Rob

Someone playing. The same reason explains the numerous double sided pennies around, which are done by machining a recess just inside the rim and dropping in another obverse or reverse.

It happens time and time again. In the past few weeks I have had a few calls from people with similar 'investments'. The most one person had spent was 43K, the others were in the 5-10K bracket. They realise they have been stung, but in every case acknowledge it was their own fault. In all cases the individuals concerned were trying to put down a nest egg for their children, or grandchildren. It was apparent that all had replied to adverts in the papers or Radio Times etc in the belief that they were respectable companies selling the various desirable products, because they were advertising in places that they respected (if you can really believe the dailies are trustworthy organs). It was also apparent they were sold them as 'collectable' coins, aimed at collectors and not investors - thus negating any investment legislation comeback. The point is, that the purveyors of all this tat are not actually doing anything illegal. There might be moral compass issues, but in the end they are making/repackaging a product and advertising it for sale. Yes, there are marketing costs which I suspect are not inconsiderable to advertise in the national media and these costs have to be covered by sales. Anybody in business knows that you have to recoup your initial outlay before you can make a profit, so if the 10000 limited edition item has a break-even point at say 3000 units, they have to promote the product heavily to pass this point. The profits are made selling units above base cost and there is no guarantee that the maximum figure is achieved for sales. The break-even point is essentially why all products are eventually reduced in price once the initial hype has died down. You sell to the lowest hanging fruit, and selling a particular item just gets harder from there on.

Lack of internet didn't stop people piling into 'investments'. People were buying Churchill crowns and later things by the bucket load as well as paying OTT for modern tat, just as people are avidly purchasing just about every 50p, £1 and £2 coin you can throw at them today. If proof was ever needed, I bought about £400 of scrap silver last night, all skimmed from circulation post-war. There was however, a down-side. I also had to take £40 face of 5/- and 25p crowns. They were a good investment - not.

Yep

It looks a good fit for the leaf to the end of E. CHK should be close which yours is, so both are in general agreement. The kink in the forehead looks sharper on yours than most, but that could be down to strength of striking. PM Seuk and see what he has to say.

There are various pointings of the laurel leaves, but without a picture of yours it is impossible to say whether it's ok. If the weight is right then it's likely to be good. Seuk's pages on G3 counterfeits is the best reference. http://www.steppeulvene.com/index.george_iii.html

Ah. The P by trident variety - good find.

Most non-coinies call anything cupro-nickel, silver. He might have been told it is a copy, but unless the informer told him it wasn't silver, he may be none the wiser. The chances are he didn't buy it originally.

They used the reverses on the cartwheel pattern halfpennies for 1797, but these had no gunports.

Bramah just says rare for those other than 5. I'd say 7 is about the same as the 9. 5 is normal, and 6 is more common than 7.

As I said previously, historically the term VIP was only used with the non-public issued years. There might have been a few sets that appeared down the years in a different style box, but I'm not sure there was ever a superior finish to these which was unambiguously better than the rest. As far as I can see, the term VIP was hijacked for use with the mass produced sets as a marketing tool for better cameo/strike examples of what was otherwise a common date and worth not a lot. Funny how you only see the term applied to the bigger, in your face denominations, and not the unpopular bronzes (Booooo) or florins et infra 'silver'. If the mint hasn't got a clue, then I would suggest it is mostly a case of wishful thinking, though there may be some superior quality coins within those so attributed. If they were genuinely identifiable, then an AU55 VIP should be quite possible.

7 relief ports is documented as is 5, 6 & 9. Bramah noted it as his variety 13a in his book (1929). I have one too, as did Nicholson (lot 296).

That legend is in high enough relief to have been made from Lego.

It's the creation of a market, just as the myriad listings of varieties for a given date creates the demand over and above simply ticking the date box. Sure FDC should mean FDC, but even with two nominally similar grade coins, everyone will have a preference for one over the other based on their perception of what is before them. Personally, I think the concept of giving or chasing micro-grading is irrelevant as it often takes preference over the contents and is entirely subjective on the opinions of the grader.

No, the latest on the BNS site is 2013.

Hmm. Moot point. I've tried that in the past. Left something thinking better would come along and it never did. It taught me to know my chosen field a bit better. Probably not an issue for a general example of a milled coin, but for some of the more esoteric varieties it really becomes relevant.

Busts 3 & 4 have the hair by the neck below the fillet treated differently. See below. right hand one is 4th bust. There is a list of die numbers somewhere, but I don't have it to hand. Maybe Nick or someone can help here.

Incuse pellets? Are you experiencing a lighting trick? I've noticed that because I expect the light source to be at 12 o'clock, anything from below makes the detail look incuse. I think it is something to do with my eyes taking the angled sides of the relief detail illuminated from below and translating that into a top illuminated recessed wall.

I suspect the Exeter crowns are differentiated by mintmark due to the undated pieces previously being attributed to Truro. That gave the first 3 types with mm. rose for Truro (Besly's A1, B2 & C3-7) with the remainder at Exeter. Once the undated Rose coins with obverses B & C were given to Exeter it became necessary to rewrite the book. My personal view is that you could still reasonably argue the A1 and B2 as being Truro coins on account of both having the T stops in the obverse legend. The question of rare mms for type will never go away - James I 5th issue shillings being a very obvious example..

A good close-up picture would help so that you can see the fields and engraving clearly. With an image that size, even the Westair repros would look ok.

The picture is very small, but from what I can see the design looks less crude than the link to the fanams. Is it genuine?

That's a well argued piece worthy of merit and further consideration. The only downside is the way people habitually read lists, expecting a date run to be in numerical order, so a change in mindset would be required.

Slabbing is just someone having a SimplyMed moment

So presumably we can look forward to the new piece in the chain taking an additional cut over and above eBay & Paypoo? I suspect they (eBay) will be taking a greater percentage of the total fees in an attempt to keep ramping up their profits, but the others will want to maintain/increase theirs as well. My personal view is that it will need to migrate to a full shop, or else split in two with one for business sellers on a BIN and the other for auctions. The sheer quantity of material has ensured that auction style bidding is now much reduced simply because you can't get through it all. For buyers, unless you have a very specific search description the number of pages can be huge.

I'm not so sure about variation in the strike. In the case of the two coins illustrated, the raised rim is the same width in both cases. As they both have the same diameter, by extension it means that the diameters of the respective toothed portions must be different. In addition, the profile of the short teeth appear to be straight sided triangles, whereas the wider teeth are clearly a series of arcs. It could be a case of reduction differences, which once transferred to the dies at some point are trimmed at the edges by the later application of the raised rim to a specific size. That still doesn't explain the different profiles seen. Given the minute differences in some of the bronze series, e.g. the 0.2mm difference in the length of the bowsprit on a pair of halfpennies, I would even go so far as to say that it is more obvious despite the temptation to yawn.