TomGoodheart

Cough. Cough. LOL Well played that man.

Yes, the BNJs are a great resource. And of course you can pick and choose articles at leisure. Just realised I assumed pies wants coin related books! Maybe he wanted historical research! In which case I'm afraid Amazon might be better for recommendations as I wouldn't have a clue!

Very much depends on what you want! Yes, Brooker is a good overview of a collection assembled over many years by an enthusiast! 1300 coins is it(?) pretty much all illustrated (B&W) with provenances and weights and short appendices on the pyx (which yields the dates the various privy marks were used) and provenances (which I have then used to track down auction catalogues of interest!) Tower and provincial/obsidional issues are all covered. Only proviso is that Brooker was keen on things like legend variations so collected some poorer examples just because they were different and he liked some rarities which are therefore over-represented and make you think they were commoner than they actually are! Then there are specialised publications on various denominations. The BNJ published several for example by Grant Francis on the various Tower mint issues which largely established the classifications. Michael Sharp's paper on Tower mint shillings (which also touched on those issued at Aberystwyth) is the basis for the numbering system used by many shilling collectors. All available online: http://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital%20BNJ.shtml Halfcrowns are covered by Bull's series(!) of books which go into great detail. As does Roy Osborne's 1984 paper (BNJ again) on Tower coin varieties. More readable is Beasley's Coins and Medals of the English Civil War. Finally (probably not actually!) George Boon wrote a book on the Aberystwyth silver mines which touches on the coinage. Amongst other things! Not sure about gold as it's not an area I've looked at. Again I'd start with the BNJ maybe? And of course I'm always happy to help. I've learnt as much, if not more, from talking to other collectors as from books. .

This is true. Researching provenance naturally leads to knowing a bit more about what's available. And while most modern coins can be found in whatever condition you wish there are certain ones, like 1916 pennies I seem to recall, which just weren't generally struck well. If you wish to aim for the better or best examples then you need to know what condition is generally available to collectors. This becomes increasingly true for older and hammered coins. Like my last acquisition, some series are only available in rubbish to Fine! Dismissing an unattractive example may seem sensible at the time, but you risk discovering a few years on that you turned down one of the better ones to your regret! Whilst there will always be exceptions, generally the further back you go, coins that were singled out for the privilege of being illustrated in a sales catalogue or journal will still stand out as better than most today.

Apologies, Richard. If it's any consolation I can often remember where I've bought something... Ah, I then wondered whether you were a traditionalist like Rob. And that a provenance had to pertain to something of interest (such as a published coin or recognised collection) rather than just purchasing details? But of course, purchasing details is all a Murdoch or Lockett ticket might be. It's only later (when a collection has been assembled and disassembled again) that those details become of interest to people like me, maybe ... I think I shall market mine as the "WhatThe Dickens" collection when I sell it through Lockdales. (Just thinking out loud!)

Clive! I am disappointed! I thought you were Old Skool!

I think most of us record where we got coins from Sam. Which is all a provenance is really. OK, maybe not Scott for his bargain bin finds! For myself I enjoy knowing if a coin I now own was once considered decent enough to be in someone else's collection. It adds to the history of the thing. And if it's just that it came from a field in Lancashire, or someone on eBay, well, I just record that too for consistency. I doubt that my collection will ever merit much attention. But I guess you never know. And since I enjoy knowing a bit more about the more recent history of my coins, I hope that when they are eventually sold off to other collectors, the information I've put together might amuse someone else. And if not.. well I've had fun researching it all!

OK, I'm hoping to take some photos later, but in the meantime does anyone have any pics of Alan Rayner's tickets? Ideally when he was dealing for himself (1973-89) rather than when at Seabys (1949-73) but any would do. The ticket I'm interested in is 29mm, (off) white and written in black biro. Says 381/AO which might indicate March 1981?? Thanks!

I don't get it. 331185740865 Can nobody else see that it reads +TOWER OF LONDON?????

Good morning sweep. I hoped you'd find us! Lots of penny collectors here. In fact it's sometimes difficult to get people to talk about anything else! It was me that suggested a British forum because I know there are several experts (even people who've written books about the things) here. So welcome and I hope you find it useful!

But, is that a bad thing Rob? After all, .... the more penny collectors, the less competition for rare hammered coins and so on!

Yes. Rather excessive I think. But then I only use the site for reference too look up designs/ specifications. I've never actually thought of joining myself. And given the T&C doubt that I would. I rather agree with you Christof. Firstly I'd be none to happy giving someone rights to private messages (rather a misnomer if Colnect can do as they wish with them!) and secondly while I'd have no real problems with casual use of images I create, this appears to give them the right to re-use them. Possibly for financial gain, although that part isn't clear.

And ... here's the result: Not quite as bad as one might imagine from the description! My Father-in-Law sometimes asks why I don't visit more museums as 'surely they have the best coin collections'? Despite my explaining that museums seem to have different aims and often end up with a random selection of donated items they want to look nice, rather than a proper collection that can be used for study and comparison, I'm not sure he gets it ...

Every now and then I'll see a Saxon or Plantagenet one that takes my fancy. But then I think .. nah. I'd rather have a shilling. Beatus, qui est felis plena sixpences.

There you go Rob. I corrected it for you!

But I only do a very limited number of things with my pc. Not much point paying for stuff I don't need. As for building my own, well I'm only a little more literate than Rob. I found Linux Lite the most frustrating experience and just impossible to use. And I'm lazy. I just want something that looks and works in a familiar way straight out the box. There's no way I'd know how to choose a bespoke system let alone assemble one. I sympathise with Rob. It's a pain in the arse when a supposed 'update' is simply a way of adding toolbars, changing your search engine preference and generally mucking up what you have gotten used to. Designers seem to give you all the bells and whistles of movie players and music centres and more whether you want them or not. All I want is to search the internet quickly, store photos and a few basic text files and send emails. The facility to hibernate my laptop so when I open the lid all the pages and tabs I was looking at yesterday are still there is my highest priority. Next is to be able to make my desktop look pretty and just how I want it. That's it really ...

My main problem is that (apart from minor experience with iTunes and iPods which seem to do exactly as they please, whether that's what you want or not) an equivalent Apple laptop to my Toshiba would cost me about twice what I paid. I've not had any problems with what I have and it works the way I want it to. I just can't see the point in paying more for something that doesn't appear to do anything more. *shrug*

Gives you a seller's name, price and date to add to the records. That'll do!

"investment potential" suggests it will go up in price. Personally I just can't get that excited about modern coins, so it'll be interesting to see if it does ...

Sadly the big ding made it much easier to spot!

Good eyesight Scott!

Online? In most instances I doubt there's much that can be found much prior to 1999 ish without a good deal of effort. Christies have a few Spink sales archived back to then. I don't know how far back CoinArchives professional goes. But at $600 subscription it's not really relevant to me! Most of my provenances have relied on catalogues or tickets. My furthest back is to 1920, which by chance I spotted in the British Numismatic Journal (which are scanned back to 1903) and with Rob's help was then traced to a sale in 1913. When the coin was listed by Mark Rasmussen no provenance was mentioned, so I got lucky to recognise it.

Yes. If you later receive it then it would be honest to return the refund to the seller. They will have fulfilled their part of the contract between you by supplying the goods and so payment is still due. And there will be no harm in letting them know that you are still keen to have the coin if they receive it because it was lost or undelivered. However, since you've been refunded, I imagine the agreement between you can effectively been considered to have been cancelled and so you rely on their honesty and goodwill to finalise the deal. The risk of course is that they had second thoughts after the sale and decided not to post it.

Maybe David will know. Reminds me of the Swiss Republic.

Don't know about pdf. You've seen the archive listing I presume? http://www.dnw.co.uk/auction-archive/catalogue-archive/lot.php?department=Coins&lot_id=54025 And Alistair Mackay has a paper catalogue for Oct 2003 with prices: http://www.coinmac.com/Numismatic_Books-utf8.html Maybe call him to check it's the right one first. Personally I prefer my library to be actual catalogues rather than virtual!