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Sellers will presumably resort to free listings only. What ebay don't seem to realise is the mismatch between their demand for income and the relatively extortionate cost of a regular listing. Couple that with a system that encourages you to list crap because you don't get a decent price for quality and it is clear the wheels have partly come off the bus. Sellers get fed up because the degree of competition for material is typically not very great with anything other than the exceptional either not selling, or going for opening bid. To avoid the masses and get more eyeballs you have to pay to list. That increases eBays take to about 25% which is a lot of dosh to spend on someone who won't back you up in the event of a dispute. Buyers also suffer from the poundshop mentality where everything has to be a quid, whether good or bad value. Buyers get fed up because of the amount of dross listed. Virtually everyone I know who buys on ebay does a very limited search within what is already a fairly small subsection. List on a free listing day and the number of things available leaps to gargantuan proportions. Nobody has time to view them let alone bid on more than the odd item so you have to list at the minimum price you are willing to accept. There is no point listing if you are only going to get 3 or 4 views, or a single digit purchase rate relative to listings. Ebay is rapidly becoming passe. 10 years ago you could find quality within a relatively small number of listings. Today you find numerically fewer quality coins than ten years ago coupled with quite literally 10x the number of listings which are almost exclusively sh*te. Until eBay realises that less is more, it is best avoided. Note to ebay: there is another parallel universe out there which doesn't have ebay at its centre.

True - but 1927 is a weird case : where a denomination exists in the previous type (1926 ME), the proof values are approximately the same as UNC specimens of that previous type (even the shilling, where there is also a currency issue for the proof type). It's where the proof denomination is the only one dated 1927 (florin, threepence) that the values soar. Therefore, although the rarity is the same for all 1927 proofs, collectors seem to rate them according to whether there are ANY coins dated 1927 for a particular denomination.

A 1927 proof halfcrown of the third series with only 15000 sets released must be one of the rarest modern British coins. This coin only exists as a proof with none issued for general circulation as far as I can tell. You can see them on ebay for about GBP100. I guess most of the 15000 still exist as they were probably saved by people at the time however 15000 is a very small mintage. The same can be said for the rest of the set .

Wouldn't the 1674 crown fit the 'excessively rare' criteria? One available to collectors (no, I don't have it) and one in BM I think. I tend to regard 'rare' as meaning 'less common than others of this type/era etc', rather than 'less available relative to the number of potential buyers', so I think it's fair to describe the 1934 crown as rare, even though it turns up surprisingly often. I'd say 'very rare' was perhaps 'one will turn up in 3-4 years if you're lucky' and 'excessively rare' could be 'you'll only get 2 or 3 chances to buy it in your lifetime, even with unlimited funds'. The grading issue is important (especially for milled coins), the 1665 crown in grades above F would meet the 'excessively rare' criteria - I've only heard of 2 in 30 years - even van Roekel didn't have one. On the other hand, some coins can be very expensive without being particularly rare, especially if they're 'type' coins - the crowns of 1601 & 1831 spring to mind.

Reminds me of a favourite quote from Richard Lobel's intro to the Coincraft catalogue: "One of my first mentors, Bill Ross,[] said 'when you go to value a coin it is what you have not seen rather than what you have seen that matters'. By that he meant that, when you see a coin you have never seen before, forget what it catalogues, it is rare!