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I think you missed my poor attempt at humour. My database has a field for the auction or dealer a coin has been bought from, the specific auction number or name, date bought, lot number, cost and provenance. There is a separate field titled 'comments'. There is, therefore, plenty of opportunity to document the 'chain'.

Orson Carte Al D'Enté Willy Eckerslike Bella Pock Helen Bach Tanya Hyde

That's a real shame. What a pity he didn't do more research especially as that's a hugely popular and therefore much faked rarity. I'll contact him with any advice I can offer.

Hi everyone, I'm Jack, nice to meet you all - I've been collecting British pre-decimal coins since lockdown started last March, albeit with quite a large gap between then and now due to moving house, quitting my job (good timing mid-pandemic) and other minor impediments. I'd say I've been properly focussed on collecting coins now since September 2020, so in a word - newbie. Even as a kid I remember finding old coins around my grandparents' houses and being fascinated by how old they were (even the ones that weren't particularly old) and equally fascinated by the alien (to me and my generation) system of £/d. While I'd remark at how fascinating old coins are, I never actually got round to making a hobby of collecting them or delving deeper into numismatics. I found a old hot chocolate tin underneath the bed in the spare room of my step-mother's house when I was staying there for Christmas in 2019; in it there were loads of old, mostly British, coins so I decided to sift through them and see if I could find anything really interesting. In amongst the tonnes of decimal 1/2 p coins there would appear various George VI coins, the odd George V coin, a few Victoria pennies rubbed to oblivion over time. All of these were simply magical to me; tangible pieces of history passed from untold numbers of hands into untold numbers of pockets untold numbers of times - amazing! And each coin a work of art in its own right. I decided to cherry-pick the best ones (best one being a 1909 Edward VII Half Crown in not the best condition) and when I got home, I put them into an album I'd bought. That's when I did what I believe most new numismatists do - I went on eBay and bought garbage in order to bulk out my collection. I later read in some coin groups on Facebook that you ought to focus on something specific and avoid quantity over quality. People suggested date-runs, all coins for a certain monarch or a certain year, etc. My favourite piece is the shilling by a long chalk, so I've decided start trying to get a shilling of each pattern (is that the right word even?) for each monarch going back as far as I can, so: Elizabeth II Scottish + English omitting BRITT. OMN, Elizabeth II English + Scottish with BRITT. OMN, George VI English + Scottish CuNi IND:IMP. omitted, George VI English + Scottish CuNi with IND:IMP., GEORGE VI English + Scottish Ag .500, etc. Currently I've got a few (can provide pics if people would like to see where I'm at so far), notwithstanding some gaps in chronology and some necessary upgrades owing to my earlier less-informed eBay jaunts 🤦‍♂️ Does this sound like a good idea to you more experienced folks? Another thing, how best can I spend my time when not actually making purchases? I have a few books (Spink 2021, Collectors Coins GB 2020, Grading British Coins); are there any others that you would recommend? What would you recommend researching? Sorry this has ended up quite long, I can boil it down to: 1) What do you think of collecting each pattern of shilling for each monarch? 2) What would you recommend doing to learn more? Thank very much in advance. I'm really looking forward to engaging with everyone on this forum, which seems like a really nice place with some very informed folks 😊

The database is an excellent idea. I must create one at some point. Very useful. At the moment I just keep all the receipts, or even a hard copy of a screenshot if I don't get a proper receipt with the item. I might incorporate a space for a photo of the receipt.

Did you design that database yourself? I created mine 25 years ago using FileMaker Pro, and it's expanded considerably since then! Here are 4 layouts (out of at least 25)...

Yes ,some nice coins ,so much so that i bought some 👍

Really some lovely coins and only wish I had more money to spend! Retrospectively there were a few that went low but many of the bigger ticket items such as the 1841 2/6 did pretty well IMO.

I picked up three of your lots. 1860 sixpence 1871 sixpence - no die no. 1887 sixpence - JEB on truncation. In my records I will mark the provenance as 'Nick from Predecimal'.

Yes I supported Nick also today. Just had to have some of his lovely Sixpences and Threepences. I managed to get 5 Lots 😍 The most I have ever spent in one go on coins, will be beans on toast for the next month or more.

stupid fuels

I got caught out when working at IBM when someone persuaded me to put out a call for Hugh Janus over the tannoy...

Hi Jerry, Re buying the best condition I can afford - something that I've recently been made aware of, so I might have a bit of upgrading to do! My "Grading British Coins" arrived today - It'll definitely come in handy; there have been times when someone posts a a picture of a coin and I think "that looks very nice", then someone will comment and say "I'd say aVF". My estimation of what constitutes a "good" coin is apparently way off! Would love to get down to a coin fair (when we're all allowed out again), not sure if there are any in my neck of the woods but B'ham and London are easy to get to Thanks for the tips!

Just had this sixpence graded, it achieved a grade of CGS 82 (Choice uncirculated), by far the highest graded early milled coin in my collection