Chris Perkins

This is a forum where the chat is supposed to be public so that others can learn from your mis-identification! I'd rather we kept it in here, it's easy to post images. Didn't you ask about your 1922 penny somewhere else? Please keep questions to as few new topics as possible, especially when they concern the same thing.

Had you offered them to me I would have offered £41.40. I'm sure they'll find their level on ebay.

Get rid of all awful modern toot unless it has a mintage of lower than 1000. If the mintage is 15,000 it's 15,000 too many! In the late 60s the mints of the world finally realised that they could make lots of money selling new coins to the public rather than just making them to spend. Since then, they churn out as many commemorative coins and sets as they possible can. Some look nice (and if you think they look nice, fair enough, you should keep them) but after a few years when they are no longer new-new the vast majority are just worth their metal value. A mintage limit of 5000 is all very well, but if you can't find 5000 people that want it, then it's completely irrelevant. All of them get kept in their cases, so even in 100 years it's likely that many would have escaped being melted and there will still be lots around (in perfect condition still). It's all far too commercial you see, which makes modern commemoratives common and in nearly all cases, totally uncollectable and practically valueless. Compared to say a Victorian crown from a year when no proofs were made....At the time hardly anyone thought about saving a new one and they weren't made in large numbers specially for 'collectors'. As a result, a truly uncirculated (like new) Victorian crown is worth many times its silver value, because it's bloody rare. Compare that with a modern crown, which for a start rarely get spent so never get worn. Even in 200 years a 2008 crown will be many times more common (in mint condition) than a 100 or 200 year old crown is today. I'm not just saying that because I'm biased towards older coins, that's how I can see it going. There may be people with a different opinion and I know that there are some modern issues that are in demand or that have some kind of error or are genuinely rare (I have no experience with Chinese coins or Isle of Man Nigel Mansell coins (good F1 driver, but to see him on a coin would make me puke)). People are free to collect what they like, but all too often I encounter people that have inherited a huge amount of modern coins from some poor old lady only to find that selling them for anything like what was paid for them is an impossibility. My advice to novice collectors is to either collect what people don't collect or to find the best you can afford of coins that are not in a fancy package with some meaningless mintage limit! Sorry incuerpo I didn't mean to moan....I know these coins were obtained by you and it's encouraging that you want to learn about them.

There's no easy way and it's generally impossible with coins less than EF. The maundy threepences are prooflike, have mirror-like fields and are often darkly toned. In saying that, some of the circulation non maundy threepences can also be quite prooflike and darkly toned so even coin dealers have to sometimes make an instictive educated guess.

In my opinion anything from the Turks and Caicos is a novelty coin struck for 'collectors' and any uninformed people that would care to buy one I'm afraid. I very much doubt any of the 10,000 people on the islands have ever spent or even seen one. In fact One Crown appears to be fixed to the value of 1 US Dollar so I would assume that the main currency is the US$. It will just be worth a couple of pounds or the silver value (+ a small %) if it's silver.

I assumed that was the case, it's the only way as far as I can tell.

Sounds like a scrapper. As a dealer I'd try to sell it for 10% above scrap. I doubt it was made for the building society, more likely re-packaged by them because it is known as a 'Britannia'. I'd offer £239.00 for it.

Sorry chaps, had my knickers in a twist!

What year is it and is it mainland GB (i.e. not Channel islands, Isle of Man etc)?

Well I never, it's already gone higher than my £43.00 offer that everyone thought was too much before they realised it was a bit special!

Interesting story for this one. I didn't notice until yesterday that this crown is an ESC91 with GEI instead of DEI. I've had it for months and it was on sale at the last London coin fair. People like large silver coins and lots of collectors picked it up had a good look and then put it down again! I had it priced at a mere £43. No one noticed that the word DEI is GEI and nor did I. Luckily for me, no one bought it. Yesterday I sold a 1696 shilling and someone emailed to say they wanted it and had seen it was gone. I remembered this crown and as it was the same date, asked it they had any interest. Only then did I notice the bloody obvious error. It's only a VG-Near Fine but it's a very very clear GEI. ESC says R2 (very rare) and Spink says £300 in fine. However, I can't find any records of one of these being sold. Has anybody come across this coin before or seen one sell?

Ok then, let the competition begin. Who's going to put the first £1 on?

Derek (Red Riley) has another 1849 that I sold him this year. Show us your date Del if you read this.

I just put it on eBay this evening! I think I would take £180.00. Or do you want to bid in case it goes for cheaper? There is no reserve: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...E:IT&ih=008 If you want it for £180 let me know and I'll remove it right away.

Respekt Geoff! I'll translate for members not called 'Stechlin'.... Geoff says thankyou for the newspaper cutting. He says he likes the old (Gothic) German typeface too, but that he finds the written form not so easy to read. A typo error, missing 'n' in Zeitungsausschnitt, and should it be 'den'? Somehow that doesn't look right but knowing Geoff, it probably is. Should I start a German forum branch? Probably a bit pointless.

I suppose it must be a fairly common error then if Rayner only rates it R2. I expect in higher grade it's probably extremely rare.

Too late for that!

Well that's no good is it! Hopefully a UK audience will pay £200 for it or just under. Thanks for the info Sergy. Does anyone here want it for £200 o.n.o?

Hey I like that ring light Herr Stechlin! And they also do a rather useful stand for macro-photography which would also go very well with my camera (an Olympus SP-510UZ). But alas, I need all the Euros I can scrape together at the moment to pay a deposit on a house in the Erzgebirge!

There are pictures in my initial post, are you viewing the basic, non image version? I'd say it's near Fine. Some areas probably would class as Fine but it has very weak areas too; around the date for example.

Excellent, that's interesting. So for my less than Fine example, around about £200 would be about right then.

I know! And I would have been none the wiser. It just shows you that it is possible to pick things up with rare features, even from dealers who should know better. I'd love to find a record of one of these selling because some of these odd things have very out of date values in Spink.

Thanks very much. I get all the London Coins results in spreadsheet form which is very useful. Officially I boycott Lockdales!

The Queen Victoria jubilee head was used 1887 to 1893 so it's not a jubilee head coin, it's a young head type, as you also mention! If it's all readable but pretty worn then It's worth about £1 - £2. Post a picture if you like. I sell them in average worn condition to be used in Christmas puddings....housewives across the land can't get enough of them at Christmas time! http://www.predecimal.com/forsale/christmasthreepences.htm

The KLAR are actually quite expensive as coin envelopes go......but, I think they are probably the cheapest that don't contain PVC and are safe for coins. I'll be posting these tomorrow, many thanks.