Rob

Yeh, right.

Ever the contrarian and in an effort to help the wife list items fee free, I opened an account a couple of days ago to start selling. Boo, hiss I hear you say. It's absolute bollocks. Having got my 20 free listings lined up, I find I'm limited to 10 items or £650 in sales per month. Given the historical baggage with eBay and Paypoo, I'm not going to list a £650 item as a new seller in case they try to hold on to my money indefinitely, so it's going to be 99p items all the way as I do acknowledge Ebay being the ideal channel to offload shi*e. Given a typical succes rate of 5% of items listed, that means a sale every 2 months or 20 months at least to reach the minimum 'acceptable seller' level of 10 feedbacks. I don't think they are going to get rich quick off my efforts, and I don't think my wife is going to be too happy at the inroads I won't be making into the pile of 25000 coins looking for a home. My crystal ball suggests a bit of earache. Joking aside, this new fee structure combined with the difficulty for new sellers to get established has to have a profound effect on the number of listings and the number of sellers. I can't help thinking they are going to have another go at tweaking the system in six months. I also think this will result long term in the repositioning of eBay as an online shop in competition with Amazon rather than an auction site. Established 'business' sellers have shops while occasional private sellers can list items. It won't be as good as Amazon where you can list a book and leave it indefinitely, but I can certainly see a parallel business model for the two companies.

Another provenance gone down the Swanee. No time now to find the coin, and the image, and make a note of the slab number to retain the info. It will be too much to hope that any former owner will be mentioned on the slab, and even if it is there's less chance that it is correct. One can only hope that nobody from a TPG ever gets a job at a museum, otherwise all history will be eradicated prior to the date of their appointment. Are PCGS offering this as a promotional piece, because if they are it might just be possible to get them to add a rider that cleaning wax off a coin destroys any hope of finding a provenance in the future? That would have some measurable effect on the degree of cleaning because not everyone is a ****.

Is that from a so-called 'basement slabber'? What? Multiple Sellars (sic) - 62 off . Sorry,I'll get my coat.

That's the one. I couldn't find the back issue to check the detail. Stranger than fiction.

A majority of the English coins have this bidder. the other one is s***a. Probably both shills because I can't imagine anyone actually wanting many of the pieces on offer.

Must remember to check in Private Eye's 'Funny Old World' to see if they picked up on it. There's nowt so strange as folk. That's better than the one they had a short time ago about the guy in Harlow who went shopping in the local supermarket dressed in full nazi regalia claiming it helped him to overcome his mental health problems after he had a vasectomy in 2006. The cartoon of Hitler goose-stepping with a shopping basket was very well done.

It's a statistic. Nuff said.

I'll dig out all the last issue 3d and 6d images I can find and send the lot. You can then decide what you want.

Bad news. They are all over the show. large ones for 1935, small before and after, but some 1936s have a larger 9 than others and the acorns point differently across the dates. Do you want half a dozen images?

I thought I had answered that in the post above. I have had 2 large and 1 small all dated 1935. My original post referred to threepences, not sixpences, so which denomination were your 2 large and 1 small describing? Sorry, hadn't registered the changeover from threepences. Better do some more digging.

I thought I had answered that in the post above. I have had 2 large and 1 small all dated 1935.

You just don't do irony, do you Rob Just to clarify : CCGB has this coin at £150 in UNC which seems about right. Spink, as so often, are ridiculously overstating the value. People are bidding up to that level at auction though, so I'm not sure that it is necessarily OTT. Whilst I agree Spink are overpriced on the lower grades, I'm not so sure they are for nice pieces.

Annnnnnd here's the second hahaha. I'm not sure she's from 1877 though... Link And I just saw someone's bid on it I'd get a clip round the ear if I called the wife one of those. 1877 is a bit optimistic looking at the seller id. valerievalerie was born in 1066.

That's Derek's listing (Red Riley on this forum). As Nordle said, it really depends on what grade you want to collect as to whether you bid. Coins 'speak' to you when they are attractive in your eyes so that you might accept a lower grade piece when it has a lot of eye appeal.

It doesn't profess to be a proof. PCGS have assigned it MS64, not PR64. Spink UNC for a currency piece is £225, proof FDC is £1250.

It does if you are the buyer and the seller is unaware of what he is selling. Do you ask for extra insurance or keep your head down and hope. Either way you could lose the coin. Agreed, but importantly you will not be out of pocket. In the case of sending things to PCGS you are already aware of its value and presumably are likely to have paid an amount not too dissimilar to its value. That sum is what you are protecting. In the case of that something you have bought but never receive, you will be reimbursed.

The first is a penny of George V. The second penny has toning assuming you are referring to the purplish marks. That is a normal transition from full original lustre through a purple colour where it has been handled, to an even brown colour when the surfaces are fully oxidised. This colour will darken over time. Neither have any real value on account of the wear to the first and the number in existence of the second. Most 20th century coins need to be in high grade to have much value and even then isn't guaranteed if a common date.

That's a statement that ought to be pinned to the top of any list of collecting hints. Nobody who collects coins can rationally argue that books are a waste of money, yet so many are reluctant to spend even a pound.

It may only account for less than 1% of the economy, but it has a profound effect on the other 99%. The rules prohibiting preferential support for indigenous businesses runs contrary to most people's sense of fair play. If you can't look after your own, then nobody else will do it for you. That applies to the EU, and is why the French regularly issue directives prohibiting foreign control of 'strategic industries'. They are looking after no.1 and in that respect I think they are right. If our politicians are unwilling or unable to pursue a similar course, then I believe we would be better off outside led by someone who does care about this country. I'm not sure about UKIP engaging with the Commission. Immigration from EU countries must be unrestricted under the agreed rules, so leaving is the only way to circumvent the rules. It's a moot point whether we would be better in than out. There will be a lot of pressure to water down the financial sector given the shenanigans of the past few years, but that is our main breadwinner. The French would like to cart off some things to Paris, the Germans want to move it to Frankfurt. If either happens we will be in deeper mire than we currently are. If we leave, the Euro countries will set up their own operations and work hard to bring the EU financial businesses under internal control. That means we are better in than out. The flip side of the coin is that without control from Brussels we would be free to expand areas where the EU currently favours one country over another. It has long meddled in industrial policy, depriving potentially viable businesses of finance which it willingly pours into keeping people under or unemployed. If Brussels decrees there are too many hairdressers for example, then any financial aid is determined by a country's adherence to their dictats limiting the expansion of said profession or type of business. Their attempts to manipulate supplies has resulted in mountains of surpluses at various times, much of which is subsidised. There are too many vested interests to change that particular system. Basically, the whole thing is a mess. Initially well intentioned, but now a juggernaut out of control.

A statistically insignificant sample size of 3 gives 2 large and 1 small.

Spink says 225 UNC. Anyway, MS64 is something I would want to check very carefully for wear in the hand. There are too many EF or gEF MS64s about to take a punt.

I assume that the bidders took the starting price of £280 to be reasonable, so that £50 over is therefore not excessive. If it had started at £180 and gone up to £230 there would be nothing to explain as it would be close to Spink book.

Sears Roman Coins in the various parts covers these. You should be able to pick up the 4 volumes for not too much over £100 if you are patient, certainly less than £200.

There are many reasons why the incumbents in Brussels and Strasbourg will do nothing. The benefits accruing to individuals working for the EU are many times the level of benefits received from the national systems. Politicians will have no reason to cut themselves off the gravy train that is offered to those that are past their sell-by date on the domestic political scene. You only have to look at people like Neil Kinnock and his wife to see how well they have done out of it. Most appointments to Brussels are done with a nod and a wink. Every country might have an allotment of positions it is allowed to fill, but anyone liable to rock the boat would almost certainly be vetoed by other nations. i.e. there is simply no means of getting a contrarian into a position of power, nor indeed is there a position to fill for the man/woman who would question the workings of the EU. We aren't talking about the MEPs just voted in who may or may not discuss europolicy and vote on the bills they are presented with, but the Commission hierarchy who are accountable to no one. That's where the real power lies and is self-sustaining. Available only to those dedicated to make the EU work, it offers neither mouthpiece nor earhole for the disenfranchised citizens of the EU who oppose the staus quo. This leaves voting for a party such as UKIP or the continental outsiders as the only vehicle available to voters wanting to change the system. The problem could have been deflected much earlier simply by listening to the person in the street. Sure the public are as divided on the issue as the Liberals and UKIP, but with politicians repeatedly poo-pooing the calls of the voters for a referendum there can only be one outcome - a knee jerk reaction that will likely over-react in comparison to the result that could have been achieved had the public been kept within the circle. It is the alienation of voters that will bring down the politicians who treat the likes of joe average with so much distain. Put bluntly, if someone wants to debate a matter, I will engage, but if they tell me to f*** off, I punch them on the nose. Politicians have made their call, now it is up to the public to regain control of their employees by hiring and firing as required.