TomGoodheart

Thank you all for that. I actually did fork out good money for a coin that I reckon is a fake. I have yet to establish if it is a contemporary coin however or a later 'issue'. I am quite happy to do so as I feel it's part of coin history. After all, people collect tokens, most of which were never legal tender. There was allowance for later ones in that the Sheffield and Birmingham workhouse tokens were declared legal. I don't know about the 1700s. I think they were just considered a convenience. What I have is a bit of metal that looks much like a Charles I shilling. If it was made by someone in the 1630's I'd be happy. If not, I guess I have to chalk it up to experience!

Has anyone (I'm looking at Chris and Geoff here ) any ideas about pricing of counterfeit coins? I'm talking contemporary counterfeits here, that form a part of numismatic (or should that be paranumismatic) history, not modern repros that someone has filed the identifying marks off. Would YOU fork out good money for a counterfeit for your collection? If so, did you pay a lot less than for the 'real' thing?

I collect because I'm an obsessive nerd and I find it fun to tick off the varieties I have accumulated. Mostly it's fun but when I get beaten for something on eBay it aint! If I win and I think I have got a bargain however..... (not that money has anything to do with it!!!!)

I must stop doing that. I think I'm replying to a topic and miss the fact that there's another page.......... sorry.

Gerard. If you got a scanner when you bought your computer, that can be used to get a picture. Scanned pictures can be cropped in something like Paint (ie edited to show mainly the coin itself) If your coin is 25 mm across, its a sixpence (1/40th of £1), if 20mm, a threepence. You can obviously read the date, but that gives us little idea of the grade of coin (ie how clear or battered/worn it is). Is the portrait clear? On the side that has no date you should see a head and shoulders and a blob. If the head has clearly got a crown and the blob looks like a Tudor rose it may be worth a few quid (to £30). If you can see the pattern on the dress (for it is Queen Elizabeth I) and details of her hair, could be up to £100. If neither, it's a nice souvenir!

OK - enough! Enough! I have decided to come to the support of the Churchill Crown! .........Sorry 'bout the pause, I thought I could hear the coin police on the stairs... It may not be a wonderful coin but it IS interesting. Unusually, it has a head on each side but no value shown. And (at the time) it was an attempt to put some more modern are onto our coinage. Perhaps not succesful, but what about the 1977 crown? The Queen looks like she's wearing a tea towel not a hat and the horse is a disgrace compared to those of Charles I that presumably provided the idea. If you want a portrait to complain about, what about the Victorian Jubilee - she looks like a penguin with a currant bun on her head. I think we should take all the Churchill crowns, countermark them with the bust of Margaret Thatcher and sell them to the Americans....

Nice research guys, I'm impressed. Two bits of useless info I didn't spot- A "Journey" of silver was the amount (I think in hammered days, but possibly early milled) of silver made into coin in a day which was 60lb Troy and made 3960 shillings. The article I read this in also gave numbers of some other coins but (sorry ) I was only interested in the shilling bit! Haymarking is just that. Handfulls of hay were thrown into the molten silver. I believe it helped to burn off or deposit impurities. Some bubbles or burnt bits presumably remained, leaving the marks. I don't think it had anything to do with the dies so you could get an 'as struck' coin still with marks.

Very nice Will - hadn't noticed the ciggy at first! If cows have black sheep in their families, your avatar is it! Do you think your cow is smoking grass?

There you go Will. I am now Bodhidharma, who as everyone knows ( ), brought zen buddhism from India to China. That's why I'm not moving any more.

Hi Will! It's a pic of Moby - he's that dance etc DJ. I look a bit like him (cept I have marginally more hair...) Tom (I'm not sure about the switching colours myself - anyone else find it a tad irritating? If so I'll change it!)

Thanks Chris! I'll get the hang of this eventually!

Doh! I'm so slow thinking, there are half a dozen posts buy the time I get in! Oh, no... I just didn't read page 2. I'm going to slink off in shame.....

£ 370 apparently. So I beat that with a Geo III 1763 ('Northumberland') shilling and /or Charles II 1663 shilling, both sold as GEF (yeah, right!) Anyone raise me? (Eliza - you want to compare 1663s?)

Damn! I forgot this area is not supposed to be about coins! Sorry. My daughter thinks coins are boring. Whenever I talk about them she says "Mummy! Daddy used the 'C' word again." Sometimes I get funny looks, I wonder why? (I'm not sure if the looks would get worse or not if I mentioned how much I paid Keith Bayford for my GEF Northumberland and 1663 shillings (his gradings)) Oh yeah - nerdadvice please! How do I get an avatar (please?)

Sorry Geoff! I not only got passed a couple of Gibraltar Will, but a Swaziland One Lilangeni! Exactly the same as a £1 coin (NiBronze) but with a lady with three pompoms around her neck on one side and a chap with what look like the arms of a cross coming out of his head on t'other! Worse still - I kept it to add to my collection!

Oh damn! Anyone want a box of 1967 pennies? JOKE! (It's a plastic bag an I got them going all the way back to 1961...) Plus halfpennies? Thruppences? OK I give up. I've a few farthings though - I cant remember who collects - any dates around 1946 wanted? Oh yeah - I got a bag of BU 1971 pennies too - surely they must be even more ubiquitous!(??)

Thank you Will! I've added my tuppeny worth (I decided to go for 50 plus - that's the shillings). Here's another question for any/everyone - anyone know a 'specialist' insurer familiar with coin collections - my home insurer wants a listing and valuation which is a nuisance (and is liable to change as I collect of course!)?

Ok Will, OK! Some of us have to go to work occasionally you know! Tom

Dan - if you get the Ed VIIIs I'll buy the shilling off you! (Aren't the 'Maklouff' patterns naff!)

Thanks for that! It got me rummaging through my 'odds' boxes. I found a Gibraltar £1 (battered), BU Nigerian 1 Kobo piece, a few (more!) of my Dad's 1973 ('hands') 50p pieces, and a 'Commonwealth Games' £2 (now THAT'S ugly!). Didn't find any '85 or '82 50ps but it reminded me what fun coin collecting is!

Pretty good spread then - I'm 47. Don't remember LSD - I was only a kid in the 60's (joke). 47's pretty good - when I want to bore people I can tell them how "when I were a lad a paperback book cost just 5p"! (Now you could get a whole library for what some people charge for a shilling!) And here's one for you 'old' folks - do your kids (and other halves) think of coin collecting as boring? (Bring out the sad violins..) When I want to enthuse about a new purchase all I get is ' yeah, yeah, nice portrait' (or worse - 'HOW much!') - anyone got sympathetic relatives out there?

I guess I could do this as a poll (if I could figure out how, that is) but it just occurred to me... how big is a 'collection'. Mine is around 55 coins (shillings from EdVii to 1970). This doesn't include another 20 or so shillings from around the commonwealth in any old grade just for completeness or the boxes of odds and ends that my Dad started collecting and I occasionally add to. And another thing (please accept my apologies for getting VERY much out of 'theme' here) - following the mythical rare 2p's - what happened to the 1988 £1 coin? That's the one with the crowned shield on the reverse. I haven't seen mintage figures but I've only ever picked up one in circulation. Is it rare? Hoarded? Anyone know?

Yeah. I now only buy on eBay from people who reply to questions and who offer a returns policy. I often ask for a photo to be emailed to me which can give you a better idea of grading. I guess there's a natural tendency when selling to see your coin through rose-tinted specs, after all we'd all like to get a good price, but there is a risk with eBay so I approach with a deal of suspicion. I also am suspicious of people who sell a lot of cookery books (or kilts, teapots or whatever) and then offer a high grade coin. I recently found two identical hammered Charles I shillings (now, how likely is that?) offered within weeks of eachother. The second seller said it was left by a relative and they had no knowledge of coins. I imagine that leaves you with little comeback since they haven't specified a grade, identified the coin or even suggested it isn't a counterfeit. The advantage of eBay? You get to see a pretty wide selection of coins and you get to see lots of photos which make a handy reference file!

Pebbles - same as for coins - they look nice. Banks - Barclays and NatWest charge around £20 a year and then £5 each time you 'inspect' your box - note that few banks now offer an actual safety deposit 'box' - most just hold a locking container you provide yourself (such as a briefcase) within their vault for you. 'Nother thing about the Hartbergers - you can get trays for coinholders so you can store coins of different sizes together and rearrange them as you wish. I am coming around to the idea of the Nichols however, what's the point of coins if you cant handle them sometimes

I started collecting Shillings originally, intending to get the first issue of each reign. I have partly succeded but I have recently switched to hammered leaving a gap in the Stewarts. (Course I got the recent cheap stuff haven't I ?) I first thought I would collect shillings and their equivalents from the Tudor period (thus including Scottish Irish variants, French testons etc) but have recently become 'distracted' by Charles I. Thus at present I am concentrating on good type variations from between 1549 to 1649. Anyone got any 'Declaration' shillings?