TomGoodheart

Oh, sure. It's fine for picking up stuff. So long as you know what you're doing. And getting rid of things you don't want that are easy enough to post or can be collected. But to sell, I'm beginning to wonder. Once I've included the listing fees (about £3.50) and commission (9%) and PayPal fees (3.5%) it really cuts into the selling price. And because I can't put in a reserve price below £50 I currently have one item (a coin) that, if I get no more bids, I'm facing a £25 loss on. The irony is that I'm not looking for a huge profit (though that would be nice!), just to recoup what I paid ... so I can then put the money back into buying more coins! It shouldn't be too difficult for coins I bought around six years ago, but it is. I think for all the coins I've sold perhaps a third have brought in money. Which means I've made a loss in over 60% of sales. I suppost it's OK for selling stuff a dealer doesn't generally want. And certainly cheaper than the auction houses 20%+. But somehow I lack the knack of getting my money back. [/grumble]

Oh well. Looks like overall, only a loss of £30. Could be worse I guess!

I expect jewellers can do that, but for us ordinary folks at home, I'm not sure. The real deal should be around 1.5g if you have any accurate digital scales. But the main thing is often the thickness, actual coins will be thinner than replicas and pewter feels .. slicker (difficult to explain!) Probably the best way is to get a coin collector or dealer to look at it. Since replicas aren't designed to deceive people the difference between one and a real coin is usually pretty clear to anyone with a bit of experience.

It's a Charles II third issue threepence. 1662 ish. Whether it's real or a modern reproduction coin, I'm less sure. Edit: Quite likely it's a modern pewter repro made by Ancestors of Dover I'm afraid.

I used to pick up odds and ends from change until my Dad left me a few pieces. I kept the nicest, sold the silver scrap and bought a few that appealed. Then I found a book on shillings and fancied collecting them. I got a fair few, but avoided Charles I due to the complexity. My aim was really to get a representative example for each major bust/reverse change. Then I tired of later milled and decided to concentrate on Tudor/Stuart and sold a few bits to Chris. Gradually I was drawn to Charles I shillings and started to shed the others until funds ran low and I got rid of the provincial issues too, leaving me with Tower mint shillings from 1625 to 1649. There are over 30 different portraits, 20 reverses and some two dozen mint marks so there's plenty of scope. I have examples of coins of which I only know of one or two others. Some for which only a handful were struck from just one die. And one that wasn't even heard of until someone recognised it as a new bust type in 1995. I've met other collectors from whom I've bought and learned. I keep shifting my collecting goals subtly. Currently I'm working on shedding a few examples of poorer condition coins I bought because they are scarce, in the hope of buying better later. I don't buy very often now, even though there are plenty of gaps waiting to be filled (in fact one of my provisional eBay sales will leave a new one). I'm much more selective about condition and am less likely to compare my example to those in the Brooker collection, though that's still a good guide. I'm not expecting to finish collecting soon, if ever. Just to gradually build a collection of decent coins, some of which will be rare.

blimey - that's very Illuminati, Tom! How about this one then?

Do you live near a college that offers art classes? I know when I was sculpting I would probably have found a use for some shiny copper discs! Sewn them to a jacket, nailed them to a carving, stuck them .. somewhere! Why not see of your local art school wants them? I'd have them but my wife will kill me if I add any more craft material junk to the already existing plie in the studio garage.

Thanks Rob! No, the advice is appreciated! I'd not thought about the BIN and reserve. I guess I just figured if someone wanted it that much it would BIN would save us both time, but the reserve keeps that option until a few bids build up. As I say, I'm generally only after recouping my costs. My impression is that if you have the nerves to start at a low price people are more likely to bid than if you start off high. But that then risks the things selling for a pittance. Of course, if I was more careful about price when I buy it might help! But sometimes you see something novel and jump. Particularly in the early days of collecting! Of course, a few years later you start to realise that there are much better examples out there .. if you have the patience to wait for them. All part of the learning curve!

Looks like I need a better camera. My eBay page

Now you're just giving me a headache!

Mmm .. something like this I suspect I'd only know if it was in my hand*. As always, it shows the importance of knowing your field. But even then if someone wants to fool you, with the technology available today, it might be very difficult to detect. I suppose that's when knowing who you buy from (or getting some assurance about their returns policy) comes into play. Sad. But I guess, that's life. Even the Romans said caveat emptor. * Yes. Assuming it wasn't stamped REPLICA that is!

How .. odd! There's another replica on ebay; this time a Charles I threepence (or at least it's loosely based on a provincial Chas 3d) that I advised the seller was modern going for £51. Either people are happy to pay (to my mind ridiculous) loads for these things or they don't know what they are about. I think the most I paid for a contemporary (ie 17th century) fake coin was £40 because I thought it was rather splendid. The monkey in the royal arms was particularly good!

I think the problem is Jay, that there can't be many of us here who have paid scrap silver prices for our coins. So we'd probably want a price that reflects what we paid. Since I don't buy coins for what they are made from but for their historical value mine might prove a bit pricy. With a quick calculation suggesting a minimum of $120/oz (and I haven't bought anything at that price in quite a while) up to perhaps $10000/oz I doubt you'd be very interested.

I'm inclined to think it's genuine. Counterfeits and fakes are generally less crisp in the lettering in my experience. As to the missing stops .. if you were going to fake something to that accuracy I'd imagine you'd put the stops in. Is the reverse normal looking?

Indeed. If you did hand it in then they wouldn't give you £1 for it. Which leaves most people with the choice of passing it on or making a loss. Same as in ye olden days in fact, except now nobody will chop a bit off you for posession of a fake. I collected enough counterfeit (are they good enough to call that?) £1 coins to have an (preferably extremely poor!) example from most dates since 1997. My 'worst' examples are made from lead which has then been painted gold. Pass them off once and after that the paint wears off so a real shoddy job! But numismatically interesting.

Sounds like a good result to me! I think it's always interesting to have a couple of examples of replica / fake coins as reference material. Providing they don't cost too much that is. It's all part of the learning process I'm afraid. (I think I spent nearly £50 on my first counterfeit but it was such a nice example I kept it!)

If they are sold as souvenirs from historical sites and are clearly marked as copies then I have little problem with them. But there are quite a few that aren't marked and they can be a problem, particularly for beginners. Then there's the professionaly made pieces such as the Ashmore copies which can fool experts (in fact people actually collect Ashmore replicas as interesting pieces in their own right!) And of course the actual fakes (which used to be made in the Middle East but now increasingly in China). And there's contemporary (made at the time the 'real' coin circulated) copies which are of historical and numismatic interest. I uesd to have a small number of counterfeit Charles I shillings but sold them. But I still have a nice selection of fake £1 coins, just for amusement value! (And they are still being made, even today) Any of these will have a value to someone. Whether it's for curiosity, historical interests or illegal reasons.

Well, it's difficult to be absolutely sure with just a photo, but I'm pretty sure it's a cast copy. See above for a photo of a coin I seem to remember being sold on ebay as a copy which looks pretty much identical (ignore the Chas II crown) Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I hope you didn't spend too much on it?

Slabbing is irrelevant to me. The coins I collect (hammered) generally are unaffected by handling since they have toned over the years and, so long as you are reasonably careful, unlikely to show any additional marks. They can't be graded in the same way as a modern milled coin in that there's a degree of subjectivity since a coin is rarely uniformly struck all the way across. A coin that is sharply struck across 50% of it's face for example will command quite different prices depending on whether it's the portrait or legend that is sharp. So a slabber's opinion of grade is irrelevant to me; how much I want the coin will depend on whether it's any improvement on all the other examples I've seen and whether it appeals aesthetically. Nobody else can make that judgement call for me. I find slabs make it difficult to see the edges (and sometimes even the shape of a coin. And they don't fit in my cabinet! So for me it's a no-no. I've only bought one slabbed coin and immediately 'liberated' it to get a better look. Of course, if I collected a different series, such as milled copper, I might feel differently.

Yes, I thought they might be! It has been a while, hasn't it?

Obviously they are withdrawn from circulation when spotted by the authorities. But the main thrust seems to be catching the forgers. The number of fake £1s in circulation is pretty large (maybe 4% of all in circulation?) and very few people are going to bother pointing it out and losing a quid for their trouble. When suspicious most people just get rid asap. I have a fairly representative selection of counterfeit ones. A nice piece of lead painted gold for 1989, example for every year between 1993-97 except 1995 and a full set for 1999 - 2006. When I find a new one I ditch the most realistic keeping those with the wrong reverse or particularly poor castings in preference! My silver 2002 example (with test marks) and the lead one are my current favourites!

Gosh! Have I been gone that long?! OK. If you by any chance are still interested ..! ... First Chas shilling is Spink 2799, Sharp G1/2 what's commonly called the 'Briot' bust. Issued at the Tower mint by Parliament in the King's 'absence'. Triangle dates it between 1639-1640. Second one is S2789, Sharp D2/1. Harp dates it between 1632-33.

I don't see any particular problem with slabbed coins. But to favour one coin over another simply because it is slabbed seems a bit foolish. I imagine that this sort of thing will appeal to those who don't know as much about numismatics and wish to rely on the guarantees that such companies normally provide. (Though I don't know what CGS offers in this respect). In other words, it strikes me as something for 'investors' in coins, rather than numismatists. As for pricing, well that comes down to research I guess. People who do their homework will see that the prices are perhaps a bit high. And also that there are other firms offering slabbed coins. It's not something that particularly appeals to me for a number of reasons. Firstly with the coins I collect, grading is somewhat subjective. One VF Charles I shilling can just have a lot more appeal than another; even though strictly they are both the same in degree of wear and tear. Toning, crispness of the strike. Whether the coin is full or clipped, central or not. That sort of thing. Secondly I like to examine coins in my hand. However good encapsulation is, it's still difficult to get a proper idea of a coin when it's encased in plastic. And in the end, for me at least, it's almost irrelevant what someone else thinks of a coin. I still base my decision on whether I like it, whether it's a good deal in comparison to similar coins I've seen in the past and whether it adds something to my collection. Nobody else can make those decisions for me.

I go into the Post Office when there's a new issue, like the 2006 £5 and get a handful and spend them. You sometimes get some funny looks but they are legal tender and maybe someone will get one in change and give them to a kid they know. Well, that's what I hope anyway. Maybe in 30 years time I'll have encouraged a couple of children to start collecting coins. Who knows?

I'm more than happy to 'contribute' any of my Charles I shillings. Many are in the gallery section here so if whoever might want to put this together wants to use one or more as an example of late hammered that'd be fine. As are most of the coins (joke).