Leaderboard

It's all down to bubble gum for me. One of the makers (Wrigleys?) in the 1950s produced a series of paper inserts in their packs called 'Strange But True' in which they recounted odd events that had happened around the world. When you had all of these, you sent these thin sheets off and got back a properly printed flip book of the facts all nicely illustrated. From this you can see you had to be a completist in order to get the booklet at the end. One missing and it was no book!! So, I had to find the lot, which I did. Sadly, I can't find the booklet any more, but I'm sure this and the Brooke Bond experience are the reasons for my completism. Am I psychologically scarred? Can I sue for damages do you think? It might give me some cash for coins.

Am I peculiar because I think that the striving for the perfect, uncirculated hammered coin is missing the point of collecting historical coins? I want some wear in a coin, because I revel in handling a used coin, thinking of all the people that could have used it. It's history made real. The craving for pieces of metal straight from manufacture is an anathema to me. To each his own. I can understand the aim to get Mint milled but I regard them as just medals advertising the mint! Discus.

That's a bargain and a half Dave! Even 20 years ago, my UNC-and-very-nearly-BU 1954 and 1959 halfcrowns cost me £4 apiece. I agree with you about "not worth spending the money" on absolutely perfect specimens of them. My general approach has been to try and upgrade to GEF to UNC where I can, but without breaking the bank. As I work backwards, I'm often finding that I'm dropping to EF (and for the 1905 halfcrown I'll probably stick with my own fine specimen) and that's OK with me. The only exception I make is that within a date run, I like to ensure I have at least one coin which is in UNC condition. In that way, if I ever go to type collecting I will have a good basis to start from. I think that's a good point. There are several reasons why I switched to type collecting, one of the main ones being that once I had some high grade examples with eye appeal I completely lost interest in looking at (even owning) the lower grade coins, and there was no way I was ever going to afford a high grade example of every date. Much happier striving for 1 cracking example from each series

Quite. We all have to work within a budget. If I'd had more spare cash then I'd have happily bought the Newark. Likely it would have pride of place amongst my little collection of amulets and talismans I've made or picked up here and there!. But .. heck, based on the last few purchases, I could have bought half a dozen coins for the price! There was no way I could justify what would effectively have been a new collecting theme to myself. I balanced adding to my main collection with a fun novelty and the collection won. I guess the day I can find nothing that appeals within my budget might yet come. At that point I'll have some serious thinking to do about where to go from there. I like the idea that Geordie could no doubt keep a room full of people spellbound with stories of where his coins have been and the uses they were put to.