Rob

That's just business. If someone wants the security of a graded and genuine fantasy or reproduction, any or all of the TPGs will probably step up to the plate.

Is the 3 over a 2? The surface of the 3 and surrounding field make it worth checking.

Wow. So he has a collection of low grade higher value coins worth about £50K or so. A few thousand I can see being spent without a bit of research. A few hundred thousand???????? Caveat emptor. I too have picked up old collections where the realisation of what was purchased against market value was a bit of a shock, though not on that scale. Mine were typically a 4 figure sum for things worth a couple of hundred pounds tops.............. multiplied a few dozen times. Every example I noted had a lot of glossy sales blurb with an image of an example of the coin provided in high grade, but the contents of the box were typically fine. The only exception being proofs where the coin was virtually as struck, but the price paid many times that of market value. Yes to say this collector has been well and truly stitched up is an understatement!! Which makes me wonder how many others have fallen foul!! Quite a lot I suspect given the marketing blurb usually says restricted to 500 or 1000 pieces. They shift them as the number of boxes reappearing at auction bear out. Given most people hang on to 'investments', what we see is probably only the tip of the iceberg.

Wow. So he has a collection of low grade higher value coins worth about £50K or so. A few thousand I can see being spent without a bit of research. A few hundred thousand???????? Caveat emptor. I too have picked up old collections where the realisation of what was purchased against market value was a bit of a shock, though not on that scale. Mine were typically a 4 figure sum for things worth a couple of hundred pounds tops.............. multiplied a few dozen times. Every example I noted had a lot of glossy sales blurb with an image of an example of the coin provided in high grade, but the contents of the box were typically fine. The only exception being proofs where the coin was virtually as struck, but the price paid many times that of market value.

There was also a front page spread on a major collector of these artificially inflated price products.

Standing outside Corbitts sale last week we were handed a couple of cards from someone claiming to be a director of ISN which has prompted me to revisit this thread. It is probably worth considering the arguments put forward last year. Silver has not risen as claimed. 16 months ago it stood at $28/£17.83, today it is $22.30/£13.82. That's a superb return on your $96 investment for an ounce of silver - it could have underperformed big-time. I couldn't help thinking about a double page advert in the last edition of 'The Coin Probe' placed by a similar type of organisation and shown below.

I saw that.

I think anything becomes a major variety once the collector base is broad enough. This is the only way to explain the huge amounts paid for some of the trivial differences in the bronze penny series for example. Different busts or reverse designs are clearly major, in fact, anything that doesn't need a glass is significant enough to be considered major. Collectors tend to be all or nothing people. Either they collect the minutest variety as part of an in depth study, or else they collect according to the preset parameters laid down by a reference book. Once something is in print, someone will collect it. Then you have the type collector, to whom a missing dot is anathema. They just want a nice example that is obviously different from the previous and next types. Overmarks are likely to be considered significant to a series or denomination collector unless by prior restriction to the criteria. Personally I would collect overmarks, but I'm a nerd. My privy mark section in the list of things to get has 326 entries of which about half are overmarks - doubtless more will be added. As Richard said, too complicated and people switch off, but that therefore means that the collector who eats, sleeps and drinks a series will probably have the info in his head and so collect anything he can recognise. It also depends on the series being collected. Milled legend variations are major because they occur infrequently, but hammered ones are probably minor unless completely garbled because most series have a number of variations such as MAG BRI FRA or MA BR FR, or MAG BRI FR etc. As these were all valid options for the engraver, the various combinations occur with monotonous frequency, so only someone like Osborne or BCW for example will go to that depth.

For fffff...Bugger! Perhaps the 4 of us should email our top bids to a 3rd party, and the highest genuine bid goes forth, whilst the others bow gracefully out...no point in the winning bidder paying over the odds, eh? I'm interested in 2 of the lizzies - one to keep, one to sell! That, technically, is called a 'ring' and afaik it's illegal! The only difference being of course that the few people involved have no control over the other 6 or 7 billion people on the planet, whereas a single shill bidder sets an artificially higher level for the same 6 or 7 billion. It is only effective to the detriment of the seller if those few are the only people interested in bidding on the coin, which is an unlikely scenario. Equally, the pot of available funds is finite, so more money spent by someone on a coin means less is available on the next lot. Is one seller whose lot number allocated is higher than another being discriminated against?

Nonsense. I'm deficient in that department. My avatar speaks the truth.

I think he might know his stuff, he specialises in copper proof halfpennies, he's got others for sale! This seller really DOES need a flash! Convince me. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1757-George-II-Plain-Edge-Copper-Proof-Halfpenny-/181233298765?pt=UK_Coins_BritishMilled_RL&hash=item2a3258ad4d This is a non-existent date for a halfpenny, let alone a year where there are no proofs, only currency.

Varies from person to person. Mahogany cabinet and the bank for me. Others store them in Lindner or similar trays, 2x2 cardboard flips, 2x2 acid free envelopes............ It will depend on the value and grade of the coin. Keep copper and bronze away from plastic as a rule of thumb. A bucket is not recommended. Nor are things like Whitman folders where you have a cut-out for each date in a series. The cardboard is not acid-free and will corrode copper and bronze.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1739-George-II-Plain-Edge-Copper-Proof-Halfpenny-/181233288785?pt=UK_Coins_BritishMilled_RL&hash=item2a32588651 Yeh, right.

By that logic they would have to disregard the majority of overdates and legends repunched. Not if they find it and decide it's an unrecorded variety = more value

It was the inverted centre bit of the M in conjunction with the top right serifs that did it for me. I can't see how they came to any other conclusion.

Could be the same as me too :ph34r:

The description of 'when you are purchasing from me, you are buying a piece of history' is amusing. Yes, 21st century history.

That's because like any other business/organisation/individual they all know best to the exclusion of others. Religion, politics, TPGs, the Dundee fruitcake.... all are specialists in their own way and so everyone else is wrong. Progress will have been made when any of these organisations acknowledge that the competition has a good point or argument and that they are wrong - it ain't going to happen.

So all these internet programs are different then? But it must be something other than the above list because I am using Firefox.

Sure it isn't a weathered cast copy?

With a little bit of trickery it's easy to override any "Right Click Disabled" coding. Here's the images for you. Thanks. A clue how to overcome this problem would be useful as it would free me from relying on someone else.

This is the coin that disappeared. How do you copy or save the image on these listings? Right clicking doesn't give copy as an option and I need these images for my records. Thanks.

Oh the joys of those 'must have' faults.

I know we are looking at George II here, but think that the similar work done by Jackson-Kent during much of the 1950s and early 60s researching the coinage of William III could give reasonable parallels. One of the conclusions drawn was that you could infer nothing from the number of harp strings as you typically get a small distribution around the mean number found. They are unlikely to be chronological indicators because you don't get an even distribution amongst 12 varieties if monthly, though could conceivably be quarterly. The grounds for thinking they could be used for die identification is a bit suspect IMO, given their tendency to fill relatively easily on the die? e.g. my 1697B halfcrown has half a harp string, though clearly must have started with more than a partial string. In the hammered period there were situations which demanded die identification (or at least engraver id) because any control over them was remote because they may have been a one moneyer mint for example, or in the case of the Civil War, the engraver followed the troops around. These people also struck the coins. Here we are talking about a number of workers employed at the Tower to produce dies. They would have no control over the number of coins struck using those dies, so this begs the question as to why it would be necessary to identify the die and not the person making the coins. Obviously this isn't conclusive, but it dosn't quite add up to my mind.

No better than VF because you are starting to lose the eye definition