Chris Perkins

I've got the following: 1. Catalogue of the Murdoch Collection of Coins and Medals (the series of Scottish and Anglo Gallic Coins). Lots 1 - 406 (11th to 13th May 1903). Catalogue is complete, but not all in one bit! It has hand written notes in the margins which appear to contain the names of the winner and the price paid. Names include Spink, Verity, Rollin, Lincoln and Weight (they bought pretty much everything between them). I don't know if it's an auctioneer copy...each page is totalled and the Total of Sale is shown at the end before the plates. Offers? 2. Catalogue of the Murdoch Collection of Coins and Medals (the series of English Historical Medals). Lots 1 to 670 (2nd to 7th June 1904). Complete, but not all in one part. No prices noted. Lots of plates with large illustrations, quite a thick catalogue. Offers? 3. Catalogue of the Murdoch Collection of Coins and Medals (the series of English Historical Medals, GIII to Victoria). Lots 671 to 1084 (14th to 16 December 1904). Complete and just about still held together. No prices noted. Attractive plates, so are copies of fine hand drawn images. Offers? If you don't want/need them Rob, what do you think the 3 are worth? They came with a collection a few years ago.

That's a fake, instantly recognisable from the awful pitted surfaces. The coin wasn't struck it was cast. I'll give you a fiver for it plus your postage costs.

I collect forgeries! Can you post a picture and we'll be able to tell you right away if it is or not.

I'm listing hundreds of new coins on predecimal.com, most are from a big collection I bought which was compiled in the 80s in Australia. The total sale value is high and there are some lovely early 20th Century pieces. I've already listed the Fractional farthings up to pennies in the last few days. It's a big task and I'm doing it bit by bit. When complete I'll send out a newsletter. Some of the recently added pennies are from a forum member and some of the farthings have already sold to another! So, don't forget I also buy coins and am always on the look out particularly for 1797 to 1970 coinage in collectable grades. Selling to me is much easier than ebay, and you may be surprisingly satified with my offer...I'm very fair and transparent.

At the moment no pictures can be uploaded at all. It started when the whole site moved to a different server, and I can't work out why. I'll investigate again today.

Nights out in Stockport eh Geoff! I can imagine you must knock 'em all stone cold dead. I like Nothern lasses very much.

But now a good early 80s 924 will cost you £1500 and a good early 80s 911 will cost at least £8k but usually around £10k! We seemed to have crashed this with cars.

That crossed my mind too at the time, and I had a 924 once. Good cars, but with the reputation of being the 'poor mans' Porsche. Often sneered at by 911 drivers who never will see them as proper Porsches (mainly because of the contemporary VW help).

The most amazing thing happened last night! We went to feed Igor and couldn't find him at first. He was behind a tree (still in his enclosure) so I went round to say hello. He wasn't alone! He was rubbing noses through the fence with another hedgehog on the outside! The other hedgehog ran away when it saw me and Igor started climing the tree to try and get out to join him/her! Not bad for 3 legs. He frantically wanted to get under/over/thorugh the fence to join his new friend, so we cut the fence and let him go. He/she found his/her friend and they sort of run about in circles together with lots of nose rubbing and then went under some wood together! Normally a 3 legged hedgehog won't survive in the wild, but I'm hoping Igor stays in the garden area, especially if we keep putting food out each night for both of them. It was amazing seeing them both together doing hedgehoggy things. Even if he can't survive in the wild, at least he had a little companionship first.

My comical cow is a real cow that I once met. A tag on its ear said it was called '924' and in a field full of cows near the Strangford Loch next to Newtownards Co. Down it was the only one that approached me and wanted to see what I was. It's cows like 924 that we need you see. If farmers bred the most inquizitive cows we'd soon have an intelligent superior master friesian race.

There's a problem at the moment attaching images. I can't work out why at the moment.

Which I suppose is also what the RM is doing. And that's even more scary! People actually want that stuff.

I'm a big hypocrite though because I publish a book called Check Your Change, which illustrates, full sized and colour, every single coin design from 1968 onwards (without the Britannias actually, i want to add those). So, in a way, I'm jumping on the band wagon too.

It doesn't seem to work at the moment! Hopefully they've realised they are producing tat and have blown themselves up, while retaining the proper coin striking facilities for the coins we actually use.

The people only burn their cash with the RM and other sellers of collectable junk because they actually view the things as an heirloom and sound investment. They actually think that there will be a demand for the over priced rubbish in the future....just like there is today for Churchill Crowns and the 1972 Royal Wedding crown And they think that because of the clever way its marketed. They draw huge attention to the limited numbers and imply that there may not be enough to go round. You can understand provate companies doing it, it's business. But for a government official body to jump on that band wagon in a big way is shameful. There are thousands of old lady victims around the country that have piles of this kind of junk to give leave their kids. A nest egg, as they see it.

I like that! I think the new Diana coin should have it as an edge inscription. Obviously petition crown style, tiny and writen in at least 4 lines.

That's probably because it was done on a computer from a photo. Bless, that's the Princess with no doubt a little black starving baby, what an amazing stereotype, it makes me want to puke. Blatant money making exercise, I hope they mint as many as they did Churchill crowns and end up stuck with them. It's embarrassing, that kind of toot. No doubt the masses will buy it because they think it will somehow help charity or whatever and of course everybody loved Diana! I personally thought she was alright, but couldn't understand the fuss at the time about her appearance. In the 80s and 90s Kim Bassinger, Sharon Stone and Samantha Fox were better 'babes'. Granted, they weren't princesses. So she did a lot of charity work and was no doubt a lovely lady, but for gods sake lets move on and here's an idea....Why don't the RM stick to making coins and only create commemoratives for things that are worth commemorating. RM, please stop diluting real collectable coins with the kind of complete crap you've been churning out by the bucket load non-stop since the Churchill crown. They won't though, will they.

It's original owner told me about it and I offered him £100 to send it to me, which he did. It's probably only an error with the proof. That's what comes of making too many bloody novelty coins! Having 2 different £2 coins in one year is asking for trouble.

I've just bought (for £100) a silver proof 2005 £2 coin. All cased and virtually as new. It's the St Pauls reverse type made to commemorate the end of WWII. The edge should read: IN VICTORY MAGNANIMITY IN PEACE GOODWILL. This coin has the edge lettering: REMEMBER REMEMBER THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER. Which is of course, wrong! In 2005 a £2 coin was also produced to commiserate Guy Fawkes failure, and this WWII coin has some how been given the wrong edge. I wonder if this error occurs in the normal circulation £2 coins! Worth checking, and something else to include in Check Your Change. Remember remember, you saw it first here!

Yes, I'm familiar with those Czech people.

Yes, I wanted to get my hands on one of his fakes for my fake collection, but missed out. I probably have at least one already, but just don't know it yet.

I know all the debt was hidden away by the Commies and that the East was run down much worse than the estimates at the time, but even if it is still costing the richer West money, it has to be the best thing to do? I mean, you were one country originally and you're basically the same Volk. When the East is back on a level playing field with the West (which will still take some time) then the whole economy will be better for it. I do understand the native West German resentment though. And the UK just finished paying off the USA for the help during WWII. Wars cost such huge amounts of money, no matter who starts them.

Wasn't there an Ashford doing all kinds of good copies once?

I've experienced the exact same. Albums full of world coins all scrubbed up or dipped to a lovely polished copper colour or a bright silver :-S If you added up all the Euros worth in damage to perfectly good coins caused by Germans doing un-natural things to them, it's probably cost them more than re-building the old knackered infrastructure in the East!

I'm sure Teg could post the bottom row to you? Better to have an many consistent pictures as possible from the same camera. Actually, could you email a few of your recent pictures, just so I can check they're ok and remove the backgrounds etc?