Rob

I used them for a while, but now use Hiscox as their quotes were cheaper and the policy was more flexible.

You could also use a specialist insurer with a separate policy. Typical rates are 1/2% of the sum insured, but that shouldn't be necessary if you use a sensible mainstream insurer.

The latter would be interesting in the case of some Victorian decimal patterns as they only occur on a laminating flan. I suspect a little flexibility would apply here.

2nd mortgage job on sausages and wine. Just kept adding in cases of wine at Henke until the car was full

People don't know how lucky they are. I've not had any holiday entitlement since 1987.

Probably any metal dip will suffice as it is a chemical reaction in the first place.

It appears I missed a bit. I saw one rowing race when passing a bar in Siena 10 days ago. Stopped for the few minutes it took to watch and that was the sum total of my exposure to the Olympics.

Farthings of Ed.VII were mint toned before release. i.e nearly black. Anything that colour will have been cleaned.

I'm not sure why the differentiation between forums and facebook etc. Surely forums are just different social media sites, but with a more focussed audience? i.e. you can filter out virtually all the unwanted self-centred crap associated with the mainstream sites. Coin acquisition of the week would be even more unwieldy if members felt compelled to post half a dozen images for every coin - a selfie of the person looking, another examining the coin, another negotiating the price, another shaking hands on the deal and finally a proud owner holding it beside their face with an inane smile, plus a spare in case there isn't enough exposure to be acceptable.

It's probably plated.

There is no liability for goods returned to the UK from abroad provided documentatary proof of export was completed at the time.

That looks like blue toning at 9 o'clock, not verdigris.

Frankly, that's just a bad case of 'An idiot and their money are soon parted'. An annual return of 16% means a coin would have to appreciate by at least 40% on typical hammer prices in the first year just to cover costs. 20% commission to buy at auction, the investment company's annual charge - say 4%, plus the 16% promised return. They might have assumed that they would purchase privately at typical hammer prices, but the material simply isn't available to buy. A fundamental part of investments is liquidity, which has never been a feature of coins. When something can be off the market for a hundred years, who is going to invest in it? When a coin changes hands too frequently it usually raises the question as to what is wrong with it. Although coins are clearly an asset, liquidity issues mean they can only ever be peripheral investments. In September the BBC is going to have 'investment coins' as the target for one of its 'Rip-off Britain' programmes. GeoffT is on it giving a collector's viewpoint. I was asked to give a dealer's view, but declined on the grounds that the programme title did not offer the possibility of a balanced argument. Whilst I felt that there were undoubtedly companies pushing material of questionable investment quality, the most important issue was that of caveat emptor, which in today's nanny state mentality is increasingly legislated to irrelevance. It never ceases to amaze me that people will spend thousands on something they know nothing about, yet would insist on taking a potential new car for a drive, or would ensure that the new carpet or curtains matched the existing decor. People need to be held more accountable for their own actions rather than going down the no-win, no-fee route, which absolves the consumer of any responsibility.

Start by asking yourself why you wouldn't want to buy that particular coin. When you have a list of faults, however significant or minor, then you can then determine whether you want it or if the price is ok or not.

Different dies though. The relative position of the 2 Ts and the alignment of the I is not the same.

Depends on the coin. Sometimes it is better to have the coin than leave a space. Depends on what and how you collect. If Tealby pennies float your boat you are likely to have a handful of partial portraits and a large number of illegibles. To find fully struck up pieces is a serious labour of love.

There is a difference between strikings on a wrong flan that inadvertently got into the blank bucket and another on a properly sized size blank but an off-metal strike, and more so if there are any records. If the flan fits the dies then it is much more likely to be intentional. The problem with wrong sized flans is that they are totally random and can be worth all or nothing on the day. It is also helpful if the mint was not striking many coins for third parties at the time, which I suspect would apply in your case. Post-war there were a lot of contracts with foreign governments and a noticeable increase in the number of wrong flan strikings, but prior to WW2 a lot of empire coins were done by Heatons, so RM off metal strikes are considerably rarer. The visual impact will invariably have an effect on desirability. My example of a wrong flan is a 1967 florin on a Burundi 10Fr piece which is slightly small and 2/3 of the correct weight for a florin. It cost £1.79 incl. P&P on Ebay about 10 years ago. Not much to look at and didn't break the bank.

Ah. Welcome back. The surfaces look cast, the obverse rims are horrible, the fine detail isn't, and the colour of the first one isn't very gold.

Only huge doubts? They speak copies all day long

I'll be there tomorrow

Given the fairly small number of CGS slabbed coins extant, is verification via the website really an issue. Does anyone know of a fake CGS slab to date? I'm sure the Chinese could knock one up for you if requested, but unless CGS became accepted across the board, it would not be a worthwhile exercise IMO.

There are Chinese copies everywhere, but the local collectors will be largely aware of what is available, just as we are here. So it boils down to what else is in the market that is likely to get under the radar. There aren't that many things if the truth be known. Some contemporary copies are very collectable in any case. Many modern copies simply look wrong. I also suspect that some coins are rejected in error by the US TPGs. Coins have always been counterfeited, but anything appearing in large numbers will soon be picked up by the specialists in a particular area and is unlikely to cause the collector a significant problem. In my view, the 'reassurance' offered by a TPG is overkill. For those who think that slabbing allows the casual person to buy a £5K coin without bearing any responsibility, I would say that they would never buy a car without doing a few background checks or taking it for a test drive, nor would they buy carpets or curtains for the house without first doing a colour match.

Nope. But in this era of 24/7 communication, all currencies are tradable if free floating, so it doesn't really matter what the currency is. Although the currency brokers will make a small amount on conversion, it is a small price to pay for not being tied to the fortunes of another country whose political and economic policies and interests are invariably going to diverge from yours. That's why the Euro is screwing up the Eurozone.

A large part of the relative success of slabbing in the US vs the UK seems to me to be that more people across the pond seem to be in a state of semi-paranoia regarding whether a coin is genuine or not. A small minority with deep pockets actively pursue the best score accolade, but I see far more concerns posted about authenticity. Clearly the number of iffy items is likely to be the same there as here, so are we not as concerned as our US cousins, as aware of the problem, or just more laid back as a culture? GeoffT who is a member here, summed up the difference between cultures when he said that Americans have a greater tendency to believe in absolutes, which accounts for the need to have a coin graded and a number assigned in perpetuity. A sporting analogy would be the need in the US for overtime to produce a winner, whereas the 5 days spent arriving at an indecisive result for a game of cricket would be anathema. 4000 coins per year is not a sustainable business. I think their big problem is that culturally we are somewhat easy going and relaxed about our hobby, and probably crucially, are less inclined to treat our coins as an investment. Therefore, it will always be an uphill struggle to raise the workload to a sustainable level. It would be interesting to know the number of people in this country who submit coins to NGC or PCGS on a regular basis, as I suspect there are not too many. That would give a better idea as to the viability of a TPG in this country, irrespective of whether it is CGS or someone else.

Surely getting it cross graded by NGC or PCGS is just throwing good money after bad, or if you are a believer in TPGs, just a waste of money? The grade assigned isn't going to change with a change of ownership. It is at the end of the day, a sunk cost, but the opinion is as valid as the day it was slabbed, whether in plastic or freed.