Rob

Grading is/was/always will be an inexact science. Consider the item below and the grades assigned. It is an Oxford 1645 F-7 halfcrown with the following provenance and the grades assigned were as follows: Mrs Street, collection bought by Marsham. R W Marsham-Townsend 563, VF H Montagu (III) 516, VF G Hamilton-Smith (1913) 95, Unusually good R C Lockett 2460, Mint State F Willis 298, VF Lloyd Bennett, gVF or better. FWIW, I would give it as not far off as struck. So aEF but a little soft in the strike, with the thin wear lines on the top of some reverse detail clearly showing how little actual wear there is, but visually you couldn't argue convincingly against any of them except the Lockett description, which gives an absolute grade. It just depends on what the focal point is. Just buy the coin as you see it, because there is no way we are going to get universal agreement on this topic.

I think it is.

Both look broken to me.

I think it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. A famous name is not a cast -iron guarantee of the best coin, and even if it is at the time of writing, can be superseded by a new find. A few collections are unquestionably outstanding in both quality and depth, but a constant rate of attrition to the corpus of available coins due to museum purchases and bequests means that the remaining quality coins with a long and distinguished provenance are gradually reducing, and increasingly sought after. A good example of changing fortunes is that of Montagu's Petition Crown, now in Blackburn Museum as a result of the Hart bequest in 1946. At the time of the Montagu sale in 1896 it was considered the best available example and had a provenance going back to the mid-18th century, but having viewed it last week, I can definitely say it is now a clear second to the Slaney coin, which was an unknown example during the 19th century having been out of sight since 1789 when a previous owner died. GC did some work on his family tree about 5 years ago, and in a short space of time showed a direct line of descent from the 1st Earl of Clarendon - Charles II's Lord Chancellor at the time the Petition Crowns were struck. Can the continuous family ownership be proven? Sadly not, but I'd have a fiver on it being the case because if anyone was going to receive an example, it had to be the top brass in government or other royals and it notably was not known to other collectors in the early 18th century. I think one factor that is often overlooked is the unappreciated rarity of really nice pieces which can only account for a minute fraction of a percent of the total coins available to collectors. Time and time again, a corpus of a type will reveal only a couple decent examples at the head of a long tail of also-rans, and these are the coins that more often than not were in the best named collections. But then they found their way in because the collector had the money to spend in the first place, thus saving the vendor time and effort searching for a buyer. This is a win-win situation for both parties and is the way collecting and much of life has always been. Jobs for the boys is the same principle viewed from a different angle.

I wish I'd thought of the question myself, as with hindsight it's bleedin' obvious. Sturgeon has long been showing her admiration for anything not English or better still anti-English. A bad case of my enemy's enemy being my best friend IMO.

Scotland under the SNP

A ticket can tell a lot. I bought this coin in Stewartby and didn't recognise the significance of the ticket when cataloguing at the time. However, on reflection the characteristic H in 'not in Hawkins' screamed Webb, and the Sotheby 21/5/74 didn't make sense until I realised it was 1874, at which point the not in Hawkins made sense because Hugh Howard was an Irish collector who died in 1738 but the collection was sold 136 years later at Sotheby's 20-22nd May 1874, which is why Hawkins didn't know about it. Suddenly, an unquestionably rare but not particularly appealing halfgroat had a load of history added, so I bought it instead of ignoring it as I would have done knowing there is a better one out there. The Lockett provenance didn't do any harm either. I like provenances. Edited to add. What is better? A 60 year old provenance going back to Lockett in 1956, or the knowledge of where it has been for the past 281 years, even if I am unable to account for the first 267 years of its existence.

A premium depending on the name(s) involved, but not necessarily the deciding factor when buying a coin. There's something very satisfying when you need multiple tickets to record the details plus provenance. It's also worth noting that a provenance going back a century where it was illustrated in the catalogue is also a very good indicator of how good it is relative to its peers or how rare the coin is, as only the best examples for whatever reason got imaged, even in Montagu, Murdoch etc. Certain collectors were also renowned for only collecting the best available, so the provenance helps a little here too. Quality and certain names frequently go hand in hand.

The third one down is an unfeasible operation. Webb and Son? You could live off Indian cuisine for weeks and not come close to producing commercial quantities.

I think they used a mixture of Kutch and Arabic, so the name is Kutch but the date is Arabic, which is why it is listed as 127*. An Urdu 7 is <, unlike the majority of arabic areas which use a v for 7. That would then make sense for 127, but the last figure in the link you posted initially also looks like a < and according to Krause this issue only goes up to AH1274 - but Krause could be wrong as it misses out things from time to time. Whatever, I think it is the correct attribution. Many thanks. All that for some thing worth a fiver!

Thanks Paddy, I'm inclined to agree, but for the life of me can't concoct a date (or part of a date) in the range 1267-1274 from the legend seen whatever the orientation. From the link I am struggling to see what constitutes 127 in either Kutch or Arabic, which if the * is a wild card, means that it is off the side The central line on the reverse is RAO SRI DESALIJI, which doesn't leave much to work out the date. And if the date is on the other side, the most obvious numerical possibility is an Arabic o, but 5 shouldn't come into it. Edit to add that if the bottom line is 127 in Arabic, then how do you make the last digit a 0,1, 2, 3 or 4?

I think it's a Kutch dhinglo, but could do with confirmation together with date etc. Weight is 12.31g and diameter is just under 20mm. Thanks.

He bought it in Sept 2013, not 2008. Current Spink book for this in VF is £1350, and £1250-1350 is in the right ballpark for this coin at current retail prices. Better than VF in parts, but mushy in others and a few too many peck marks on the reverse reduces the appeal.

But any TDorH wouldn't have any proof of purchase for any of the items. It doesn't matter whether they came from a dealer or auction if records are kept.

Pity they don't list the contents with decent pictures because a combination of items in a particular grade would make tracing the owner much easier. Collectors often buy from only a few selected dealers, and with plenty of gold that will narrow down the options a lot.

Previously caked in dried out grease? Any cracks would then allow selective acidic solution to give a pattern such as that on the obverse. It surely has to be something non-polar covering the partially protected areas, given the more deeply corroded areas are likely down to acidic conditions.

Which sort of backs up most allegations about their motives. Like much in this world, it's a case of style over substance.

Copper123 - Where is the confusion? A post is infinitely more helpful than an emoji. We are here to help.

A Chi Rho reverse would most likely put it in the 4th century. The eye looks comical, but if genuine will probably be a centenionalis or double.

Loads of them about. Any later silver halfpenny from Elizabeth I will do, as would just about any farthing from Edward III onwards.

I think anyone listing decent coins at 99p start is on a hiding to nothing. Everyone expects to pay 99p or a bit over, so it is important that only material of commensurate value is listed. The continual relisting until sold helps in this respect, as a max selling fee of £1 is never going to come into the equation. The system is clogged up, which is partly why I made the initial post and asked the question. The world does need an alternative to ebay, but it will also require patience from both buyers and sellers alike to achieve sufficient momentum.

The world has always been a global economy. Silver coins were always worth their intrinsic value and traded at weight/face value, until the last couple hundred years when we moved to a token coinage.

And so you have found a nice example that saw little circulation, but a lot of time up to the eyeballs in sh*t Farthings at the end were worse

Indian?

I think the biggest problem with ebay is that it has become unwieldy. 15 years ago there was approximately 2000-3000 listings in the British coins section at any one time, i.e. you could quite literally search through the entire list if you had a few hours to spare. This resulted in multiple bids on most items, but equally, bargains could be had meaning that there was always a chance that sellers could get a good price and conversely buyers a bargain. That is manifestly not the case today other than for a very few sales in the case of sellers, and buyers have so much choice that I genuinely doubt they are able to fully peruse the lists. Just now, searching Victoria penny finds over 10K listings in the UK, or over 14K if the search includes worldwide. This is a huge number to search properly unless you are only looking at specific dates such as 1860, 1861, 1862, 1863, 1877, 1909, 1903 etc. Most people have a life beyond ebay. There is already a large number of outlets for selling the higher grade pieces, i.e. the established auction houses, though another online auction site could easily be accommodated as eBay is hardly over-endowed with quality coins for sale. For me, the biggest issue is that eBay is flooded with things that have little chance of selling, whether due to price, condition or just sheer quantities available. A rhetorical question, but how many 'rare' Peter Rabbit 50ps does the world need. The established houses are not interested in low grade things unless as part of a bulk lot, or if extremely rare, then exceptions will be made. The problem and the solution for me is not to exclude low grade listings, but to charge everyone who lists something for the provision of the facility. It wouldn't have to be prohibitively expensive, but would need to be a number greater than zero in order to make the consignor question the viability of listing. Cut out free listings and suddenly the attraction of posting a flat disc for a million quid becomes unattractive. A dedicated coin auction site would, as you say, potentially have the advantage of experts to police the listings, but there is nothing to stop anyone creating a new site, whether they have the knowledge or not. People collect coins of all grade/prices, so it would be wrong to exclude things that were of inferior grades. The problem is not one of elitism or snobbery, but rather one of time wasting. Sure there are many deluded people offering crap at inflated prices courtesy of the tabloid media, but there is and always has been a genuine market for coins in all grades at the right price and this market must continue to be nurtured for the good of the hobby. A balance needs to be struck whereby you have a manageable list of things available, but also sufficient buyers' eyeballs to make selling worthwhile. This is the perennial problem of startups, but with perseverance is a possibility. Hus tried it 8 or 10 years ago, before eventually folding it, but today, this might be a project worth resurrecting given the number of ebay listings, and the extent to which they p*ss people off. Their buyer good, seller bad policy doesn't exactly endear them to vendors either. It isn't beyond the realms of possibility that you would be pushing on an open door.