Rob

I'm not sure it is a thumbprint on the 1/2d because I can't see any fingerprint detail and the mark covers the lower points whilst missing the high relief ones. It looks more like attack by a corrosive liquid to me if the consistent colour is reliable.

Ironically, the rare or high end of the market is probably where the greatest security lies. As the really top pieces have in the main been illustrated somewhere over the past 100 years, a clear picture has been built up of where the choice and thus desirable rarities have been and currently are. Their recurring appearance is frequently illustrated time and time again for posterity. e.g. I have Brooker 1153 - a Worcester 2/6d. It isn't a particularly attractive coin and has quite a flat obverse, but is a unique example of a 2/6d known from the reverse die (although a single 1/- struck from the same reverse die is also known, Brooker 1170). As a result it was illustrated in the catalogues of Hamilton-Smith (1913), Vaughan Morgan (1935), Ryan (1952) and Vincent's article (1956) plus of course Brooker. If it wasn't rare it wouldn't have been illustrated. This gives a degree of comfort when trying to establish whether a coin is genuine or not. Hammered coins are as easy as anything else to make copies of, but very difficult to replicate as a coin with a specific provenance due to the many imperfections in shape and strike unless you have it in the hand and make a direct copy.

I couldn’t resist having a dabble back into this during my work lunch break! In trading standards a phrase like "A person who needs to be saved from their own stupidity will only learn the hard way" theoretically has no place in regulatory services, all the stupid people that we could place in that boat would be considered as vulnerable consumers, and no matter how stupid they are regardless of fault or circumstances, they are still just vulnerable consumers and its trading standards job to protect them because the trader must always exercise all due diligence to ensure what they are selling is legitimate and must not mislead the consumer in any way. As you said before its a specialist field and we cannot look at all aspects of coins in the same way we can at Levi Jeans or a Gucci Handbag, but the same trading laws should be applied to the transactions just as any other item in terms of buying, selling, descriptions etc unless there is explicit implied terms otherwise. In regards to "As a member of the BNTA, W&W would be obliged to adhere to their rules as a condition of membership." That’s very good, I admit I have not actually looked anything the BNTA do and requirements of their membership, that specific requirement is a good form of regulation in its self, I am guessing most of the auction houses or larger traders are all members of the BNTA, if not maybe it there should be some sort of rule that if a coin traders turnover exceeds a certain threshold maybe it should be compulsory for them to subscribe to the BNTA. or somthing along those lines. The gilt coins from w&w, I think I saw them at the auction after the one you saw them at, they sold at the auction I attended for I think £80 and £120 to a phone bidder, that’s the last I think any of us saw of them, it looked like car touch up paint to me! In regards to regulating the trading of coins on ebay, that’s just a colossal task and x amount of additional laws come into play including several EC directives that would take us forever to get through, although as a platform for selling, theoretically ebay should regulate it. In the Tiffany’s v Ebay US case, Tiffany’s had to employ two full time members of staff to just monitor ebay transactions to ensure all the items that were being sold were genuine. Ebay argued that its just a platform for people to sell and have no responsibility in the content listed as per their terms and conditions. The judge ruled that those terms and conditions are unenforceable and ebay have full responsibility in ensuring that the selling platform they provide protects buyers and trademarks and regulates seller listings accordingly, and were ordered to pay for the costs of employing the extra staff, and an amount of compensation reflective of the damage caused to Tiffany’s brand by allowing 1 in 7 (or some figure like that) Tiffany items to be sold that are fake. The figure came to millions! Ebay’s Vero protection program should maybe extend to coins. The rejection of the stupid person tag by the system is a fundamental reason why faith in government policies and institutions is sorely tested. Most thinking people take the view that few "vulnerable" people are unable to see that their actions may have consequences and feel that most know full well what they are doing and what they are trying to achieve. The vast swathes of people in this country who are unable to work through low educational standards, yet have knowledge befitting a doctorate in the operation of the benefits system and how to make the most of it leads to much well founded cynicism. Apologies for the digression, but I think we are talking about a parallel sample group to the uneducated buyer here. You can't subscribe to the BNTA, you are invited to join. There is a minimum period (3 years) required for you to trade before you become eligible, but you still have to be invited. Chris who owns this forum is a member. There is no obligation on dealers outside the BNTA to follow any code other than to work within the law, but there is nothing to stop one following their code of conduct even if not a member and many choose to do so. I don't know what eBay's Vero protection program is exactly, so can't comment. From a quick glance it appears to protect intellectual property, which would not apply to coins. I can say however, that when I contacted them regarding fraud on the site, I was informed that they don't deal with members of the public, I had to discuss it with the police who invariably are too busy and so nothing gets done. Since eBay have made accepting Paypal compulsory and therefore a virtual monopoly for payments I have mostly avoided eBay. I certainly haven't sold, as the automatic resolution in favour of the buyer with a full refund is a scammers paradise. They are making too much money to willingly crack down on any underhand behaviour.

A couple of misplaced attempted E's looks a likely candidate. Looking above the obvious E and to the left near the linear circle is what could be the top of another E. On the bottom bar of the obvious E is a vertical line to the left of the existing serifs which is in the correct position relative to the central bar spike to be an E as well. The central one looks quite flaw-like, but the spacing is about right.

I think you will find that any responsible auctioneer will take back an item that has been wrongly described. As you say, in this instance the distance selling regulations already allow for cases such as this, so why introduce yet another (publicly funded) body to do the same job. In the last few years I have returned at least half a dozen items that were not as described to auctioneers as far away as the US and Australia. They have always refunded me despite the obvious difficulties I would have bringing a case for restitution in their local court should they decline to settle. Most businesses on this planet are legitimate and treat their customers fairly because they wish to have ongoing trade. Any business that tried to defraud someone of a large sum of money would soon have no customers because word of mouth is a very effective conveyor of good or bad news rather than a regulator which is frequently dealing with failures of procedure rather than substance. Large sums of money lost would rarely go unchallenged in the courts. As regards the two 'gilt' pieces at W&W, one was a penny and the other a 1/2d as I remember. Nobody would have bid having viewed the lots, and if they were purchased blind by a bidder that person must have returned them because they appeared in the following sale as I recall and so the system would appear to be working. As a member of the BNTA, W&W would be obliged to adhere to their rules as a condition of membership. They are unlikely to relinquish their membership on the basis of an unwillingness to forego £100 or so in premiums. If an item is listed sold as seen, I think this should be a binding statement. The seller has laid his cards on the table and the auctioneer has conveyed the message. If you haven't seen, then don't bid. The same could and should apply to ebay items. Caveat emptor. A person who needs to be saved from their own stupidity will only learn the hard way - if at all.

Very good. What was the offending coin? NB. If you want to get into proofs and patterns I could help you become four figures for a penny instead.

The sheer volume of sales at diverse locations will ensure that there is no organised cartel operation within the coin auction business to ensure price fixing or whatever. The different buyers and sellers premiums charged is evidence that healthy competition is present across the market. If one house has a 5% charge and the next one 10%, it would be difficult to accuse anyone of fixing the hammer price as it would require the lower commission house to regularly record prices double that found at the 10% house. It simply isn't going to happen. There is also a voracious worldwide appetite for non- financial assets, other than the assets held in and by banks or other financial institutions where regulation applies and has demonstrably failed. If you believe that Spink could rewrite the prices in their annual tome to their advantage, you must also believe that no parallel change in prices in the other main guides must be indicative of no collusion. I see collectors at fairs which fall into several categories. Assuming a guide is carried at all, the poorest and presumably least well educated collector in numismatic terms will carry around one of the two main alternative guides, whilst the most affluent will carry a copy of Spink by choice. Most of the purchases by the former are at the melt value end of the market, most of the latter are primarily concerned with quality. A mental note will be made of the Spink or CCGB etc price, but the overriding influence on whether to purchase will depend on the required boxes being ticked. Although never completely ignored, the price quoted will take second place to the scarcity or desirability of the piece in question. This alone will determine the price paid. If a coin is the best known for its type, the price is somewhat superfluous. If the only one available, the price will depend on demand (likely to be low in most instances). If the coin is common there will be sufficient data from past sales to know what the going rate is. The main thrust of your argument appears to be what if something were to happen. In the absence of any evidence that it has happened or is happening, the logical thing is to do nothing. What would your opinion be if Spink adjusted their Fine prices in line with those achieved on ebay? You could end up with distorted guide prices where a lower grade coin was worth more than the mint state example in many cases, particularly for the modern stuff where ludicrous prices are achieved for material that should end up in the pot. As quality is relatively rare on ebay, this would distort prices at the top end because you would have to rely on conventional sales. As £400 for a penny noted, regulators are also self serving. Being a slave to a wage packet that comes from a body whose whole reason for existence is interference in the market place means you are hardly a disinterested party. In the absence of a concrete reason to interfere, leave well alone and let the individual make up his or her own mind.

I'm not convinced that Spink is the leading auctioneer of British Coins in this country. In 2009 they had 4 coin sales with about 1600 lots of British. In addition they had their first online sale incl. a couple hundred British coins. Other salerooms include: Baldwins with 5 sales including 850 lots of British. Plus a couple of lists with coins priced way in excess of Spink prices, yet these coins were selling well as I understand. I know I personally bought off the list. DNW 4 sales with over 2200 lots of British plus their first two online sales again with a few hundred lots. Much smaller offerings compared to the previous 2 years where they were much bigger than Spink. Morton & Eden 2 sales with 346 British lots. St. James's with 2 sales and about 1400 British lots. These are the main London sales which carry the bulk of the quality material, but if you also bear in mind sales at Lockdales (6), London Coins (4), Warwick & Warwick (6), Brock (4), Corbitts, Croydon, Bonhams, Wallis & Wallis plus a good sprinkling of other provincial locations I think you would be hard pressed to say that Spink rule the market. This year the Circular was reduced from 6 issues to 5, almost certainly because they can't obtain enough material to sell in it. It is much thinner than in previous years. Ebay is unquestionably the biggest market place on the planet, but prices there are a law unto themselves in either direction. Nowhere else do you see things such as Gary's 1935 proof crown selling for £15 or a scrap value cartwheel penny selling for hundreds. In recent years DNW has been more important than Spink in terms of volume of comparable quality and St. James's has been more important in terms of outright quality. Nobody has a monopoly on anything. Spink's buyers premium at 20% on the first £2K plus 15% on any excess (both + VAT) is greater than anyone elses which discourages high bidding, but people still pay well over book on some lots and below on others. The whole market is driven by supply and demand. Based on the above sales, Spink accounts for no more than 10% of British lots excluding eBay and probably less. This is neither a monopoly nor a defining share and if you suggest they are defining the market, I must say they aren't doing a very good job.

In that case it would be easier to ban collecting coins in the same way that this interfering government has banned the personal holding of legal handguns, stopped smoking in pubs, won't allow me to buy more than 2 packets of paracetamol in case I top myself (whilst ignoring the fact that I can always go around the shop a second time) and treats me as a paedophile unless proven otherwise etc. etc. All because we are deemed to be incapable of leading our lives in a government approved manner. Every time I buy a coin for selling on it is with the intention of making a profit. If I told someone it was worth selling at £10, there is no reason whatsoever why they would sell it to me at £5. i.e. to trade in any shape or form requires you to advise the seller that his coin is worth less than you can sell it for. If you buy a coin from another person, the price you pay is going to be a combination of how much you think you can sell it for, how long it will take you to sell it (i.e. the demand) and how much profit you require. If someone wants to buy a very common coin from me - say a 1967 1d, I would charge a minimum amount to cover the fact that I have taken the risk of never selling it despite having listed it and displayed it, carried it around to fairs etc. Say I charge that person £1. I wouldn't even consider buying back that same coin unless as a goodwill gesture and as part of another transaction because I would never expect to sell it again and can guarantee I can pick one up as part of a job lot elsewhere. So I have sold something that is worthless, but that was what my customer wanted and was happy to pay the price. So - the discount to the resale price could be anywhere from say 5% to outright rejection (100%) depending on desirability of the coin. If that makes me a criminal - mea culpa, but I can safely say that I would have no intention of mopping up the world's supply of 1967 pennies just to satisfy trading standards. At this point I would leave the country and switch the lights off. The world is full of examples where a coin is bought for a certain amount, yet fails to reach that when subsequently sold at auction. I have personally both gained and lost in this respect, but don't expect praise or sympathy. Ultimately, very few people will buy a coin with the guarantee they were going to lose 50% or more on resale, but equally, nobody expects to be receive the same amount as it would cost them to buy. Hindsight is a wonderful thing as it overwrites your memories concerning your previous enthusiasm when things go wrong. As said before, caveat emptor. In the case of the surveyor, if you actually want a written valuation of something worth £250K, you would get two quotes in any case. Deceit with the intention to defraud is one thing, the stupidity of an individual is another. Sadly, stupidity is not an offence and manipulation of the system rife. Just about all items have a resale value lower than the purchase price, so why should coins be an exception to this? Don't forget that my new car depreciates by say 30% on leaving the garage, but I hear no complaints and see no action from the government on this matter.

I forgot to add that there is an alternative to Spink for later material. For the majority of collectors that in your view need protecting, there are at least 3 annual price references as in the main they restrict themselves to modern (post 1797) low value pieces.

Spink is virtually the only listing available for say five figure coins. It is also the only publication covering coins from the earliest issues to the present together with some additional proofs and patterns and so must inevitably have some influence on the market. Some coins are valued despite there not being any available to collectors, but based on prices prior to them entering a museum (think in terms of the Coenwulf gold mancus). This doesn't affect your typical "uneducated" collector however who is at a guess looking at a collection worth no more than a few hundred pounds in value. The mind tends to get focussed when you are spending thousands of pounds, and the person doing so rarely needs advice from a third party as to whether a particular coin would be a good buy or not and certainly doesn't need government led interference into whether he should be allowed to collect these coins or not at the prices he is prepared to pay. A coin valued at 120K one year and 137K the next will in all probability be revalued on where prices are relative to the previous year if no examples have appeared in recent times. This is a basic fact of life. I have a couple dozen pieces that are unique, what am I going to be permitted to sell them at in this regulated world of predetermined prices based on historical evidence? Have I offended by paying too much for them in the first place? Prices can be volatile, but that is something people spending appreciable sums of money already realise. A collection is a thing of averages. Some coins I will have paid too much for whilst others were an absolute bargain. If I realise a modest profit when I come to sell, then I will be happy. I suppose the ultimate answer to your problem would be for a government sponsored publication drawing on all available sales data which rivalled Spink and so introduced competition into the market place for "advisory" prices. I don't know how you would arrive at a fair value for a coin, but it seems obvious to me that what the market is willing to pay is a pretty good starting point. As to what price I should pay for an unlisted coin, God only knows, and to reiterate, I have never been forced to buy any coin. With every purchase I have made, the buck stops here.

In all fairness to Spink, they also reduce them where they consider it appropriate. e.g. In the 2004 - 2006 tomes, a 1671 5/- with T/R in ET was listed as £950 in fine. In 2007 it was reduced to £575 and in 2008 further reduced to £350 where it has remained ever since. Although this is only one example and which is now priced about right IMO, there are others. In the final analysis, Spink do not set the market any more than anyone else does. It is driven by excess demand relative to the available material. If anyone wants to reduce prices in the market place - stop buying coins.

I quite agree we have to start somewhere. I just don't think we need to get exercised over deviation from what is an already wide range of prices, nor do we need to waste time holding hands when there is an onus on the individual regarding self-help. We are also in great danger of having a government sponsored minder free with every roll of Andrex.

Good disagreement across the board here - excellent for a sensible debate. The point I take issue with is the concept of needing to regulate what is a minor discretionary purchase. If the public is legally or otherwise obliged to purchase an item or a service then a case can be made for regulation of some form or other. What we are talking about here is a hobby - a pastime that people dip into and out of at their leisure depending in all probability on the weather and to a greater extent how much spare cash they have. Please do not suggest it should be regulated in the same way as investments etc. If someone's spare time is occupied with rebuilding old cars, you don't expect them to fit the steering wheel where the spare is kept because you assume they have made the effort to inform themselves where it should go and if they did fit it in the wrong place you would rightly call them a ****. There are plenty of books available on coins, it just requires the individual to make a few cheap purchases and learn. If they can't read and write, that is not the fault of the coin market. You do not go on safari to the Maldives. You do not rely on Thunderbirds to rescue you from a desperate situation - they may not get there in time. The whole concept of consumer protection is a moot point. Why the need to protect someone from paying £5 for a 1967 1d, when the government happily legalises the National Lottery and allows people to spend £1 on the Dream Number which pays you a tenner when you get the first two numbers right despite the odds being 1 in 100. Or is it just a case of trying to earn political brownie points by pretending to be caring? Frankly, the odds of being screwed by politicians or politically designed instruments are greater than that of an ebay con-merchant. At least you have an option not to buy into the ebay purchase As regards pricing, those quoted in Spink are frequently gross underestimates of reality in the saleroom. At a sale with half decent material, both the estimate and the book price are regularly beaten simply because demand outstrips supply. Most items I bid on end up going past both these figures. Sometimes I will pay over book and sometimes not, but at no point am I restricted to either an upper or lower price level based on Spink. I bid & pay according to how badly I want the piece or whether I think it is undervalued. Spink's annual tome has become a de facto price guide simply because it is the only one that covers the whole series. It doesn't cover everything though, because there is insufficient room to accommodate all the price variations for rarities within a type, a point they freely acknowledge. They aren't driving the market, in fact they can't get sufficient new material in for resale because it is all going elsewhere. Their prices are taken from those realised around the country and further afield. A couple of weeks ago in the Heritage sale, an MS65 slabbed 1901 penny sold for about £600! I paid £2.21 for mine on ebay about 6 years ago. Spink currently lists them at £35. Does it require full scale government intervention on the basis that I bought it too cheaply. I think not. A couple years ago I bid about £3K on a coin that was listed in VF at £400. I came second. Does the government feel so aggrieved at my loss of self control in ignoring the "official price" that it sends me to the funny farm for a bit of re-education? Of course not - yet. If the market is to be regulated, then below fair value items would also not be permitted. Be careful what you ask for. If somebody loses out because they have done no homework regarding pricing, it isn't my fault, the government's fault, trading standards fault or Spink's fault. The person involved could have read, asked questions on a forum such as this or asked people attending coin fairs for an opinion. The buck stops squarely with the individual and there is no case for wasting valuable public funds on such a trivial matter.

It's better than VF. The seller gives it gVF, but I think it might be EF in the hand. The big danger is that it could have been cleaned which is not certain from the images. It's quite a decent coin for wear though.

It is Scottish. There are a few varieties, so would need a picture to establish which one.

I think all this worry about the differences in prices between publications is a non-problem. If you look at the prices of various coins in Spink, some regularly go for over book and some under book. As a result you can only ever use it as a ball park figure because 4 figures for 4 grades can only ever give an approximation to what someone is prepared to pay. I suspect that much of the problem is that buyers want to refer to the cheapest publicised price and sellers the most expensive. Life is all about people making an educated assessment of an item's worth. After all, if you want to regulate everything from cradle to grave, why do we not have a state regulator determined price for 800g of bread? You can't tell people what to pay for a coin. If someone wants to reference their prices (both buying and selling) to Spink's then that is their choice, as is another's who uses CCGB. This doesn't need regulating, rather that buyers do adequate homework establishing what similar coins normally trade at instead of living in a nanny state. Nobody ever says mea culpa these days, it is always the fault of somebody else. The examples in Spink go both ways. A 1797 1d can frequently be bought for around a third to half of Spink's cost for a coin in UNC, but when was the last time you saw an FDC Godless Florin pattern sell for £1150? Double this would be closer to the truth as the last Spink sale would bear out. At the same sale an 1887 £2 made about £4K including premium against 2009 book prices of £650 (currency) or £1200 (proof). You can't blame Spink for the prices people voluntarily pay at auction any more than you can proscribe a selling price for a particular coin in a predetermined grade. And if you do that, then you must also regulate the maximum price a seller is allowed to pay when buying in material so that the dealer can make a living. Come on everybody, do your homework and find out what others are willing to pay. If you think it too much then don't buy or bid at a sale. Nobody is a forced buyer. If any regulation has to take place it would be much better directed at the nonsensical purveyors of dross on ebay where a fool and their money are frequently parted on the basis of the seller's frequently overgraded sales pitch together with the uneducated person's desire for a coin described as being worth a certain amount in Spink. To boot, many of the coins offered aren't even worth the lower values given in CCGB or other publications. My heart does not bleed for these people.

Doesn't this cost more in petrol if done on a regular basis than buying the book outright? And it's always to hand.

Or a fair to fine as high grade, stunning etc.

The first one is a flaw from the base of the F which then passes below the legend to the right. The second is just a double cut 1. The third could be due to a filled die or weakly punched in the first place. The fourth again looks to be a flaw. It doesn't appear to be a 1746/5 which is a recognised variety. I don't think there is anything to get excited about with this coin as all the evidence suggests it is struck from a worn die that may or may not have had remedial work done to extend its life. As it isn't in the best condition it is difficult to say precisely.

It's kosher. It's a security edge incorporated into the coin when it was struck to help prevent forgeries. Boulton & Watt were quite keen to prevent forgeries because since the early years of the reign of George III, counterfeit halfpennies and farthings accounted for a majority of the coinage.

You can remove the inner part by putting the coin into liquid nitrogen. With different coefficients of expansion for the two metals, the insert falls out without the need to apply any damaging forces, so it would be easy to produce a mint state "error".

That is normal for the issue. Prior to the 1816 recoinage, currency pieces normally had an inverted die axis (en-coin). From 1816 to 1887 you had a mixture, with some issues having an upright die axis (en-medaille). From 1887 onwards en-medaille was the norm.

That is probably because they get innundated with requests from people like the **** who listed the corroded lump of metal,- sorry-1952 Elizabeth II brass threepence on eBay. If I received a request like that, I would have difficulty in not calling a spade, a spade.

There's nothing unusual about these features. Recutting legends has always been used to extend the life of the dies, or perhaps it wasn't cut cleanly in the first place..