Sylvester

Stupid as - daft, undereducated, fools. and Stupid in Sylvestian terms - Annoying, irritating. Now if i had say took three dozen Washignton Quarters plated them with palladium, encapsulated them in plastic, graded them at MS65 and gone to thr trouble of printing of certificates of authenticity and then putting them up on ebay at say £50 starting bid. People would say i was a conman, now if i was to set up my own country of Sylvestia and open the Imperial Sylvestian mint it'd be embraced with open arms! (In the immortal words of Alfie Moon) muppets.

Some people Geordie will collect any old trash. Look at the people that collect gold bullion coins made by private mints (not even national mints) but just stuff aimed at selling round shaped things that just happen to look like coins. Then they go and package it in green packaging or red packaging and charge a premium on the red because it's 'delux'. I dunno who's more bloody stupid the fools that make em or the twits that buy them...

I was not aware of this. Although it does not surprise me. 'Consumerism' yet again... modern trash aimed specifically at collectors with no numismatic value whatsoever. What's next gold plated errors? Oh damn i shouldn't have given them the idea!

Forgive my spelling... it's quite appalling of late.

Americans might be inclined to throw it under the umbrella term of 'error'. Although as i've pointed out many times to a number of US citizens (and wasted my breath, or rather typing finger), it's not an error. An error as i understand it, would be where there is a human error, that is such things as wrong dates (uncorrected), incorrect spellings, wrong alignment of obverse/reverse, wrong obverse and wrong reverse pairings and the ever popular issue struck on totally the wrong planchet, such as a 1p piece struck on a £1 blank. To me those are errors because they are just that 'mistakes'. Coins not being strck quite centrally, and die cracks (such as raised lines in the fields) are not due to errors, but rathermore due to the process of die wear during striking, and therefore they are not 'mistakes/errors' but rather more flawed coins due to die wear. Hence the terminology 'die flaw'. A flaw being an imperfecting rather than an all out cock-up. So i'd call it die flawed.

I like the idea of the slightly higher and lower prices, it gives you more room to negotiate. Can you imagine if it was just Seaby, dealers would charge over book and then only buy just below that book, and if you tried to argue that the coin was realistically worth a bit more, they'd just show you the standard book and you wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

That approach sounds much more sensible to me than rushing out an incomplete revision each year like some publishers do... Every two years would suffice i should thnk.

Hang onto it. Americans go nuts about things like that, you never know one might turn up one day and pay you a bit more than 20p for it.

I know which i'd rather have!

Just to see how well up you are on such wonderful things as the English monarchy; 1) How many king Richards have we had? 2) How many Queen's have been called Mary? 3) How many king William's have there been in Scotland? 4) If Prince William changed his reigning name to James he would be James the how many of Scotland? (Could be tricky this one) 5) How many king Edwards have we had?

And here's me on the bus?

Charlotte died in child birth, the child was male. Maybe he could have claimed the throne instead of his mother. If the doctor had used forceps to get the child out then it is likely that all three of them would have survived. The child, the mother and of course the doctor (whom committed suicide a few days later). If Mary Tudor had survived then England would be Catholic again, and we'd have alot of much nicer more colourful churches than we do now. From an architectural point of view we so lost out.

I'm still of the old opinion on the Edward V issue... i'm sure there was a mintmark difference you know.

Weren't she a relation to Mary Queen of Scots? I know she was glanced over for succession because of some scandal, and didn't she die in prison? Talking of the many if's and what's... 1) What if Princess Charlotte and her son hadn't died? There would have been no Victoria. 2) What if Anne's children had survived? 3) What if the monarchy had not been reinstated in 1660? 4) Imagine if Mary Tudor had lived long and had produced an heir, would England and Spain be more closely connected? And would Scotland still be independent? 5) If Richard II had fathered a child, there might have been no Dukes of Lancaster getting ideas above their station, thus not jealous Yorkists and no Bosworth... 6) If Richard I had even bothered with his wife and produced an heir... no King John, no Edward I, Piers who? and Edward the Black Prince? and the cherry on the cake? 7) What if Harthacnut hadn't been poisoned at a wedding and had lived to father children, would England and Denmark still be under the same government, or would the Kings of Norway just taken Denmark in at a later date anyhow... Too many IFs and BUTs in history.

Gosh! I thought that everyone had seen at least one Star Wars movie. My son is anxiously awaiting the 19th. He has tickets for the very first showing in Ocala. It should be fun. I've seen all but two of them Art, so don't worry some of us are a little more in touch with cultural issues... Only two i haven't seen is the second one (that's the second, second one, not the orginal second one, to put it another way it's Episode II Attack of the Clones and of course Episode III , those two are the only ones i've yet to watch). I have seen bits of Episode II though. My favourite still has to be Episode VI, Return of the Jedi...

I still can, i used to be able to do it with Scottish monarchs too, but alas i've forgotten that side. I can remember all the monarchs of England (starting in Wessex) from Beorhtric (whom i can't actually spell, but there you go) overthrown by Egbert in 802 right through to the present. However for much of the Anglo-Saxon period i cannot remember all the dates. Although i can do them from Eadgar through to Queen Elizabeth II, although i continually find certain monarchs trip me up, these being; Henry VI first reign, William and Mary's start (1688 or 1689?) 1688 is when James abdicated for sure and when they were named successors but did they actually begin their reign in that year or in the next? William III's death sometimes makes me think, really 1701 (at the time) but now 1702. Sometimes Anne throws me a little.

Art's more up to date than me! Even i don't have a Spinks! (well i do have a 1985 one, or what's left of it), my most recent publication of the 'Spinks variety' is my 1993 Seaby Coins of the UK (Which Spinks bought out several years back and now publish as their own). The 1985 Spinks is a different book altogether, much more like a concise version of what i'd call the 'blue pages', (Coin Yearbook, which previously was just 'Coin' was it not?), it's that long since i've seen one i can't remember!

Arty does always carry his hat around you know... or maybe he does?

Don't bother with the Full Monty is a pile of trash... Never seen Dallas myself.

Would this coin happen to have the obverse legend of... AETHELSTAN TOT BRIT (Or words to that effect?) Cos there was one knocking about on ebay a few days back

Certainly looks like a Quarter Laurel (or 5 shilling piece [aka gold Crown] hence the V behind the king). The piercing will reduce the value quite a bit as many collectors simply do not like it. But having said that hammered gold coins are always popular. Value on such a piece is difficult to give, a conservative estimate without the hole would have been about £140, but taking into account the hole it really depends on the buyer, some might pay upto £100, realistically i'd say about £80-£90. I used to have one unholed in slightly better condition (albeit cleaned which reduced the value) and that booked between £170-£220 tops, different dealers quoted different prices for the piece, so the market on these is quite fluid.

Don't forget that the mining companies probably release the gold/silver at an appropriate time (i.e more profits), i doubt they'd just dump their stockpiles on the market... Wasn't there some issue over a silver price fix some time back? I also heard (not sure if it's true) that governments also 'borrow' gold out of the reserves and put it on the market, make a profit on it whilst it's high, they then flood the market with more until the price drops and then buy it back cheaper. Suggests to me the price of the metal actually goes up, think of it in terms of buying gold with silver, how many silver bars is it gonna cost today compared to two years ago?

Of course gold can go up and yes i do realise that it's a very good alternative to paper assets, particularly in these times. But i just wanted to make extra clear that the case of gold/platinum/palladium and silver is never clear cut. There is no gaurantee that it will just keep going up, it's likely it will. But it is the same with everything, what goes up, must eventually come down.

I regaularly refer to them as 'new pence' when talking to the older generations, without thinking anything of it. Usually in the context of old pence and how they remember it of course. I also continually refer to them as 'new pence' or 'decimal pennies' when talking on forums like this. Nothing worse then someone saying; 'i've found a UK penny how much is it worth?' First thing you as is, 'is it a new one or an old one?'

Can i ask, is it magnetic? (i note you put nickel which makes me think you might have tried this). Could you post a picture? I know for sure that if it had been say 1992 or later piece that it would have been one of the steel pennies that had missed the copper plating. All post 1992 pennies and most 2 pences except some 1998 or was it 1999? ones are steel with copper plating. However up until 1991 (and some 1992 coins issued in collectors sets) they were all still being struck in bronze. Which means if your's is 1990 then you must have something else.