Rob

As was said at the time of the farthing mule debate. It was a mule in PCGS' considered opinion..................................................precisely. Something other individuals and TPGs are incapable of making, apparently. A guarantee is a safeguard against their making a balls-up. They and other TPGs, of course, do not make them.

Great. 2013 1p. Brilliant, as struck. Uncirculated. est. £0.01-0.02 Provenance Tesco, Bognor Regis. Till 5. 3:45pm 23/12/2013

I'm not sure why anybody gets particularly exercised with any price guide given we all accept that they aren't perfect and that the numbers are a vague fictional approximation. It's a case of doing your homework.

They are in a business where the entry costs are not very high, nor are they operating in a highly skilled professional business. In short, anybody could set up a similar business and copy their proven model. Their continuing success relies entirely on the perception of the coin collecting fraternity when comparing PCGS with its peers. Stock prices will increase in anticipation of business growth. Maybe the market is looking at the past decade or more and saying it is time for prices to take a breather. A correction would be healthy as it would enable a few people with broken stop buttons to realise that losses can also happen, either paper or real if financially constrained. Whilst this would not directly affect the prices charged by the TPGs, it would possibly result in fewer submissions as a result of lower sales. A market correction would also have to be reflected in the 'official prices' of slab grades due to a reduced demand. A valid question is whether the TPGs have ever been affected by a genuine downturn. As the last major reduction in prices was the 30-40% fall at the beginning of the 1980s, the TPG model is in danger of entering unfamiliar territory, because to date the market has either been nominally flat or increasing.

The second one.

Bargain! If that is MS65, someone should have an example that was too good to fit on the Sheldon scale - so they refused to slab it. Obviously wear to the hair, bun and wreath means nothing.

This sort of ties in with a previous topic I brought up where I asked if the H or KN dies were reused at the mint after I thought there was a shadow of a letter present, but nothing clear. Can't remember the thread name though.

I think you would need to be on the same 'medication' as Peter to make that a 3 over 1.

It's all going to depend on how much money you are prepared to throw at the hobby. If the amount is seriously limited, then modern things would be better as you get more for your money, but you should always get them in top grade if you take this route. If you want to get mostly G3, increased costs come into play. At that point you need to sit down and do some costings to ascertain whether you have, or are prepared, to make sufficient funds available for the target you set yourself. 'Re-stamping of foreign coins' implies you are interested in the countermarked 4R & 8R and/or restruck Spanish 8 reales pieces by the Soho mint. These are not particularly popular as a collecting area, but many collectors want an example of the type(s). As a consequence they are quite cheap in comparison to crowns or halfcrowns. The market is quite thin, but there are many rarities within the series as you have to consider the host coin. There are a few forgeries knocking about in the form of false countermarks or silver dipped copper casts.The latter are quite obvious, the former less so as you need to familiarise yourself with the punches used for the genuine article. Even within this small series, there are some rare pattern and proof pieces which go for eye-watering sums. I personally think they are a good series due to their relative unpopularity.................... but I am a natural contrarian.

Thanks Richard

I'm not getting what I used to before we had a speed upgrade done today by BT. eg. I have Lots of British, Enquiries about British, Members only and Rotographic research only. Coin software and oo er mm have gone. Ideas anyone? The bottom half is not quite a full forum either.

An approximate multiplier is about x1000. Something that cost a quid then is a grand now. So a couple billion is probably in the right ballpark.

The images are useless.

Has anyone got a link?

Fascinating stuff, I wonder how deep your pockets would have to be today to gather such a collection I don't know, but I was discussing with my son yesterday how much it would cost to tick all the boxes in my list of desired coins following his recent interest in said collection. Given I aim to maximise diversity and with the caveat that I only collect British coins, this is the same as Brand except that he tried to add anything he didn't possess - worldwide. The 1200 criteria in my case came to an estimated £5m mainly due to the need for a few 'Hobson's Choice pieces such as an Edward III double florin (6/-), Cromwell 50/-, Henry VII sovereign (dragon mark), Edward VI 3rd coinage gold (Ostrich Head mark), Triple Unite (£3), Hywel Dda 1d (unique at present in BM) plus numerous Tudor and Stuart gold pieces etc. Clearly many of these are likely to be 'pie in the sky' pieces unless Mr Lottery pays me a visit. Multiply that 10 or 20 times for the British because he would have multiple dates of the same design, then another 10, 20 or more times for different countries and the number is mind-boggling. A billion? Five billion? Even more amazing is the fact he was adding to the collection in 5 figure quantities every year! How did he have enough hours in the day?

I will third the previous 2 posts. It has to be a misprunt.

Thanks Richard

You've got a long way to go. Fortunately I have only listed the metals used in British examples which now comes to a total of 50 if you include the various finenesses stipulated in the indentures. Luckily it has been possible to remove one metal from the list (antimony) as those listed in Peck as such have been shown to be a 2:1 tin/lead alloy. I'm 2/3 of the way there with nearly all the gaps being H8, Ed.VI and Elizabethan gold and silver types. This period is a minefield. If foreign coins were included, the list would be even longer.

Thanks David. Similar but not the same. Different writing on the reverse and the portrait is quite different even though similar in style. We're in the right ballpark.

Thanks. Didn't know that. It might make searching more productive as I usually give up after the first few pages of results.

To get back to the original post, I see that Richard posted it on CCF in the unknown section - having returned for an update it is no longer there. Why remove a valid question, or is the obverse considered overly pornographic? Do they have an aversion to awkward questions such as 'what is it?'

What are we talking - "average from circulation, i.e. Fair/Fine"? Yep. One single lot of one ok coin, plus 4010 in 10 lots of pure sh**e.

People who phone you up to confirm an appointment, but won't divulge any details of said appointment before they have your inside leg measurement, bank details & what you ate for tea last night. Three of these today and I'm rapidly getting p'd off. Like the bank person who had previously sent me correspondence, made a phone call out of the blue just before the New Year, but wouldn't discuss what she phoned about because I refused to give security info. I said that she could send it by post if important - nothing has appeared 5 weeks on. What a surprise. And this forum's search facility. I typed in Room 101 knowing that was the thread title and yet it gave me three pages of answers before appearing as the last item on the list. You would have thought that a specific title would show up first - or is that too obvious. It's been a bad day, and it isn't getting any better. Humph.

Thanks Richard

Looking at CCF, I doubt whether it would get past the site censors considering it would be a new member posting an image of something that looks like a knobhead. What a crazy list of things you can't do. Can't contact people, can't post images as a new member, can't link to sites (which b****rs up any link to photobucket), can't advertise things for sale. The coin looks above average for what is normally posted, so presumably you would get busted for that too. What constitutes a 'quality post'? What a waste of space. It just reinforces the opinions of people on here that this is one of the better forums on the web - now, if someone would answer the original question............ Oh, and Peter. The comment you made about the 1925 halfcrowns. It wasn't a few hundred, but 4011 of them in 11 lots in the Noble sale. Rare not, not even scarce in that grade.