Rob

Going on my own was the best thing I ever did. 30 years ago the wife said to me you keep talking about it, but do nothing. I rose to the bait and never looked back. Can't beat working for yourself if you are willing to put the hours in at the drop of a hat and have an understanding partner.

http://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=328817 This is what the genuine article looks like.

Looks like he is covering all bases. Description includes George VI and 1962 and a picture of 'Victoria'. What else could one want? On second thoughts, I wonder if it's the Indian with the golden horse cart?

The £2 copies are more obvious in that the die axis in this case is 30 degrees out in a clockwise direction. The detail is still a bit mushy however when compared to the real thing. The weight of my £2 copy is very close, the example below weighing 15.97g, or 0.03g light, but I'm not sure if that would be within acceptable tolerances.

The 1960s forgeries were assessed as being 89% gold. However, there are a few pointers which scream dodgy. In the case of the £5 1887, they are about 0.1-0.15g light. The number of milling lines is also wrong at 188, compared to the Royal Mint's 184. The detail is somewhat mushy, and the BP in the exergue is wrong. The die axis is also slightly out, being about 10-15 degrees acw or at least it is in the case of my examples. Attached is a £5 Beirut.

Just been used in a piece of jewellery at some point. First suspended, then possibly as part of a ring?

Beirut Special?

Presumably he types in Shift-3, 5, 4, 9, full stop, 9, 5 when filling out the fields. People can ask what they want. Nobody is under any obligation to buy. Just move on.

Probably alright and just in dire condition. It isn't one that is noted for copies.

It's difficult to say whether the denomination is the main driver in the case of rarities or not. There are a great many absolute rarities that quite frankly go for a song, but whether that is down to a lack of knowledge on the part of collectors or simply indifference is difficult to establish.

That's simple. When there are so many varieities, the number of people actually seeking to collect them is inversely proportional to the number of varieties. Some will undoubtedly be very or extremely rare, but equally, so will the number of people chasing them. i.e. they are unlikely to attract much, if any premium. For most varieties the published figures will give a good enough estimate. The world is full of unique coins, but it doesn't follow they are worth tens or hundreds of thousands each, and once someone highlights a new variety, people check and suddenly the world is awash with them. Yours may or may not be on the list. Filled dies are not a variety per se, rather a result of die use. The incuse parts of a die become filled with metal dust which results in a partially struck up character, but this is only any use when determining an early or later strike. It certainly doesn't, or shouldn't change the value. If anything it ought to reduce it as the outcome is not as strong a strike as it could be. People get too tied up on value. Do a little bit of homework so you aren't going in blind, then collect according to what you find interesting/attractive or whatever your criteria are. Some you might overpay for, others will be obtained cheaply. In the overall scheme of things it doesn't matter if you are happy with what you have. Even paying twice market value is not the end of the world as long as it isn't habitual.

The book is still in the process of being written, but I do know there are over 300 variaties of 1887 coins in all denominations.

Notwithstanding the thin initial cross, I think it is an early 10cf5 on account of the crown with the damaged central fleur on the right hand side and the taller left hand ornament. So timewise, the start of Ed. II

Just collect for their appeal rather than confusing a hobby with an investment. If you find it absolutely necessary to consider the investment side, then, with every dog having its day etc, the thing to collect is surely the most unfashionable? No crystal ball to say when they will be sought after, but at some point they will be relatively strong. I had a couple of 3rd head 1711 shillings also, one an upgrade to the other, but whilst a premium to the the 4th head is the norm, the variety is not particularly sought after except for those seeking date run/varieties of milled shillings. Bull reaffirming rarity means nothing as it would be impossible to carry out an adequate survey to verify results - nobody could do so accurately. Many of the rarity values are simply copy and paste.

They might have a minimum sum insured value to make it worth their while, but if that is the case, then the value of your collection is likely to come within the remit of your contents insurance. There is almost certainly going to be a band above the contents limits but below the specialist's minimum cover where the %age figure is higher, but it still won't be a disaster. The problem is that people mostly seem to view insurance, reference books and ancilliary spending as money that should be spent on coins. They need to appreciate that you have to buy into the whole package, just as Plod gets a bit p'd off when you drive without car insurance, or the car breaks down when you don't get it serviced.

A typical 1/2% of the insured value is hardly going to break the bank given it is only £5 per £1K insured. Surely that has to be good value if it gives you peace of mind, however much or not your collection is worth. Even if your collection was worth 100K it would only mean foregoing a £500 coin once a year. Insurance can't cover the emotional loss, and the almost impossible task of replacing like with like.

The latter comprises a significant number of the former. Certainly all the key players have moved, but then, this group might have been one of the original warring parties at the split, so a resumption of the old arrangement could once again be possible. I guess if you really want to know you will have to ask them to their faces.

I'm not sure why Baldwins and St. James's split in the first place unless it was at the behest of SG's board who saw a conflict in working with SF. I do know that after it happened, SF was busily trying to rebuild a mailing list because the info wasn't forthcoming from Baldwins (who had previously done the cataloguing and arranged for mailing). There's a moral there for anyone thinking of business joint ventures - rely on nobody.

Who was the vendor in the US?

That sounds like a share tip from the lift boy moment

Baldwins lost the plot by setting low estimate at 20% below market price. Add in the 25% juice and you are at market value, i.e.you only get competitive bidding if two people want something badly. Many lots are won at opening bid or passed. I also think that St. James's estimates are too high.

Don't know. From my perspective the weak partner is Stanley Gibbons. £40m assets but only £3m of stamp sales in the past year. Most of their 'value' is intangibles, i.e. goodwill from the purchase of Baldwins, but all the staff they were buying have buggered off, so in theory that would require writing down, but it might make the company insolvent. A year ago they had to restate profits after one sale (only) failed to go through. That's a business built on sand. Fenton has relatively few overheads and should be the stronger of the two at first glance, but I've not seen any figures.

I just ignore them

They used whatever they captured from the French or Spanish. There was no obligation to return US or Italian currency to their repective issuing countries. A reasonable assumption is that whatever coins are known for the counteermarked issues, so you would expect at least the same types for the five shilling dollar

There's no guarantee the underlying coin was even an 8 reales. Several types of coin were used as witnessed by the US$, French ECU etc, so a uniform diameter and thickness was never a given.