declanwmagee

I shudder to think how many laws they could be breaking there! And I bet they didn't tell them to only take pics of the best side of the coin...

ah yes, 5 shillings, last year! Plenty more where that came from...

I plug 'em all in manually too, Peck! Except I use 4: Spink Coin Yearbook British Coins market Values CCGB I often think while I'm doing it how there must be a market for CSV files of this stuff. I don't suppose Spink would be too happy abou that though...

Do you think that's a result of less study, Peck, or genuinely less variation? People do like their pennies...

I am sure that I have puchased a few of those B coins off you at some point declan! That's good to hear, Debbie! If I knew your ebay name I could tell you what you bought, when you bought it, how much for, etc etc...and whether I've bought anything from you, and where it is now. Very sad really.

Now there's a Pandora's Box! I did come up with, and use for a few years, a Magic Number, so I could compare coins from anywhere in the Collection and ask myself the question, "which is the better coin?". The factors that went into the algorithm were: Age Grade Book Value Rarity Rating (from the appropriate literature (Peck, ESC, Sealy & Freeman)) Precious metal content Previous sales history (i.e. the prices I had actually achieved for that coin in the past, independent of Book Value) Each one of those factors was weighted, because they weren't all of the same proportional importance, to come up with a single integer. Ranking that integer gave me a good indication of the coins I should sell first, and those I should hang on to. The Magic Number was another victim of another database prune about a year ago. I don't miss it!

I use a big old bloated Excel workbook, ridiculously overcomplicated and held together with bits of string, rubber bands, and VBA. Keeping it pruned is a constant task, hence the loss of various bits of functionality over the years. One of which was the treatment of grades below Fine. On the grading scale I came up with when I started (years before CGS!), half of the numeric grades were below fine, because most of the coins I had at the time were. By condensing all that into one grade, Fair, that particular prune had the effect of reducing the number crunching by half, and eliminated such nonsense as "what would I pay for a 1967 halfpenny in VG+?". Which was being automatically calculated, along with 1500 other coins in 10 different low grades! Inbetween grades above Fine took me a while to get right, because I found that each coin has an individual gradient. Big silver, for instance, is nearly linear, as bullion value holds the lower grades artificially high, but bronze tends to follow a classic exponential curve. The solution I came up with involves taking an average of 4 price sources, calculating the gradient of the average, and plotting a trend line between the known points. As well as all that, I had to come up with a method for dealing with the more esoteric varieties that my 4 price sources don't list. Davies and Freeman both include pricing (albeit out of date) for their varieties, so I use those to factor up the prices given for the common types. Example: 1929 Halfcrown. None of the 4 price guides I use recognise the 2 Davies varieties, so I have to assume the prices they give are for the commoner D.1704, listed as worth £11 in Mint State by Davies (1982). He gives £14 for D.1705, so I can safely multiply recent book prices by (14/11) for D.1705. Make sense?

A good rule of thumb on ebay, which wipes out a lot of the gamble, is not to buy anything that you haven't seen both sides of the coin. I stick to that rule religiously now, after having had too many disappointments in the past.

For that specific area, Victorian Pennies, 1860-1901, the answer is a resounding Yes. In this order (most detailed first) - Gouby, Freeman, Peck. Freeman also covers farthings and halfpennies, 1860-1970, and Peck goes back into the mists of time, all copper, tin, and bronze denominations. There's not much else for pre-1860 copper, although, it has to be said, Michael Gouby's website makes a good stab of being a publication in its own right. I use it as the primary key for all the 185x copper overdates, for instance, because there's nothing better out there, as far as I know.

Yes. I took a big decision a couple of weeks ago, and stopped my database recognising any grade less than Fine. This means that if any coin less than that creeps in somehow, none of the calculations based on Grade (and there are a lot of them!) will work. So, even for a 1905 halfcrown, it'll have to be Fine at least. So that one may take a while. For some of the others, shilling for instance, Fine would be OK to start with. I don't mind going through upgrade after upgrade - I have done that with all my coins, because selling the B coins is what finances the purchase of new A coins. So to set a minimum starter grade of Fine suits me, even if it takes me several upgrades to get to VF. Edward VII florins: it took me 8 upgrades to get to VF for 1907, as an example!

A tad overrated, pricewise. But like the 1934 crown, it has accrued its own mythic status over the years. I'm sure you're right, Peck, but a gap's a gap, and it MUST be filled!

There are lots of little known varieties of coins that most people would automatically consign to the junk bin, some of which are very difficult to find. I have been searching for the scarcer types of 1965 and 1964 sixpence for years, for instance. To narrow Rob's list further, I'd get Mr Groom's books first if I were you - 20th Century coins are easy to find, and the microvarieties that he comprehensively describes, and illustrates, are really the last genuine treasure hunting available to the collector of modern predecimal.

ouch. Judging by the 5 it's a real one too. After the 1905 shilling thread recently I spent a very interesting half hour looking carefully at the 5s on all the 1905 shillings on eBay. My goodness, what a range! Hopefully that half hour will stand me in good stead when the time comes for me to buy one. It must be soon. That and the halfcrown are my only E7 gaps now.

The loss of colon stops is a common occurence due to die fill. Examples can be found in various states of fill and so nothing exceptional. When you say notching, I'm not sure what you refer to, but if the letters appear slightly fishtailed, this is due either to metal flow or the use of a different font punch. Again, not something to get overly excited about. A better picture would confirm this. The whole series is littered with double cut lettering due to the desire to extract as much life out of the die as possible. Again, nothing to get carried away over, but a leter cut over a different letter would be of interest. There are two types of 3 seen on the halfpenny, a small and a tall one, with a 3rd intermediate type found on the proof. On yours it appears that the 3 has a small upper section. beat me to it, Rob! Luckily I said the same as you. Phew. Rob is the recognised authority round here, Calvin!

Hi Calvin Doubled letters are very common on coins from this era. The missing dot is probably a filled die, where some gunk has filled up the recessed dot. In the farthing series, they can be indicative of specific die pairings, some of which are scarcer than others, but I'm not aware of any recognised varieties along the same lines for the 1863 halfpenny. There are a couple of different kinds of 3 to look out for though. hope that helps Declan

Oh yes. Both big fat ugly gaps for me too! And F.164...

Don't be surprised if some quite serious people are talking about a World Currency and a World Central Bank in 12 months time. Be afraid.

F.165 I make it. Streets ahead of mine though.

No, nor me. If I ended up with a BU ghosty and and a BU without, of the same date, I'd probably create a new variety and keep both. Although it gets a footnote in Peck, the 1918KN bird's foot is only a dicky die, but it gets the same treatment in my collection. A slot for 1918KN, and a slot for 1918KN BF.

Not that it's enough to condemn the chap, but I do know he operates under about a dozen different usernames, for some reason...

You're probably right, Dave. I was thinking of the countries who had got referenda wrong in the past. You're certainly right to be questioning what we get from membership of this dodgy cabal. Far better to jump out before the train crash even if it means a rough landing. Broken ankle and a rolldown the embankment or certain death?

Can no-one see what is really going on here beyond the "brave Dave" theatrics? All we've done is make it easier for the unelected to take over without a treaty change. If they have to invent a new subgrouping to go further towards fiscal union, then there's no need for tiresome ratifications by 26 different parliaments, or, god forbid, referenda. Remember the Irish ones? "We'll keep having referenda till you get it right!". If Etonboy had said, "yes, OK, but I'll have to put it to Westminster first", the chances are the Danes, the Irish, maybe even the Dutch, would have said "Yes, us too", and that has the makings of a bureacrats nightmare like when the whole of Europe was staying up late waiting for Slovakia to ratify. So now he's just got out of the way of the train, called it a veto for domestic consumption, and left Sarkozy and Merkel going full steam ahead, carrying the other Eurozone countries behind them whether they like it or not. "You'd better follow us, you don't want to be another Greece." Nobody want to be another Greece, but being another Iceland doesn't look too bad now the dust has settled. Iceland was told that they'd become the Cuba of the North, to which they replied "it's better then being the Haiti of the North!"

Here's an example of a horrendously dipped coin. If it still looked like old silver it would still have been a nice coin, although I suspect the dipping was intended to cover up a harsh clean judging by the surface abrasions...

Is it one of those "at a glance" things once you know what you're looking at? Guidance would be greatly appreciated, 'cos I can't book it in properly till I can work it out....

Good for you, Peter! Allotments are great! We have two, and the Pwincess looks after other people's too, as part of her self-employment portfolio. Your time is the only thing that is truly yours, and if there is a great conspiracy it is the theft of time from the masses. Contented and happy peasants are not a good business model, and everything's a business model. What we have to remember is that governments, regardless of what colour their rosette, have become the legislative arm of the financial industry. Debt is what the banks sell, whether it's to people, companies, or countries. No debt = no sales. Anyone with even the most basic grasp of the situation can see that mathematical inevitability of something having to give, and the culprit is compound interest. We have to get rid of fractional reserve banking. If you want to store your money in a bank, fine. Pay them a fee for providing the service. If they want to lend money, fine, but they have to have it first. 1 to 1. No lending what doesn't exist. Pay a fee for the service, but not compounding interest. It wasn't that long ago that usury was punishable by death. The machine will fight tooth and nail to protect itself, and the banks, governments, and corporations, are all part of that machine. Your only defense is construct your life so that you don't need them. Independence as an individual is the single biggest threat to them, but it is the only thing we can do. Forget voting. The days of right and left are long gone. It's about right and wrong now, and deep down, under all the social conditioning, everyone knows the difference. Why did the politician cross the road? Because he said he wouldn't.