Rob

Steady on old chap, you might not like proofs or patterns but they are a world away from the overpriced packaged tat that you get from the last two names mentioned. They deal in things aimed at the public who don't know one coin from the next, so a medallion is just as good in their eyes. That isn't the same as a special striking of a genuine coin, after all, you can spend proofs if you so desire.

A decent range on offer there across the board for all periods, but I would question some of the grading though. Do they have a reputation for overgrading or not?

Convention has it that if you use a hyphen between stated grades, it applies to the overall coin, i.e. both sides are the same. Otherwise, as I'm sure I don't need to tell you!, it's a / with the obverse first and reverse second. True, I wasn't paying attention and replying on the fly between jobs. Ok, so it's a decent VF, but still not gVF and only a full grade or so over. Therefore, the only question is, what would the price of a Fine coin relative to a decent VF be? A gap of over £5K in this instance seems reasonable given the absolute rarity of the item irrespective of whether you would personally want to pay £3-4K for a farthing in fine. £2K seems too cheap though. If a coin is that rare would the price differential between grades be that great, and would it be more a case of do you want one or don't you. That's the point, though if its authenticity was questionable, then you would have been better off steering clear altogether as that allegation would continue to hang over it into the future.

Coins maybe. Land certainly. They aren't making it any more and if the right quality allows you to grow your own fruit and veg. The amount of money that is being printed has to result in inflation for the future. That's going to affect your food prices dramatically and food is something you can't do without. If you double the money in circulation, then prices must necessarily follow when there is no increase in physical assets held.

Convention has it that if you use a hyphen between stated grades, it applies to the overall coin, i.e. both sides are the same. Otherwise, as I'm sure I don't need to tell you!, it's a / with the obverse first and reverse second. True, I wasn't paying attention and replying on the fly between jobs. Ok, so it's a decent VF, but still not gVF and only a full grade or so over. Therefore, the only question is, what would the price of a Fine coin relative to a decent VF be? A gap of over £5K in this instance seems reasonable given the absolute rarity of the item irrespective of whether you would personally want to pay £3-4K for a farthing in fine. £2K seems too cheap though.

In the case of the 1693 you already had a guide for VF-gVF, so the only questions that needed answering were 'how many are available and what grades are they?' If all are similar in grade then a reasonable assumption would be the date of the last sale, the price achieved and a multiplier to account for across the board price changes since that date together with a mark down for the lower grade of this piece. If something is sought after (and it's probably fair to say a 1693 is sought after), then maybe half the VF price would be a reasonable target. There are more than a handful of serious farthing collectors out there, plus the esoteric always appeals to someone who wants a quality collection in numismatic terms. Not everything has to be in high grade to appeal if rare enough, though it does help if it looks ok. I would have thought £3-4K incl. premium would not be excessive. At £2K I would have been over the moon if bidding and won it. I know where you are coming from on the question of certain key dates, but the problem with these is that the price is likely to be determined by the number of serious collectors present on the day and hence volatile. On the plus side, if Spink quote say £300 for a coin in their annual tome and you know full well that they always exceed that at auction, then it's clearly time to monitor their website and the Circular closely as you may well pick up one cheaply. They may list higher prices on their site than those quoted in the book, but are unlikely to exceed them by a vast amount. Do the spadework and it will pay off. I would have a problem paying 4k for a coin in F when a GVF would cost 9k. 4k for a farthing and it would have to be unique (and have eye appeal) The grade was VF-gVF. I don't know which side was VF and which gVF, but I use the assumption you use the lower graded side as the base rather than the higher and with only a handful known, I think £3K plus premium would not be so far short of the mark if genuinely rare, after all it is only a grade up. It would need eye appeal though if low grade and certainly not have any faults. Personally I think 9K for a VF-gVF farthing is a lot of money anyway, but if that is where the market is then so be it.

In the case of the 1693 you already had a guide for VF-gVF, so the only questions that needed answering were 'how many are available and what grades are they?' If all are similar in grade then a reasonable assumption would be the date of the last sale, the price achieved and a multiplier to account for across the board price changes since that date together with a mark down for the lower grade of this piece. If something is sought after (and it's probably fair to say a 1693 is sought after), then maybe half the VF price would be a reasonable target. There are more than a handful of serious farthing collectors out there, plus the esoteric always appeals to someone who wants a quality collection in numismatic terms. Not everything has to be in high grade to appeal if rare enough, though it does help if it looks ok. I would have thought £3-4K incl. premium would not be excessive. At £2K I would have been over the moon if bidding and won it. I know where you are coming from on the question of certain key dates, but the problem with these is that the price is likely to be determined by the number of serious collectors present on the day and hence volatile. On the plus side, if Spink quote say £300 for a coin in their annual tome and you know full well that they always exceed that at auction, then it's clearly time to monitor their website and the Circular closely as you may well pick up one cheaply. They may list higher prices on their site than those quoted in the book, but are unlikely to exceed them by a vast amount. Do the spadework and it will pay off.

I'm not sure why you are grumbling. The mere fact that you are aware of a price differential between quoted and reality means there is always a bit of scope for arbitrage. If the quoted price is too low, then just accept that you will have to pay more. After all, if you have paid a couple thousand for a 1934 crown or the 1989 proof set, then a sum less than this shouldn't be too much of a problem. The fact that you recognise the price in the books is way too low will give you an advantage over those who don't want to pay more than the reassuring figure quoted in whatever reference. People put off by quoted figures are competition eliminated - that's a reduction in the size of the problem because when you see a coin that's hard to find the chances are that others are looking for the same thing. Many collectors use price guides as a sort of comfort blanket when in reality it should never be more than a rule of thumb reference for the most commonly seen items. If CCGB quotes a price that is lower than Spink, many will not pay Spink prices because the other book says you can get it cheaper. The reality is though that both could be wrong as neither (can) take into account eye appeal, nor hope to comprehensively cover the market. Prices can be and frequently are out by a factor of two in either direction.

This happens frequently and the rarer the coin, the less often they come up and the more infrequent the realistic price revisions. The coin I bought in Spink yesterday appears to be the only example available, yet has been priced at VF in Spink about £150 over the quite frequently encountered Rawlins signed 1646/5 for quite a long time. Given the last time this particular coin was at Spink was in 1995, I guess they didn't have a lot to go on. Another thing is that there is a relentless flight to quality and so any coins above the run of the mill grades for that type will not obey any pricing rules - if there are any! Prices are only a guide, so every sale has its buyers who may be more or less determined to buy. Anyone who does a bit of basic research will know what prices are regularly achieved for those coins relevant to their collecting criteria and by extension will recognise an above average example which will inevitably influence the price they are willing to pay. Average coins which are not difficult to obtain will always have downwards pressure as people wait for the next example to come along. Above average is inherently more desirable to more people.

Predominantly yes I would say. CNG and other US buyers have been very strong bidders for at least 3 years now. The thing is, British coins are underpriced when viewed from an American perspective. There the top pieces routinely sell for tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. That is why you get someone paying what to us seems like silly money. For example the $60K spent on the proof Victoria £2 (or £5?) just because it was slabbed as a 67 which in an American context isn't a huge price to pay considering the mintage. Or the 1901 1d that made $600 a year ago on the basis of the grade number. A lot of the nice pieces have made their way west for a while now, and once slabbed it is an uphill task to repatriate them because the number dictates the price people are willing to pay. You can add in the desire to reduce bank balances by anyone flush with money due to economic uncertainties and the herd mentality ensures that demand far outstrips supply with prices responding in the time honoured fashion.

1728 R&P - A tad optimistic on grade here. 1728 R&P 1728 R&P 1686 halfpenny (item 028) 1686 halfpenny

I'm more than happy that so many people like milled coinage. I shall deny myself the pleasures of owning delights such as this from the most inappropriately named seller ever, and console myself with the hardship of owning crap like this Aethelred II late transitional CRVX penny from Oxford. Further evidence should it be required with regard to the original question - yes, hammered can be better than VF.

£1882 (inc buyer's premium) nearly six years ago. And in case anyone thinks I'm in Rob's league, the next highest I've paid is less than a third of that. Which is probably the AVSSPCE shilling you beat me to. I haven't forgotten.

I'm not sure it would. Most people I know have their collecting limited due to the funds available unless they have made a conscious decision to only collect a restricted range in a certain grade. A few people like top quality coins, but can't afford huge numbers of them, so overcome this hurdle by collecting say all the mint state Ed.VII florins, then sell them and move on to another restricted collection of say Victorian halfcrowns. In this way they manage to acquire and appreciate the top quality in any series collected, but by continually changing direction provide themselves with an ongoing target. It's not a bad idea if you image each collection when formed and means that over time you can have a very large but virtual collection. If you have the means to collect extensively and expensively, then using others to hunt down the coins you can't find is a reasonable way forward. One feature of the high end coins is that they are rarely abundant. You need to put out a wants list, just like anyone else would, if there is to be any chance of acquiring certain pieces. If you are desperate for a Cromwell halfcrown in gold to complete the reign for example, it would help if you advertise the fact as it will then find its way to you. If you wait for one to appear on ebay, you might not be so lucky.

erm...£68...for a 1903 halfcrown. I suppose that makes me an average pleb on eBay No it doesn't Declan and well you know it. It isn't the cost of Ebay purchases, rather the finer points of numismatics that are missing from many listings such as identifying the monarch on a coin, or the denomination, or even the country sometimes. Tickets don't come into it for most when the basics are missing for starters.

We are all ordinary collectors on here, just that some things cost more than others and it's a case of each to their own. Thanks to the diarrhoeic output of the Royal Mint coupled to my insistence of obtaining an example of each attributed designer's handiwork, fully one in five or more of all purchases are under a tenner and do nothing for the quality of the collection. Some things cost a few pounds, some a few hunderds or a few thousands, but when the time comes to sell they will in all probability still be worth what you paid for them. Don't get me wrong, if I could buy £10 notes for a fiver, I'd do it all day long.

The thing about a provenance is that unless you paid silly money in the first place, a bit of time spent establishing the provenance is a one way ticket. At worst you have a coin worth the same as it was before, but with the right names attached it will only add value. No provenance has ever detracted from a coin's value.

I'll keep my eyes open, but think you might be struggling. Scarce, yes, but not really rare and premium quality no, so less chance of an image.

I do.

Comfortable I would assume. The big money paid for the large hammered gold recently has been between a couple who sold their business for a rumoured £300m and A.N.Other. Chances are they were involved this time unless they bought one of the DNW pieces. The odd £100K here and there is fairly inconsequential.

I know you're right. But I think it's important to distinguish between prestige and provenance. A coin from a prestigious sale such as Norweb or Bamford will carry a premium just for that alone, and the better the coin is, and the longer it can be linked to those sales, the better for its future. But, such sales also carry a proportion of relatively mediocre coins - break the link and suddenly those are cast adrift. However provenance is generally irrelevant to mediocre stuff, Oh, in price terms, that's quite likely the case. However I have coins owned by Shuttlewood, Osborne and more recently, Morris. None of these coins are spectacular (OK, one is interesting) but I would still be very interested to know where they bought them and who owned them before. These aren't Brookers or Locketts but they are still serious collectors of Charles I coins. For all I know one of my coins could have been a minor item that passed through the hands of a well known collector, but without very serious research I have no way of knowing. But I'd rather like to! Shuttlewood threw his tickets away, which was unhelpful. Not sure about Osborne, but Morris's were acknowledged on Lloyd's tickets as well as including his own with the coin. Which coins are we talking about? Might be able to help.

I know you're right. But I think it's important to distinguish between prestige and provenance. A coin from a prestigious sale such as Norweb or Bamford will carry a premium just for that alone, and the better the coin is, and the longer it can be linked to those sales, the better for its future. But, such sales also carry a proportion of relatively mediocre coins - break the link and suddenly those are cast adrift. However provenance is generally irrelevant to mediocre stuff, and I believe that Rob is interested in tracing back the history of important pieces? For example, how much do we know about the previous life of coins in Norweb and Bamford etc? This is an area I know nothing about, so maybe Rob could enlighten us - is there already provenance for the best coins in important sales, or not, or only some? Does the existence of provenance even for those sales add much to the value-added premium? I'd love to know. Norweb is one of the better catalogued sales and she obtained many of her coins from Brand who bought heavily through Spink from ca.1912 until his demise in 1926. She also bought her British coins mostly via Spink and Baldwin which means there may not be any provenance from these sources if the coins were obtained from individuals as opposed to sales. Bamford is also traceable to some extent because he bought in person at some sales and so if you have an annotated catalogue with buyers named at the sale, he will feature. The problem coins are those which were bought 50 years ago or more because so many sales weren't illustrated and at this point it relies on tickets or the rare catalogue image. Provenance unquestionably does add some value, though it tends to be variable. I listed half a dozen prices for similar items after June's Spink sale and it appeared that the Lockett provenance was adding about £200 to the price of a £300-400 coin. Slightly lesser ones in both grade and quality weren't selling if they had faults. The best coins invariably have some sort of provenance, but this can be lost if not noted at the last sale as happened recently when a fine sovereign went from no provenance back to having a lengthy one starting in the 1800s. It had previously been recorded, but was dropped in a recent sale and so potentially lost. I know this is covering old ground, but my 1601 portcullis halfpenny had a provenance of Foster and Nicholson when I bought it last year for just over £3100. As some may remember, that list has now been extended to 18 sales. The sister piece which is the pledge halfpenny that was in Spink's June sale had a comparable estimate to my coin a year before. The number available of both types appears to be 4 and so the price should be similar. The provenance of Parsons on its own for the latter piece is good but not special in isolation, but as part of the 10 sale provenance that I established prior to the sale, it went from a coin that we knew where it was prior to 1954, to a coin that we knew where it had been since at least the early 1700s including many big collections over the years such as Montagu and Murdoch etc. This made it a £4000-4500 coin and I increased my bid accordingly, though a man with deeper pockets was always going to get it. I think a reasonable estimate is an uplift of 30% with a decent provenance. For those that are unaware, Montagu was the first sale where there was extensive illustration of various lots. That in itself was significant. Montagu set out to acquire a comprehensive collection in top grade. To this end he made his fortune as a lawyer and then went about buying in complete collections as they became available alongside routine auction purchases. He died aged 51 by which time he had accomplished more than most could ever hope to achieve. The star lot in his sale was the Juxon Medal given by Charles I to Abp. Juxon when he was on the scaffold prior to his execution. At the sale in 1896, this medal realised £770 - a huge sum and was bought by the British Museum. It was Montagu's ability to acquire the choicest, rarest pieces that made his collection special. I know that the few illustrated pieces I have that were formerly in the Montagu cabinet are ones that I would have immense difficulty bringing myself to sell simply on quality grounds. If I don't want these pieces, I might as well stop collecting. Murdoch aspired to a Montagu-like collection, but was always playing catch up. He bought extensively at the Montagu sales, but as individual lots fighting all-comers it would always be an uphill struggle. He died a few years later and the collection was sold in 1903-4. Again, the quality of the lots was apparent from the catalogues. Although the superb items seen in the early catalogues were available then, many no longer are, having been acquired by museums and effectively protected from public viewing. It therefore falls to the slightly lesser items that remain available to act as the desirable objects of today in many instances. This is where tickets are invaluable because a handwritten note is much more helpful than a note that X bought this coin but it isn't illustrated. That is why I bought a lot on ebay last year - a Henry VI half groat, but the ticket was obviously that of Webb (Soth. 1894). £65 for a halfgroat in any condition with a ticket that could be ascribed to Webb was a no brainer and I hit the BIN button with only a cursory glance at the coin i.e. the ticket was worth the £65 and the coin (which was about VF) a bonus. A couple of halfpennies bought out the circular about 6 years ago were given as ex Clonterbrook Trust. Fine, but by extension it means they were ex Lockett (Clonterbrook was the family trust), and the Lockett catalogue which gave the source as Longbottom also conveniently left out the presence of the Webb ticket which meant that it went from a 1974 sale to an 1894, 1934 and 1958 sale in addition. Happy days. I guess it is horses for courses. Your average pleb on ebay wouldn't know what a ticket meant, but in a proper auction it adds corroborative evidence to the provenance if given, and if not given at all provides the buyer with a bonus.

It's not that people collect coins of a certain value only, but that every series has its key date(s) where demand always outstrips supply. Every denomination, every reign, hammered, milled, they all have their very expensive items that only a few people can ever own, irrespective of whether they can afford them. If a date run costs a few hundred pounds each, but one date has a 1 in front of the usual price, then that is what you will pay. It is quite noticeable that there has always been a certain cut off price which seems to limit the hammer price for casual purchases. 2 or 3 years ago it was about £3000-3500, but a year ago ran up to £4000-4500. Below this there is a lot of competition as if it was coming out of general expenses, but above this things are a bit more exclusive.

For what it's worth, the first 100 lots at Tuesday's St. James's were a reasonable selection of coins. They were bought by a total of 45 individuals with 12 lots passed. 15 buyers didn't reach the £1000 incl. premium, though cumulatively the other 30 did. The highest hammer price for any lot was £150K (+24% prem.) and the most lots won by a single bidder was 6, with three buyers represented. So there was a fairly broad selection of bidders as the results show. If they were all collectors that bought then the number can be said to be small, but if they were dealers buying on commission, or for stock, then the collector base would be several multiples of the number of lots won. It's quite a healthy market out there at the moment for quality, but the sting in the tail is the number of passes for the indifferent or problem coins. 12% is quite a high pass rate.

As Colin Cooke once said to me when I was bemoaning my coming second yet again on a choice piece - 'You aren't doing anything wrong chasing ex Carter pieces (Dr. E C Carter colln bt Baldwin 1950) because he only ever collected quality, the problem is just that your pockets aren't deep enough!' Any piece that has historically been known as the finest, or one of the finest, will not lose that label easily. Its history will help it, both value wise and its desirability when the time comes to sell. As for the TPGs - not enough space on the label. They don't always get the attribution right and slabs are a pain full stop because there isn't anywhere to keep the old tickets. Once a coin gets slabbed, the chances of any tickets following the coin are greatly reduced and so the provenance then depends on the TPG determined one, which if historical may or may not be correct. Slabs are aimed at a market where the number is more important than the provenance. If Montagu or Murdoch are irrelevant and not worth mentioning, then lesser provenances such as Ryan or Morrieson stand no chance of being included. The only old ones they are consistent in adding are Norweb, Boulton and occasionally Lockett and Lingford. Apart from that it is a question of pandering to modern collectors and putting their names on the slab. I saw a coin the other day that I knew was ex Brand and Norweb, but which is now anonymously slabbed as a nice coin. Norweb's coins came in the 2x2 envelopes with the distinctive spider design that she used to keep them in. Useful info like the weight was also included. That will now be lost.