declanwmagee

What amazes me is that with the exception of a few years in which a collective total of over 10 million copper coins were issued, none of them were produced in very large numbers (1806/7 might be exceptions but my books leave the mintages as 'unrecorded'). When the new bronze coins hit the streets in 1860-3, the numbers involved were humungously more than the copper coins they replaced. Since I have never read of small change shortages up to 1860, I wonder why we needed so many more coins starting in the latter part of the 19th century - maybe 10 or 20 times the numbers circulating pre-bronze. Yes, the population was increasing, but not by that much surely? Does anybody have an answer to this? I believe it's known as Quantitative Easing...

I've never even seen an UNC '58E, or '59S. Bought many that looked close, but none of them were.

and I bet the Nikons do bronze much better than any scanner...

Peckris, I have a HP Photosmart C7180 printer/scanner and have touble with the finished scans, they just dont look right compared to other peoples scanned coins. Any recommendations for settings and/or software for amending the images etc? Ditto - cheap Canon scanner; at least 6 years old. I scan a dozen or so at a time at 600dpi but don't ask the scanner to do an A4 scan - just a postcard sized part of the platen. It can do 1200dpi, but then that's one coin at a time. Sometimes they're a bit dull, particularly with older bronze, and I find a brightness tweak of about 10% and 5% contrast brings out detail you'd otherwise lose in the gloom.

Oh James hang on to them if you can! Coins will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no coins... The fabulous Furry Freak brothers had a similar saying I couldn't think where I'd got that from but you're bang on, it was from them! Oh dear, rumbled as an old hippie, don't tell any one we live in a bus on a smallholding...

I've looked at a few, but you can't touch Excel for making it do just what you want it to do, and for the ability to change your mind every 5 minutes

I can upload some of mine if you like Mark - some of the fields won't mean much to you as they refer to other bits of the database but if you're interested I can talk you through it. Yes please, I'd love to see them. Mark, try as I might, and ZIP as I might, I can't anything useful down to the 150k upload limit. Can I email it to you? cheers Declan

I can upload some of mine if you like Mark - some of the fields won't mean much to you as they refer to other bits of the database but if you're interested I can talk you through it.

Oh James hang on to them if you can! Coins will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no coins...

Very good question! As my 45-year coin comparative values reference is based entirely on Seaby/Spink, that's the source I use. It's just that these days I take them with a hefty pinch of salt Also bear in mind that insurance companies use Spink too. I take an average of 4 to value the coins in my own collection: Tony Clayton British Coins Market Values Spink CCGB I update each one that's a physical book every other year, and Mr Clayton does his own updates. For coins I'm selling, I use my own historical records, corrected for grade, so a coins value is what I reckon I could get for it, based on what I've got for that particular date/variety in the past. Huge databases are half the fun of being a coinie! I agree with you apart from Coins Market Values - I've usually found them to be a bit "under" for values? Yes - a bit stingy, particularly at the bottom end of the market where I reside! I'm due to replace it this year - I have the 2008, but at twice the price of CCGB I'm hesitant. So I'm on the lookout for another source of values. I did find this the other day http://british-coin-price-guide.homelinux.com/ if you can get past all the flippin' animated GIFs and the idiosyncratic layout, the values given don't seem to duplicate any of the other sources I use so I'm not sure where they're from. They tend to come somewhere between CCGB and Spink.

Very good question! As my 45-year coin comparative values reference is based entirely on Seaby/Spink, that's the source I use. It's just that these days I take them with a hefty pinch of salt Also bear in mind that insurance companies use Spink too. I take an average of 4 to value the coins in my own collection: Tony Clayton British Coins Market Values Spink CCGB I update each one that's a physical book every other year, and Mr Clayton does his own updates. For coins I'm selling, I use my own historical records, corrected for grade, so a coins value is what I reckon I could get for it, based on what I've got for that particular date/variety in the past. Huge databases are half the fun of being a coinie!

Learned Gentlemen... I am reliably informed that the little 5 pointed stars punctuating the edge inscription of my 1845 Crown are actually cinquefoils, not Stars, and that a real star stop is eight pointed. That's useful to know. I dug out CoinCraft 2000 and there's a reference in there to a "4 in date has large upper serif" variety. examine, if you will... the serif on the 4 is a large triangle pointing upwards, not a crosslet, and not a "normal" rectangular stick. what do you think? Is that what they might mean?

The reason I hate eBay is the sheer waste of time dredging through the dross to find decent coins. It doesn't help to sort by "opening bid", as quite a lot of the better items will start bidding at 99p, so knocking that strategy on the head. If someone would come up with a surefire way of filtering out the crap, I'd have much more time for eBay, but when the crap is between 95-98%, well .... life's too short. You can easily cherry pick dates and filter this again into denomination. I accept there is a lot of rubbish on Ebay but I've still picked up some top stuff.....Don't be afraid to offer against some of the dealers listings....some dealers BIN are way too high but a crafty offer and a compromise can often be achieved. I stick this in the search - cuts a lot out.... "-IOM -baby -pattern -keyring -cover -wedding -200* -199* -198* -197* -sovereign -birthday -guernsey -decimal -50p -£2"

As a former dealer myself, I can tell you that browsing through unending sacks of auction lots full of rubbish "on the off chance", does tend to alter your perspective somewhat. It reaches the point that you tell yourself that only something extremely rare would make all that waste of time worthwhile. I agree - no interest to a dealer, but there was a time when I had lots of gaps in my own collection, that the thought of being able to fill a lot of them in one hit would have seemed a lot of fun. Maybe I'm still an anorak!

It's tragic that were suggesting melting these things - we are supposed to be coinies! It wasnt too long ago Id have been delighted to get 20kg of pre-decimal to sort through, and that must go for thousands of new or potential collectors out there too - just got to find them. uPut them on ebay as one lot - there's twice as many newbies now as there were 5 years ago...maybe even "Pick-up only" and get someone local? one man's junk is another mans treasure, so save the junk, I say!

this is an interesting thread. I tend to see our coins as a reserve, rather than as an investment. In other words, we buy when we're flush, sell when we're skint. Try to always buy better than we've got, and try to sell the worst first. Car failed the MoT? Sell a load of coins - it's easier than trying to find more work. And we know that in a month or two, when we've bought another car, we can start buying coins again.

I'm with you Scott - fill them gaps first, then you've got something to chuck out when you find a better one. Sometimes I have to make gaps in my collection just to keep the selling going (so I can buy more coins!), and I don't like doing it, even when I'm selling my worst first. I suppose I'm too much of a collector to ever be a proper dealer...

Thanks everyone - very helpful. I'll try to do a cool one-on-top-of the other shot like Gary did (except it won't be 2 high grade '49s! Gulp..), it'll be a low grade '48, and a low grade '50. The 1950 only came in a sharp version, and there isn't that much difference between that and the 1948, but it's not convincing enough for me to put it in an eBay description, I'd have to be a bit more confident to do that.

Looks as if it could have suffered a bit of cleaning and reverse a lot worse than obv. (normal). But at £15 I suppose... I think it's a bargain. I've bought plenty from this chap, and he's one of my favourites

Makes me wonder how the logistics works - how they actually get from Llantrisant to your local Tescos - do they go via a bank, or do the Royal Mint trucks actually unload direct at the Supermarket...? It would make sense if you were trying to get straight to where the demand would be - I can't see many occassions where banks would dish out 1ps just a thought...

oh don't, you'll make me all bashful...thanks a lot for that though - I showed the Pwincess (who's in charge of despatch & presentation) your comments and she was suitably chuffed too. We do try to be a bit different from yer average eBay coinie...

the Pwincess sent off for some ground pumice powder to make soap with a few months ago. The package arrived damaged with deepest apologies from RM, and the handful of small ziplock bags that would have been about half full with white powder were missing. I suspect there's a postie out there somewhere with a serious nosebleed...

Here's my eBay balls-up of the week. Someone new came into our shop and spent £20 on a nice VF+ 1916 Halfcrown, so we thought we'd give him the full treatment as he was new to us - nice little coloured envelope, sprig of lavender and hand-written "Thank You". He requested Record Delivery but we forgot to do that and sent it normal first class with all the others. Realised this when we got back from the Post Office, so, being nice people, dropped him an email telling him we'd sent it, but only 1st class, and would refund him the extra 50p he'd paid for Recorded, and apologised for our incompetence... then dropped over to PayPal to send him the 50p, and promptly refunded him the lot. So now another grovelling email to ask him to pay for it again...I'm sure he will - he'll have had the coin by now; but it means I have to curtail my shopping till the payment comes back, and I bet I've missed all the bargains - I could have done a lot with that £20 this weekend

Clive....oh Cli-ive...! sounds like one for you, mate. i'm sure you all know who I mean

It's well-known that the Mint artificially darkened post-war bronze Pennies, but I found out why recently and thought I'd share it. It was fashionable at the time to put shiny new pennies in kid's Christmas stockings, and the Mint considered this a frivolous use of valuable national resources at a time of austerity, so darkened them with thiosulphate in order to discourage the practice. How about that? I don't know about anyone else but I find it fascinating to find out the reasons behind these things, rather than just knowing that they happened, and the more I look at it, the more I realise how little we know. For instance - why is there is a calm sea 1957 halfpenny? Making changes to dies can't be cheap, so there must have been sound commercial thought behind all of these facts. ain't coin collecting great? Declan