Rob

Another useless act by eBay is allowing buyers to rate sellers for postage charges whilst retaining their anonymity. This deprives the seller of the ability to ban some buyers on the grounds they object automatically to 'excessive' charges. Because most people who use eBay are complete tw*ts that are out of touch with reality, they have no concept of the costs incurred for distribution. When the wife sells she normally charges £3.00 for cheap items or £8.00 special delivery. For that £3 charge you have £1.83 second class signed for to protect yourself against the fraudsters, jiffy bag £0.10 and the cost of printing an invoice £0.05. As a VAT registered business you have to add the 20% to shipping charges, so that comes to £2.37. Add in a trip to the post office, which costs the company a mileage charge of 45p per mile for private car use on company business and the total is £3.27 for a single item trip. Sell an item starting and finishing at £1 and you will receive £3.26 after eBay's FVF fee of 10% on everything (£0.40) plus the Paypoo fee of £0.34. Great. So they expect you make a loss on everything that sells for a quid yet have the cheek to tell you that your postage charges are too high and that buyers expect free postage these days. Unfortunately life as a business has a cost which ultimately the consumer has to bear. So if all those idiot buyers, not to mention idiot eBay policymakers, who think postage should be zero or at royal mail cost would extricate their head and expose it to some sunshine, maybe we could all operate on the same wavelength. Yes, I am p'd off.

Do we have any designers to which these might be attributed, and the penalties incurred for having executed the same? And I thought some of the W/SA mint portraits were a bit crude!

Within reason Well, look at it this way ... an investor has a $50 million portfolio. They put just 2% into alternatives. That is still $1 million. Sorry, I must have dropped my wallet with that 50 million in. We're talking real world Jaggy, which means for people who do a regulär job and have a mortgage and other outstanding Bills to pay monthly The same average people didn't buy triple unites before the price took off in recent years, we are looking at wealthy international investors getting involved here. A top end triple will cost six figures today. Even 10-15 years ago you were talking 20-40000 for a top end piece. In the Montagu sale of 1896, triples sold for between £15 and £50. Looking at the average salary for 1900 which appears to be about £60-75pa. it is clear that coins have outstripped wage increases in the interim. I don't have data for professions across the board, but my great grandfather's cousin was promoted to keeper of a section at the BM in 1896 and his salary was £800pa, up from £400pa as deputy keeper the previous year. The most expensive thing in the Montagu sale was the Juxon Medal which sold for £770. Clearly the choice coins were very affordable at the top end of the salary scale compared to today. I don't know what today's keepers will earn, but suggest it isn't anything like the price of 16 triple unites. As has been debated before when we were discussing how someone would feel spending a 6 figure sum on a coin, the answer remains very comfortable. 1 or 2 % of a lot of money is still a lot of money when talking tens of millions.

That's a salutory lesson in how to sell, or rather how not to.Perhaps the sellers thought he would'nt come back to cash in his chips, wonder how he found out it had dropped in price. An interesting scenario though for those selling "investment coins" might be a lesson to be learnt here Just as a sale isn't a sale until it's paid for, so a guarantee can't be ignored as a liability until it is expired. Creative accounting has a lot to answer for.

That's a salutory lesson in how to sell, or rather how not to.

Like all bubbles, the wheels will eventually come off the bus. Gibbons are selling stamps and coins as investments. I don't know what promises they are giving, but if they are operating as the guy in the previous post then it is conceivable that when everyone wants their money out at the same time, SG could be left with a dozen or two triple unites to shift at the same time. How much would they sell for then? If they have promised a minimum price they would buy 'investments' back, then the price can only escalate to silly levels as everyone makes their cut. Nobody has to buy a coin, but some can be forced to sell.

Funny you should mention the "Basement." I bought a 1860 N/Z off of Steven Hill, and when I asked him if he had any provenance on the coin, he said no...I think that one just came from the basement! I thought he was kidding...who would store coins in a basement? LOL! Baldwins would. Space is at a premium in London, so buildings often go up or down further than they would elsewhere. The premises cling to the side of the bank below Adelphi Terrace a few hundred feet from and about 40 feet above the river, so they shouldn't have a problem with damp there.

What's on the reverse? "Hopefully gone, but never forgotten".?

Their overheads must be so great these days that it's a case of every little helps when it comes to sales. I'm sure the amount of money tied up in the business together with the large number of (expensive) staff will ensure that Gibbons keep the prices sky high. I can certainly see the overheads requiring a mark up of at least 50%, so doubling prices compared to what is paid seems reasonable if a safety margin is to be included. The problem is they are paying full book at auction more often than not, so the prices are going up exponentially. Just looking at the two Exeter crowns on the list, the C15 is £3500 for what is a not particularly well struck coin. I would have thought just over £1K top would suffice. The D21 is one of the two better examples of that die pair, but a price of £7500 is plain silly as other die combinations have superior examples. There are over 130 examples of tower both sides 1645 crowns on my list, and I add to this on a near monthly basis. With the Spink VF price at £1100, £2K or a bit more should be more than adequate.

The basement is rumoured to be empty. Having said that, I'm sure they will still find something if they look hard.

Is the Daily Mail no more?

The 1863 has the date below Britannia, not Victoria. i.e. it's on the other side.

It is worth it's intrinsic metal value in that condition, i.e. a few pence. 1853 is not a rare date. It isn't 1863 which is a bronze issue.

For some reason I can seem to get this out of my head at the moment, so might as well add it to the appropriate thread. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qK82JvRY5s&feature=kp

They are in Spink too. And the Sept 2013 issue of the Circular had the various busts used on the Edinburgh shillings, but with much clearer pictures.

If they are silver, then bullion content will set a base value. I would think that if you can't find any reference to a 50 piece set, yet can find a 43 piece set, then the larger one might be a 'less than official' product which in monetary terms usually means something closer to melt value.

They could always add in http://www.rpcoins.co.uk/c2%20pics/01874.jpg which I have described as such on the site, but it doesn't come from a BNTA member, so is presumably unwelcome? There are a lot of people who have done a lot of work in this department. The existing thing on the forgery network, SEUK's contemporary forgeries, the ongoing monitoring done by Richard and a dozen or more other people....... Is it just a case of my forgery is better than yours? There are many sites with forgeries listed. Far better would be a list of existing references than reinventing the wheel.

Yes, but only the first time. Try to return to the page and you no longer have the chance to close the window down.

Maybe you've registered in the past?

Any witholding of info regarding copies can only lead to their further distribution by people who have a focussed moral compass unwittingly passing them on as good. For all the people who pass on copies even when told they aren't genuine, there are a good few people who will withdraw them from sale. Restricting info serves no useful purpose in restricting supplies of copies, which ought to be the first objective. If the BNTA had a monopoly, or near monopoly of dealers then it might work, but with the BNTA being no more than a zit on the face of world numismatics, I think it is self-defeating.

Not enough time to read without being required to register. Consequently it is only partially informative.

Isn't invading what is a free forum and advertising your competing business with that of the site owner a tad unethical?

First and last both look pretty porous. Not sure about the second because the picture is too blurred.

Just a bad case of unwarranted deference on the part of the vendor and lack of familiarity where the TPG is concerned.

True. Lack of joined up thinking there - don't need to make silver acetate as we aren't reinventing photography. I was thinking in terms of whether it had been glued to a surface using clear silicone sealant. If it is lacquer, acetone will not shift it very well. If it is the remains of glue, acetone might be ok, It does look like ponded remains though. Whatever was used to clean it previously was probably in insufficient quantity.