declanwmagee

lol If I'm honest I would never pay that amount for a 5p Coin. Rarity or not. If I were to find one in my change then that would be a different matter, it could go with my other Decimal Coins in my collection, but I would never personally purchase one. I'm with you, RobJ. I'm not sure I'd be happy selling one either. Someone said recently on this forum that finding interesting stuff in change was coin collecting at its purest - I like that. Equally, fishing things out of change and flogging them on eBay has to be coin collecting at its least pure.

Spend 'em! That way those who are interested will find 'em; those who aren't, won't. Just don't give 'em back to a bank...

Yes, it's interesting to see which coins have eluded me. After 5 years or so of buying whatever comes up first, so long as it was better than I had, there are distinct gaps. If they had turned up, I would have bought them, so they obviously just didn't show. Time to get a bit more deliberate in my purchasing this year...as well as getting on some mailing lists. It's worth contacting a few old school dealers who not only are not on eBay, but aren't even on the internet, I think.

I know, you should buy the coin you like, but I have such a rigid scientific approach to the hobby, that I physically can't buy a coin that is worse than my own example. So, which is the better coin? His is certainly circulated - a bit. A little under EF, perhaps. Mine, I don't think has been, but I gave it a kind of EF+ because of the horrendous weak strike. Mine has good lustre. I don't think his does. I ummed and ahh'd about it, but decided not to. I had £12-£14 ready to spend on it, just couldn't convince myself his was better. Decided to hang on, keep the high grade and upgrade on the basis od strike strength later. what are your thoughts, chaps?

I'm fairly amazed you have a computer with an internet connection! Still, you obviously have your priorities worked out Wireless can be a bit flaky through 60 yards of wet trees sometimes, but it works. We'll have to get a bit more imaginative one day when we get our little piece of land. Then we'll have to learn how to make our own electrickery, and I think you can do something with satellites for internet. I have seen someone who made a dish from a wok. Wi-Fry?

Ouch. I bought about half a dozen from Paul Wincott for around £2 apiece 10 years or so ago. I'm sure I might still have a spare one somewhere. I'd love to buy one from you, Mr Peckris! I could put ex-Paul Wincott in my database somewhere... My memory was good - it WAS PW and it WAS £2 apiece. Now, the question is... where are they? I will have a look sometime but don't hold your breath just yet! Hold on, didn't you say you just bought one? I did, yes, but you can always find a better UNC. The fact that it's taken me this long to get one indicates that I shouldn't turn down another. 2 come along at once, etc - often happens!

No doubt it will some form of a 'Micro Implant' embedded somewhere in our bodies. Perish the thought! it's started already: I just spent all morning trying to buy car insurance with a cheque. They think you're some kind of nutter if you don't use plastic. By the 4th or 5th phone call I start to get a bit silly with these people, so I told Craig in a Glasgow call centre that I didn't even have a barcode tattooed on my forehead. He said "No, you won't need that till next year!" Didn't have the heart to tell him we haven't got a postcode, a mobile phone or a landline, an employer, a landlord or a taxman. I think his paradigm may have shattered...

Ouch. I bought about half a dozen from Paul Wincott for around £2 apiece 10 years or so ago. I'm sure I might still have a spare one somewhere. I'd love to buy one from you, Mr Peckris! I could put ex-Paul Wincott in my database somewhere...

Well, would you believe it. I just did a trawl through a load of online dealers lists to get familiar with who sells what, off-ebay, and came across our own Predecimal selling a BU 1958 sixpence for £3. Mental note made, I finished the exercise, and with a few things noted out there to come back to, I came back to the '58. Bloody gone! I bet it's been there for months, and me rattling on about them got it sold! Me and my big mouth.

If you have a scanner, Mike, that does a quicka nd dirty job well enough. Proper coinies scoff at scanning coins, but it would give us a good idea how good your 1844 is.

there you go! It's got to be a good idea to keep an eye on the dealers who aren't eBay based. Unless you have your finger on the furious pulse of eBay, you couldn't possibly keep up with what's going for what, no matter how long you'd been in the trade. I must make an effort this year to try and break away from the bay a bit.

oh dear, that would be me then! Me too - there aren't many coins from the 1950s (1959 halfpenny, 1953 brass 3d and 6d, 1959 sixpence.. perhaps) that you can get that cheap. Pretty much all my proper purchases for the collection over the last few years have been funded by the fact that people hadn't woken up to the tricky '50s yet, so I could still snap up bargains and mark 'em up silly. I'm finding I can't do that now, so I'm having to bite the bullet on a few dates to get them their final upgrade. I just paid more than £8 for a BU 1958 sixpence off Lucido: I'd been waiting for a bargain on that one for about 4 years. Not going to happen now!

oh dear, that would be me then!

must have been happy then!

First years of the reign probably benefited from hoarding of the new coinage, so they didn't get spent as quick, and maybe new dies? Second year of the coinage tend to be more difficult: 1888, 1903, 1912, 1938, 1954

D'you reckon this is one of them? Doesn't look quite right... 1904 halfcrown on eBay currently

Ooh very nice! Here's mine - cost me £2.69 from fiona.freeserve, but at least I've got one. It was a big ugly gap for years.

Late Victoria... interpret at will - gathering data is the easy bit - it's up to you lot to turn it into knowledge!

...and 1 in 4 1902 pennies is a Low Tide. 1902 Low Tide ha'penny is a different story, but we knew that.

Edward VII: so much for 1904 halfcrowns - you'd be better off hoarding sixpences

Stand by for E7 and late Victoria. A survey by grade would be much more interesting, of course, if anyone has the inclination!

George V: I did wade through the 1912, 1918, 1919 and 1926 pennies to extract the Birmingham mints and the ME, but I didn't for any of the other 1926 denominations. Observations: Same trends as the later survey: 1925/1930 halfcrowns, Birmingham mint pennies. 1928 and 1930 threepences buck that trend truly scarcer: Halfpennies, early and late farthings, early 20s small silver, early 30s small silver. Look at the over abundance of big pre-1920 silver!

Right, here's a quick survey of George VI and Elizabeth II, on eBay. eBay being what it is, and the limitations of the eBay search criteria, mean that the following cannot be taken into account: - varieties - multiples of a coin in groups or sets - listings in the wrong category - English/Scottish shillings - brass/silver 3d I have excluded keyrings, cufflinks, all that nonsense, and I have excluded dear Mr Argurios who sells exclusively polished momentos of every date/denomination. Observations: "Key dates" are heavily over represented. Compare 1952 sixpences with 1950/51. The same can be said for the 46/49 threepences, 1950/51 pennies, 1959 halfcrowns and so on. The real scarcities out there are in the tricky '50s 3d and 2/-, 1938 silver, later G6 halfpennies. Perhaps the value of an exercise like this is identifying the coins to stock up on now, while you still can. Have a look at early 60s florins! I'll do G5 next, becuase this is right up my street!

This is exactly the sort of project that would appeal to the autistic in me! But, as Rob quite rightly pointed out, it's the repeating that's the problem. The coins in my eBay shop stay there pretty much till they're sold, so you'd get 12 results for one coin by repeating monthly. Even if you did it once a year, you'd still find a lot of my coins still going round, but being sold by other people! Maybe survey the coinies, not the coins? Ask everyone on this forum, as a sample, have you got, say, an 1875H, and in what grade? Truly scarce coins will be tucked away safely in people's collections, not on eBay. By definition, eBay is a place full of coins that people don't want!

ooh it's so difficult! Compare and contrast these two. Same coin, photo with a 6400K daylight bulb to try and replicate the real thing, and then there's the scan. I know which one I'd buy if I was shopping. My current thing is trying to strike the balance between overexposing and getting rid of dark patches. Neither capture that lovely crispness you can see with the eye. Some people's photos can get it though - check out some of juliesutton's.