150 but that's about it. The only reason I can think of for more would be for a very specialized collection.

Agreed. Anything over $100/hr would have to be pretty specialized. A US or Canadian only collection should be $50-75 or so as it should be pretty straight forward. $75-125 would be fair if there's a considerable amount of world coinage, or exonumia that needs research.

Hmmm. Thanks for the replies. The collection is really a smattering of everything from ancient Greek and Roman, Byzantine, medieval and modern world coins, and American. In spite of this range, the appraiser has indicated that there is nothing really exceptional in the collection, and he put the total value close to $200,000. I am new enough to the whole business not to know if this is large or small.
I really appreciate all of your input.

I would say for the value of the collection, his price per hour wasn't that bad.

Not if it took 800 hours

It comes down to how fast the coins are done. Ancients typically are charged $5 per.