Chris Perkins

Could that have been bank fees perhaps?

I expect a quite small market, but it is (as far as I can tell) the only book on reading and understanding specifically Arabic coins. It's a book originally published in 1973, then revised in 1980, by Richard Plant and it's been in and out of print a couple of times since then. It was originally also translated into Russian! I want to provide affordable assistance to inquisitive people both now and for future generations, so hope to keep it in print in one shape or another for eternity, even if I won't be able to retire from it! For a few quid it can become part of your field or experience.

I'm too busy collecting pics and (e)valuations for "Collectors' Wives 2014".

I've got a new website, in case anyone didn't see.

This must be a first, surely. An honest ebayer with a thirst for knowledge! Perhaps there is hope. Hello Edward.

What, on the new Scottish currency post 2014 you mean? First things first, I'll get the Irish one in the bag. Currently work is being undertaken on the Greek book, Irish book and Arabic book (which is pretty much finished).

Thanks. And that reminds me, I need to add social media 'like' buttons and such like!

Oooo, £700 for EUR932 is pretty dire. I find it a bit old fashioned that all German accounts have a monthly fee (unless you're employed and pay in over a certain amount every month) and credit cards also have an annual fee. And there are hefty fees when you use the ATM of another bank within Germany. Free bank accounts are taken for granted in the UK, even if they are, as you say, hard to open if you're a foreign resident.

Also, without being rude. When I get coins like that, they get scrapped for the copper content. For the time involved in listing, photographing, waiting for a sale for 99c etc (assuming they do sell), it's just not worth the effort and certainly not worth the cost posting most of those anywhere. As mentioned above, there are some there that you can sell, but if those images represent the best, then don't waste too much time on the rest. If I were nearer I'd pop round and make 2 piles with you (one for low value but saleable coins and another to take to the scrap man).

I've got a Fairfx debit card that I use to transfer money from my UK bank account and then draw out here in Germany. www.fairfx.com. The exchange rate is good and the fee for drawing money out is only EUR1.50, which is less than direct from Natwest and less than the silly EUR5.00 for drawing money from a German account in Germany but from another bank's ATM! Have you noticed that German bank charges are a bit silly Azda?

In my experience, large quantity nearly always equals low quality (because it indicates an accumulator of coins, rather than a collector). It depends on how dedicated and how serious (and how wealthy) the original collector of them was. They could be utter rubbish or could be middle of the road, i.e mainly nothing special with the odd lower value one among them, usually through coincidence more than anything else. A few sample pics of how they are stored, labelled etc usually indicates the seriousness of the collector/accumulator and allows one to gauge potential. Without at least a few sample pictures (even if the dates aren't clear) I don't think I (or we) can help much.

No. They probably used the same die to strike white metal commemorative medals and yours is what's left of one!

On the 8th July I fly over to collect this from my usual odd car supplier of choice near Bolton. A Ford Scorpio based 6 door limo. The last big Fords were an acquired taste in standard form. As a stretched limo with a higher roof-line they look even more cumbersome and are so ugly that they rival the Medusa. People quite often turn temporarily to stone when it drives past. It's a 1997 model with air-coin and chromium hub caps. 69k miles and in regular use until 10 days ago by a funeral director in Plymouth.

We had a big tom cat (from an old bloke that died and his family in the house next door claimed to not know him!) that suddenly had some kind of wound on his face that smelled rancid and eventually fell off to reveal his teeth and gums! He had bits of ear missing, bit of face missing, was visibly full of lice, didn't look like he'd cleaned himself ever, but he was the friendliest cat. For a while he seemed quite happy with missing face, even though his food would fall back out while he was trying to eat it. I called him the Terminator and most people avoided him. Then we found him curled up in a sleeping position in the shed, dead.

We actually paid for Noodle to have the snip and sometimes someone comes and takes a van full of cats away (apparently to re-house, but who knows). We've paid out well over EUR1000 on other peoples cats to keep them healthy! Noodle died the other week of kidney failure.

We don't have much luck with cats. There's a farm very close and they seem to have more cats that cows. They often end up befriending us and then we 'adopt' them and they live here. Two of them have even had there babies in the garden, but they never seem to live long. We gave 2 babies away and the one we kept (named Roger, after Syd Barrett) died of FIP before he got to 2. The other week his mother (Noodle) died aged about 5. She lived in the house for a few months but was never that healthy. Some end up dead on the road, too. We pay the vet bills to try to keep them going, but they just keep breeding and dying.

Not for the 1689 2/6d. Those are almost as common as Churchill crowns, but certainly better than bullion

I don't think any of those have been polished, at least not in the last 100 years! Higher, worn areas are often lighter. The first one is the most likely to have been polished, but certainly not recently and probably not at all.

The old Scorpios go well and are comfortable, roomy and all the right things. They have some weaknesses like all cars (e.g. the fuse boxes on these are a bit exposed and tend to get wet and cause electrical probs). I've never met anyone that hasn't shared the opinion about this being the ugliest Ford. I don't think Ford ever actually named and shamed the person responsible for the design. There was a face lift version in 1998 which was a little better, but then it died a death. In fairness that was also to do with the weaning appetite for large cars at the time.

Yes of course. I looked and I only have 3, but one of them is at least a CGS best of!

I usually have a few! Any that are ugly (I mean even uglier than normal), excessively bag marked, scuffed or just not right, all get paid into my Natwest account at 25p face value.

Silver coloured 2p's are all coming out of the woodwork today! Sorry for mixing you up.

We spoke on the phone today didn't we? As you know, it's an error coin and it sounds like the 2p dies have been used to strike a 2p but with the wrong blank in place, either the blank of a 10p or of another coin intended for something else. I thought you already had someone that was willing to pay big money for it? As far as I'm aware modern off-metal strike like that don't sell for very much money at all, usually. Unless any other members know of any expensive ones in the past? I've had cu-ni pennies before and generally got just a few quid for them.

I just have to suffer it for a couple of weeks! And yes, Del Parker is allowing me to use his images, which is great. He doesn't have a lot of modern images of the ordinary coins though.

I used to do that one a lot (sharing a table with my mate Richard), but haven't for a while.