TomGoodheart

London Coins? The people I paid for a subscription to their auction catalogue and, despite several reminders, never received any? Pft. Are they still going?

Mmm .. I'm struggling to put together the two largest pieces here I'm afraid, let alone ID, though it's not really my area. Stephen, Watford type? Trouble is it's incomplete, so even though someone like Barry Sherlock might be able to do something with it, it's never going to be a complete coin.

I think the attached shows what you could call cabinet friction. The edge where it protrudes from the rest of the design. Of course, it's just wear. And I suspect the term is used less frequently these days. Probably more significant on milled coinage as that was supposedly more 'perfect' to start with. I'd call it 'light wear to high points' myself. And more likely on coins that have been in dealers' drawers for some time where there's been regular opening and closing (this coin ex Michael Sharp and probably Baldwins) than us collectors who probably don't access our collections every day.

Very recognisable as a regular on eBay. The plugged piercing is a real give-away. I'd really have expected CNG to know this. 😡

Martin Hughes. Coins sold through Spink, Auction 130, 16 November 1999.

Pleased to be able to identify these tickets as the hand of Stephen Hill when at Baldwins (now Sovereign Rarities)

Just thought I'd bump this list of literature wants: Sotheby & Co 20 - 24 November, 1933 Catalogue of the Valuable Collection of Coins Formed by the Late Colonel H. W. Morrieson and; Sotheby 17 June 1935 Catalogue of the Choice Collection of English Coins Formed by the Late Sir Kenyon Vaughan-Morgan. I am also looking for a copy of Mark Rasmussen (Numismatist) List #1 (Summer 2001). Thanks! .

I quite like this one with the serpentine double O on the reverse. Fortunately the main parts of the design are pretty much unaffected. So I can live with the quirkiness. 🙂

Undoubtedly. Although I believe less on eBay, which I feel has gone off the boil and is mostly blatant tat to surely even the most naive of newbies, and more on the newer Facebook 'collector groups' Many of which are simply selling platforms for the people who set them up with the occasional 'educational' post chucked in to retain interest as they flog their wares. I often see comments praising what, to me, appear to be fairly run of the mill examples of a coin. Which makes sense to me, since I personally feel I'm still learning! Despite spending the last decade or so recording examples of what I collect, there are still occasions where it dawns on me how very few coins of a particular variety or mint mark I've actually seen. On that point, I'm always guided by Richard Lobel's the Coincraft Catalogue where he quotes his mentor saying " 'when you go to value a coin it is what you have not seen rather than what you have seen that matters'. By [which] he meant that, when you see a coin that you have never seen before, forget what it catalogues, it is rare! " Newer collectors I'm sure think what they are seeing must be the 'finest ever' - aided in some cases by the TPGS claims - when in actual fact a quick search on the BM website or on CoinArchive.com would quickly disabuse them. And of course, presumably down to Covid in part, people aren't spending on holidays and meals out and are quick to splash their cash on collectables. Hence the silly money we're seeing now, which some - presumably - see as normal. I don't know what the future will be like. I feel as a collector, I'm approaching the limit of my budget, but that's not really new! Every now and then I see something I can manage - often a conditional rarity - or get tempted by something new - I've recently bought a few historic medals related to Charles I because they're attractive, historically connected and, compared to some of the coins, not too expensive. But I've had to accept that I will never have a fully representative collection due to the scarcity of some of the types in the series and, often more a factor than the rarity, the fact that some examples only exist in grades that I'd struggle to live with. Yes, I'm shallow! But I like to get a buzz when I look at my collection and that generally means a coin has to meet an aesthetic benchmark for me to consider it. Sadly (?) many of the coins I'd like currently live in other people's collections. And are likely to stay there for the foreseeable future. I therefore have to accept that the best I can hope for is to be considered a minor, but careful, collector for whom eye appeal was important. God, that was me before I've even had a beer! Sorry. I'll shut up now.

Not familiar to me I'm afraid Rob.

Thanks Rob. I did wonder if it was from a small museum collection or similar. No 14 in a display of historical items maybe? I guess we'll never know. Though it's quite a nice example..

Long shot, I know as it's an envelope not a ticket. But anyone any ideas? Cheers.

As always, it comes down to knowledge and perseverance, whether it's ebay or anywhere else. You need to know what's common and what's not and what's a general price for something that you're prepared to pay. I've just picked up something from France at what I feel is less than I'd pay here at auction. I might regret it - their photos are rather harsh, however it's also illustrated in a book where it looks better, so I took a gamble. However I've spent the last few days finding examples and seeing what they sold for so I feel relatively confident. I aim to keep my search parameters quite wide in the hope that I'll pick up mis- or poorly identified pieces as well as those correctly classified. And I don't buy to sell, so I have the luxury of being prepared to pay 'collector's' rates and not worry about profit margins. I guess what I'm saying is that we all need a buying strategy and working out how much crap you're happy to look at in the hope of finding something desirable is worth considering.