declanwmagee

Not in a month of Sundays....

...and I think they change over every 4-6 months so that's a lot of people coming home.

I'm with you, Peck. I couldn't ask any off the shelf software to do the stupid things I get my coin database to do. Good luck with it though, Cristatus, and do let us know how you get on with it.

I still know all my parents too, Peter!

That's encouraging. When I finally sell up to buy my little bit of land, I'll be doing it all at once, but in order of lowest value first, so that if there are any left over when I reach my target amount, they'll be the biggies. It won't look like a collection, it'll just be a big string of singles going out on eBay, much like a million other sellers do every day. Hopefully the Men in Black won't even notice.

I think it's a very useful technique, Numidan. I use a similar method with Elizabeth II halfcrowns - close examination of the beads on the crown on the reverse, and I'm sure you could apply the same approach to Vicky jubilee head silver. Most of the time I am trying to compare two coins that are very close to each other in terms of grade - which one to keep and which one to sell, rather than trying to assign a formal grade to a coin, and to highlight areas where you can see the difference between otherwise identically graded coins is very useful. It doesn't go against anything in Derek's excellent book. We can't have too much information, particularly where grading is concerned.

I don't suppose the disposal of a valuable coin collection in the latter years would be tax-free, would it? It would be if you don't tell 'em!

I just had a close look under the loupe, Peck, and you are, to a certain extent, right. Though not as much right as the photos I have posted here might suggest, I can see what you mean. Perhaps the slabber was eating a particularly flaky pasty, or rolling a cigarette with particularly old tobacco, at the time it was sealed. Phew, my confidence in them is restored!

So that's both NGC and PCGS not to be trusted where British predecimal is concerned. I mean, it's hardly a minority interest area is it? Hardly obscure. And another thing... I had to pay Royal Mail £8 for the privilege of getting charged £1.22 VAT for its import from the US. Harumph.

Blinkin' slabs. Just got this slabbed by PCGS as MS64. Look at them acorn knobbles, particularly the top one between THREE and PENCE. That much flattening gets it dangerously close to EF in my book. MS64? Really? just to clarify, I bought it slabbed - I didn't GET it slabbed...

I take an average of 4: CCGB 2011 (about right) Coin Yearbook 2012 (too low) British Coins Market Values 2012 (way too low) Spink 2012 (way too high) I then use a sliding scale based on grade to determine what I'd pay: F 20% of book average VF 42% of book average EF 67% of book average UNC 92% of book average ...and every intermediate grade in between, of course. This biases my successful bidding towards the top grades, which has to be a good thing. Lower grades I only tend to win if they are dirt cheap, which again, is what you'd want to happen! sorry, but you did ask!

I think you're right, Peck. Either that or he's stayed the same while I've gone up. I used to buy a few from him, but haven't in ages.

What grade is that one, Rob?

Interestingly, back in May last year, I bought a group of six EF-ish 1944 pennies from Canada in the hope that one might be the supposedly scarcer recut waves version being discussed elsewhere. They all were. I wondered aloud at the time if there might be a geographical element to the distribution of varieties - in the same sense as the last years of the silver 3d being sent to the West Indies. I think we concluded "maybe".

You sound like you know your onions, Catherine, so you probably already know about Michael Gouby's site, but if you haven't seen it, he has an excellent discussion of 185* penny date varieties here

I think it would be a fascinating study, Peck, but I think you'd probably struggle to find a better sampling ground than eBay. It would have to be a snapshot in time, to eliminate relisted coins, and although including grade in the survey would add another huge dimension to the data collection and number-crunching, I think that the effort would be worthwhile for what it could tell you. It might be a better way of assessing raw availability than polling ourselves here, as we will have selected the best we could find over many years, and what was easy once, is not necessarily easy now. Let's do it!

But surely you'll miss out on the beautiful gold plated, polished, proof alderney, commemorative, 50p peices mounted in a pair of cufflinks Declan? :lol: Not to mention the Olympic isle of man Diana souvenirs...darn it, no wonder I couldn't find any of them

Oh, please, how do you do that? 'Timeline Originals' out you go! Do your normal search, then find "Seller" down the left hand side. Hit "Specify Sellers", then in the box that pops up, choose "Only show items from", "Exclude", and paste your blacklist in the little box that doesn't look like it has enough room for it. Do the list in a text file first, and separate the names with a comma, but no spaces (you're limited by number of characters, and spaces count). Don't forget you can rid yourself of an awful lot of crap with judicious use of wildcards in the initial search box too - here's mine: -1967 -197* -198* -199* -200* -201* -olym* -"Isle of Man" -framed -holed -enam* -polish* -token -damag* -empty -india -gibr* -decimal -proof -pattern -mother -wedd* -churchi* -£5 -£2 -£1 -diana -sover* -gold -keyr* -aldern* -jers* -guern* -1p -20p -50p -commem* -cuffl* -millen* Then save your search using the link at the top. Be aware though, that eBay, bless 'em, have a technical fault at the moment with advanced searches, and if your results only show gallery pictures for the first 11 items, you've fallen foul of it. They are working on it, they assure me. It's something to do with the complexity of the query - the more complex it is, the more likely you'll have the problem. Mine, predictably, is horrendously complex because I try to filter out 75% of all the British Coins on there, if I can. Used to work fine - it's only in the last week or so that their problems have occurred.

Right....so they changed the last 9 regardless of spacing - that makes more sense - and the fact that the last 9 was a different size is what made the wide date possible - not deliberate, but possible. Therefore not a design change - a variation, rather than a variety. Phew. As you were, gentlemen...

Nice work, Stuart! The question is, if, as we have always assumed, the wide date isn't deliberate, and therefore doesn't qualify as a design change, what were they doing changing the 9 to make the wide date possible?

it's a bit runny, Sir

Mules are great. They are great because you can find rare coins that most people haven't noticed. A good example to look out for is the 1962 halfcrown. Buy a few in high grade (eBay, £2-£3 each), line them up next to each other, and see if you can spot the differences. Take some photos close up and post them here, and we'll tell you what you should be looking for. Try it with 1953 farthings too. These are both "crossover mules". A crossover mule is when they changed from production of one type to another halfway through the year. Sometimes they made a coin with the old front and the new back, by mistake, and one with a new front and an old back, by mistake. So you end up with 4 different types of what, to most people, looks like the same coin: 1) Old with Old (correct) 2) New with New (correct) 3) Old with New (mistake) 4) New with Old (mistake)

oh dear...hoicked out from circulation I shouldn't wonder, and with those denominations, probably in the '80s, meaning that they would have circulated for a long time. eBay is swamped with such stuff, day in day out. Not many so bulk bags though, so my advice would be to bung 'em on the Bay, 99p per bag, and see what you get. They will sell, but not for much. Watch the postage and don't end up out of pocket!

...and I think we can safely say that we jolly well are interested, even those of us who can only aspire to those levels...

If you still have the 3d section of your ebook, Gary, I'd love a copy...'bout time my G-VI collection had a few more holes knocked in it!