declanwmagee

We cannot rely on the people who got us into this mess to get us out of it. The solution has to be bottom up. Think local, think essential, and before we expect the banks to stop expecting unearned income, we have to think like that first. Forget savings, forget trying to find returns on investment - that's just another way of saying "how do I get extra money without earning it?". Think about it. Prices of things do not rise. Money gets smaller. A gallon of fuel is still the same size as it was when it was a quid. It's the money that has got smaller. Thinking you're doing well because something you bought is worth more now than when you bought it means you have bought into the illusion of fiat money. I remember seeing a T-shirt in the 1980s that said "I don't give a sh*t how much your house is worth". Made me chuckle then, but now it makes a lot more sense too. Money is a medium of exchange, nothing more. It is nothing on it's own. So save by all means, but for goodness sake, don't save money! It's bits of meaningless paper. Buy stuff you need. Buy land, food, fuel, pay off debts. Make sure the things you really rely on are top notch. No point in having a wad of printed paper if your car doesn't work. Get a new car. Get a new laptop. Sort out your essential tools. For us that means having a good chainsaw, full bottles of propane, a full freezer. Stuff you need will always have the same value, and if you end up with a garage full of tins of beans, then great, think of it as one step closer to retirement. You'll never have to buy beans again. Once you've got everything you'll ever need, you won't have to work. And the minute you don't have to work you extricate yourself from the ridiculous system they have built for you. The system isn't broken, it's working exactly as it was supposed to. It wasn't supposed to work for you!

You need to get a couple of books, William. 1) Collectors Coins GB, about £7 by our glorious leader, Chris Perkins 2) Grading British Coins, £13 by one of our favourite forum members, Derek Allen both available here, probably the best £20 you could spend. Same price as fish and chips for 4. You'll be glad you did!

Welcome, Christoph! Just to clarify, chaps, Christoph is looking for a picture of a good grade 1949 threepence for his book. The best I could offer wasn't even VF, so I naturally thought of you lot.

Yes Derek, I've noticed the punters do that. In fact, I stopped quoting grades under aUNC for that reason. I was sick of seeing coins I'd quoted as EF+ (which, in my book, is a bloody good grade) getting left behind by lesser coins quoted by less tough graders as UNC. Of course, I still use aUNC, UNC, and BU for the same reason! It's possible that people typing "UNC" in their searches has a lot to do with it, not just lazy shopping.

Hi accumulator - I went through exactly the same thought process a few months back. If you find the thread "Coin acquisition of the week" and type "1858" into the search bar with "This topic" as the criterion, you'll find the discussion with good clear pics. Rob and John Argentum were very helpful as I recall...

What motivates? 1) Now mid way through my 40s, I don't want to be swinging a pickaxe for a living in my mid 50s. By then I want to have bought everything I need to live (which isn't much - details in the next point), and do this coin thing for a living. Not to make lots of money, but because I can't think of a better way to spend the day. 2) Pretty much all we need now to complete our self-sufficient setup is a little bit of land - not much, a couple of acres of scrubby woodland would do us just fine. Just enough to hide in. Everything else about the way we live we can keep the same. Now I know that swinging a pickaxe for £10 an hour is never going to amass us a five figure sum for a patch of land, but building a coin collection is. And that's what I'm good at. To be honest, I'm not even that good at swinging a pickaxe. Since we decided to put serious time and effort into it, 5 years ago, the collection has increased from 400 coins worth £1750 to 800 coins worth £20k. So I think we're well over half way. Top 50: In order to convert the coins into land, I'm going to have to sell them sometime in the next 5 years. Given also that I want to keep doing it after that, I'm going to have to hang on to some to get me started again. It would make sense to keep the best, so selling up will be a process of starting at the bottom, working up, and stopping when we've got enough. So how do you rank them? Value's a good start, as it's a rough indication of how easy they would be to replace, but there are lots of exceptions - recently acquired 1953 2+A farthing for instance, took me years to find, but at no.732 in terms of value, it would be in the first 100 to go. So picture if you will, a little turf roofed hobbit house dug into a bank in a hidden corner of Gloucestershire. A wisp of woodsmoke drifts from the barely visible chimney and amongst the runnerbean wigwams you can catch a glimpse of the Pwincess tending our crops. Inside you find a coin collector, his desk below a specially positioned skylight to catch the natural light for photographs, happily sorting out another batch of incoming Jiffy bags. It is real - see how they did it...

Unconfirmed Davies coins; I constantly change my mind whether to include them in the list of what's possible to get. Case by case inclusion/exclusion, or lots of fruitless checking? Having said that, I did get one the other week: D.751 1870 2/- 3+A smaller reverse design. I've given up on a few, like 1937 3dAg 1+B. Just didn't have the patience to check so many common coins. What a cop out.

Now that's a good idea! You could start really cheaply with Weimar hyperinflation notes, or even Zimbabwe. Gun money - that would count. You could make up your own rules with that theme.

Indeed! One might be forgiven, examining the subsequent genealogy, that they have been trying to increase the genetic legitimacy of their claim by marrying above themselves ever since.

I know the grade isn't brilliant, chaps, but what do we think of the S on the right hand side? Looks filled to me - could it be filled with an I? I've never seen one, and the single example I found on Google wasn't that convincing.

Quite agree David! Apologies for any offence caused - none intended. A few years ago, my coin hobby led directly to finding out a little bit more about the characters emblazoned on our coinage, and before I knew it, I was piecing together the genealogical jigsaw that is the Royal House (n.b. not Houses!) of Europe. Eventually it became a database of more than 25,000 individuals, along with the biographical context that surrounds them. That quadruple-barrelled surname I quoted a few posts back is accurate, give or take an umlaut, and, based on the measure of the proportion of God's blood running in his veins (and that really is how they work it out), Philip is more royal than the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas he married into. So was Diana, but that's another story (think Stuart). You'd be surprised how many famous faces, that you thought were "commoners" are actually part of the network.

That, Sir, is our feudal overlord, Philip von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksberg. Makes you proud to be British.

I suppose everyone hoarded the last silver (so 45/46 is dead easy), but no-one bothered with the first CuNi. Plus they circulated for so long...

I seem to have got stubbornly stuck at nEF with them (EF for Type 2). I buy any that look like they might nudge that up by a fraction of a grade. I often wonder what I'd pay for a genuine UNC if one ever came up.

No, it's not money by their definition, but it might be "valuables".

Ah, but the grade Scott! I lost money on a similar grade 1902 Low Tide halfpenny last week, and it took me years to find it. Went for 99p!

...and that's the real beauty of the variety hunt, Joey - to find stuff for pennies that the untrained eye would pass by. Anyone can read a date.

Don't blame me, blame Mr Groom! I've just pored over my copy. Two things : 1. How do we know one is more scarce than the other? Dave's book doesn't give that. 2. From the pictures on p137, Type 1 (left) is clearly more worn, which could account for this micro-micro variety. I've had 12 Type 1's pass through my hands, and 18 Type 2's. That's the only basis I have to say T1's are scarcer. Statistically significant? Probably, because most of them were bought before I knew about them. I looked through all the scans I had kept, so almost a blind trial. Anyone else got any numbers we could include? Could be a mini population survey. Declan I'm sure we could talk into the night on coins and bore my wife senseless.She understands my books but when I talk varieties I get a blank look...you've already got a 1875 farthing why do you need the broach,small date,large date,H, broken F in Reg?What is the matter with GVF? She dropped me off at the Midland fair recently and swore that the rest of the punters were checked jacketed worn out leather shoes with a whiff of dog blanket about them...are we ? I know! If I am aware of a variety I have to have a darned good reason not to include it in the ever growing list of possible coins.

£632.50 incl. premium Cheers Rob!! 12 minutes to find the answer. Very impressive, Rob!

Don't blame me, blame Mr Groom! I've just pored over my copy. Two things : 1. How do we know one is more scarce than the other? Dave's book doesn't give that. 2. From the pictures on p137, Type 1 (left) is clearly more worn, which could account for this micro-micro variety. I've had 12 Type 1's pass through my hands, and 18 Type 2's. That's the only basis I have to say T1's are scarcer. Statistically significant? Probably, because most of them were bought before I knew about them. I looked through all the scans I had kept, so almost a blind trial. Anyone else got any numbers we could include? Could be a mini population survey.

We recently adopted the Recorded for everything policy too, Peter - for the same reasons. Even 99pers get Recorded now. It hasn't hurt sales one little bit, so seriously consider it. At least you can see on RM Track and Trace whether it's been delivered or not. Sometimes you can see a signature too. It also allows you to put the Tracking Number into eBay's database on the day you post, which triggers an email to the buyer - so they know for sure you posted it. Non payer: send them a nice email asking if they still want the coin, because you're relisting in 24 hours if they don't get back to you. If you don't hear from them, File a Non Payer Claim with eBay after you relist so you don't have to take the Final Value Fees on the chin. Like John says, there's risks in dealing on eBay, but it's a damn sight cheaper than renting a shop.

Ooh now we are talking!!! Touché. Now I'll have to go through all my copper farthings...

Don't blame me, blame Mr Groom!

I can't say its a must have..I wouldn't know if I had one Hope you liked your 1959 scottish 1/- scarcer type 1 as well, Jake...