argentumandcoins

Alternatively you could get a shotgun, big stick or a wife and present any or all to said Billy Burglar. Although the wife will be the most frightening to him/them she will definitely cost a lot more than the others (especially if she gives your finest coins a shot in the sink because "they're horrible dirty things", at which point you may find another use for the shotgun/big stick).

It sounds like verdigris (probably been stored in a shed or garage for a few years. There is no real way to remove it although you can tidy the coins up and stop the spread by a good long soak in olive oil (a few months for encrusted coins) although it is only really worth doing with coins that have some value. If these are all common issues they are probably just scrappers although you could use one or two to try out the treatment on so at least you will be confident in the results if you find a better coin with verdigris.

Hardly a reason to off yourself. A great player and looked like he was going to be a great manager, sadly missed.

No, no, not at all. That's the way to value coins. The way to price them is think of a number and quadruple it...as the meerkat would say, simples!

There's a surefire way to value a coin; Put it on ebay, call it VERY RARE, grade it as B UNC or FDC or both and watch the suckers jack the price up for you. Whatever it sells for you half, multiply by 3, divide by 0.666, find the cube root of and you should be left with a number that gives the true value plus or minus £1000. Easy!

I use a big old bloated Excel workbook, ridiculously overcomplicated and held together with bits of string, rubber bands, and VBA. Keeping it pruned is a constant task, hence the loss of various bits of functionality over the years. One of which was the treatment of grades below Fine. On the grading scale I came up with when I started (years before CGS!), half of the numeric grades were below fine, because most of the coins I had at the time were. By condensing all that into one grade, Fair, that particular prune had the effect of reducing the number crunching by half, and eliminated such nonsense as "what would I pay for a 1967 halfpenny in VG+?". Which was being automatically calculated, along with 1500 other coins in 10 different low grades! Inbetween grades above Fine took me a while to get right, because I found that each coin has an individual gradient. Big silver, for instance, is nearly linear, as bullion value holds the lower grades artificially high, but bronze tends to follow a classic exponential curve. The solution I came up with involves taking an average of 4 price sources, calculating the gradient of the average, and plotting a trend line between the known points. As well as all that, I had to come up with a method for dealing with the more esoteric varieties that my 4 price sources don't list. Davies and Freeman both include pricing (albeit out of date) for their varieties, so I use those to factor up the prices given for the common types. Example: 1929 Halfcrown. None of the 4 price guides I use recognise the 2 Davies varieties, so I have to assume the prices they give are for the commoner D.1704, listed as worth £11 in Mint State by Davies (1982). He gives £14 for D.1705, so I can safely multiply recent book prices by (14/11) for D.1705. Make sense? Sort of! Here are my visible notes as seen on one of my database layouts, giving an idea of what's going on in the background (what's going on i.t.b. is the actual calculation as coded by me!): Make sense? Peck have you by any chance worked at the Treasury???? Total gobbldeygook but it gives you a figure at the end!

I can save you the bother and tell you that the 1845 Star Stops does not exist Nick.

I shudder to think how many laws they could be breaking there! And I bet they didn't tell them to only take pics of the best side of the coin... Of course not..... It's just like the ebay sellers who only show one side, it just happens to be the good side by coincidence.

Paypal....The Dark Lord of Mordor. Unless you are buying anything from Mordor (ebay) they really don't care. They don't really care even it is through ebay, other than the fact that they don't want people to stop buying on there because that reduces the power of the ring. There aren't many alternatives unfortunately. I looked at taking a nochex account but that was about as much use as Jordan at a Mensa convention.....

Not just on the bay Declan. I had bought 2 cracking Lima Halfcrowns from an auction house (that will remain nameless) for £240 on a £180-£220 estimate. They were photographed side by side with an obv and reverse showing and graded as "high grade". They looked to be very nice coins so I was a happy bunny. Imagine my bubble bursting when the best of the 2 was flipped over in my hand to reveal 2 very large engraved initials in the field, worse still, the other one had 2 lumps of solder....BUGGER! Coins sent back and pennies returned to my account. Needless to say said auction house (where I had spent over £10k that year alone) has not had business from me again. You would have thought - where they had had good business from you - that a quiet warning about those coins would have gone out to you when they got your bid. Almost as if they didn't WANT your business. Sadly Peck it's a sign of the times (plenty more buyers in the sea would appear to be the attitude). The conversation with the Director/Auctioneer was quite entertaining. The gist of it was that he would refund me because I had bought from them before (implying that if I was a new customer I was out of luck). When I asked why only one side was photographed and why that side was the good side I was told that they employed school children to take the pics and it was nothing to do with him!!!! I didn't even bother going into the lack of relevant detail in the lot description

Not just on the bay Declan. I had bought 2 cracking Lima Halfcrowns from an auction house (that will remain nameless) for £240 on a £180-£220 estimate. They were photographed side by side with an obv and reverse showing and graded as "high grade". They looked to be very nice coins so I was a happy bunny. Imagine my bubble bursting when the best of the 2 was flipped over in my hand to reveal 2 very large engraved initials in the field, worse still, the other one had 2 lumps of solder....BUGGER! Coins sent back and pennies returned to my account. Needless to say said auction house (where I had spent over £10k that year alone) has not had business from me again.

Clegg didn't publicly say owt about Cameron, he said he was bitterly disappointed with the outcome of Thursday night, read into that any meaning you wish. I don't envy him or Cameron the task they have on their hands in trying to deal with a global recession as well as the shambolic state those arseholes in Labour left this country in. I find it particularly sickening to listen to the smarmy gits giving their interviews about the cuts in UK public spending, UK isolation in Europe etc, without one word of apology for the mess we're in or one word of support or advice for the current government. Regardless of coalition or minority rule or whatever, this was only ever going to be a one term arrangement because the incoming government was going to be extremely unpopular in the UK due to the decisions they had to make. The smarmy gits in Labour will be back at the next election (whenever that may be) and then they can get back on with the job in hand of destroying the rest of the UK economy. I admit that I have a deep seated loathing of Labour that was probably re-inforced during my last couple of years in the job. It was a proper kick in the nads to have my pay rise frozen then not backdated and not paid at the rate that the PNB had agreed upon only to find that the then Home Secretary (Ms Smith) had had the gall to claim for a 79p bath plug on her Parliamentary expenses!

Surely you mean that... By the 39th day the Ark had shipped water to the gunnels. Captain Frau Angela and First Mate Nicolas stood proudly on the bridge, in time honoured fashion, as the ship began slowly to sink. Below decks the animals swam to and fro, blaming each other for the debacle and for sneaking aboard without the correct ticket. Just then a jetty hove into view and purser David managed to leap to the safety of dry land. Others looked on but were too slow to follow him. The Ark drifted back to sea, taking on more water and resigned to it's inevitable descent into the murky ocean depths. Glug, glug... May God bless her, and all who sail in her. It all reminds me of that excellent Harry Enfield sketch where he played the drunken Tory. "I liken Europe to a moving train... I'd rather be on the inside trying to piss out than the outside trying to piss in"

Oh sure! Like leaving NATO uniterally? Like having a bunch of farmers who basically put two fingers up to the rest of Europe? Like insisting on the French language being respected and used whenever and wherever possible? I think not. As for the Human Rights Act, thank heavens for it. Many a British citizen, pissed on by our own "justice" system, has had cause to live in gratitutde for its existence. The UK disabled may be among them soon, after the Arbeit Macht Frei coalition has done its worst. With all due respect Peck I was extracting the urine from Herr Azda in the first part of the reply. It's quite amusing to me that he is now more German than Jockinese. The second (EHRC) was not a urine extraction. If you bother to look at it we already had all of it (in one form or another) in the UK constitution without signing up to a European convention. More often than not the people "pissed on" in UK courts are the victims of crime. Advances in forensic science will do way more to further British Justice than the application of any/all of the Act. I have no doubt that mistakes have been made in verdicts/sentencing in our Courts and they will continue to be made. That has sod all to do with the system, it's caused by the people in it. Humans are fallible and mistakes are and always will be made. On balance though I would much rather have my case heard in a Britsh court than in any other country in the world.

I think it was about the same percentage in 1939-45 as well Dave, that didn't go too well for Das Reich either! It all boils down to cultural mentality. British people always have and would like to continue to stand alone. Germany wants to be the master of Europe and France will do whatever the occupying power tells it to. Forget economics it really is that simple. Take a phone poll in the UK and I think you would find the same percentage telling Europe to go forth and multiply. My only real experience at practical level of "European co-operation" is the European Human Rights Act and that is a right Royal pain in the arse. You stay over there drinking Schnapps eating your boiled cabbage and I'll stay here drinking Malt and eating roast Beef!

You would think common sense would prevail in only bothering to recut a reletivley unworn die. Frugal Victorians Peter. You also have to remember that they were striking for currency users not us poor coin collectors.

I can remember when I was a lad in the 70's my grandparents had a US airforce lodger who left behind a pile of playboy magazines 4ft high.I wanted them but my parents disposed of them. I wonder how much some of those would be worth now? The average going rate for 1960s/70s Playboy mags on eBay seems to be around £4.99. I've no idea of the price per foot in height! How much do they sell for if the pages aren't stuck together? Or does that put them in the £1.4M bracket

Mark Hughes........ Poor old Mackems have they learnt nowt from the Mags? You can't buy your way out of trouble by signing a big name manager. I liked Bruce, a decent man and a decent manager but the trouble with football club owners is that they're all like you Dave, they want instant results, NO PATIENCE

Thanks for your input John, on that note I will put it back where I got it from for now until another day. On another note, how long ago was it since you left the force? I cannot remember how long ago it was we last spoke about that.... however I have still managed to stay in the recruitment process but things are taking forever with the finance cuts.... Mat 2 years 8 months and 17 days but I'm not counting If I was still in I would still have 11 years, 11 months and 10 days to do. According to my former colleagues the job is going from bad to worse, someones got to do it though! Hang in there Mat and I'm sure it'll all pan out in the end. I hope so! Got my A/C tomorrow with fitness test, if I pass then just final interview to go. I still think your crazy for leaving after everyone in my position is trying so hard to get in, but maybe if I get in I will tell a different story after 15 years! If I pass my A/C tomorrow, would you mind if I picked your brains on a few things in prep for final interview? I was a practical cop that used discretion and common sense Mat, I didn't fit in with the modern "service". A mobile ticket machine was more the order of the day for my bonus seeking senior officers. It was a good job, good pay and some good colleagues, but it was spoilt by the imbeciles above the rank of Inspector (and even some of them were tits). Feel free to speak to me, although my last interview was 11 years ago for traffic. If you do get in (and I hope you do if you want it that badly), don't forget where you came from. Treat people the way you would want to be treat yourself, stand by your decisions and never back down from a confrontation or leave a colleague in the shite. If you can manage all of that you won't go far wrong.

Applicants can pick five universities to apply to. I think each of her choices has a good reputation and offers positives. Oxford has the advantage of being known worldwide, handy as she's doing languages and wants to travel. Plus accomodation is cheap(er)! Personally, I liked Nottingham as they seem to have thought more about how to arrange the year abroad and charge less for it. But in the end it has to be somewhere she feels comfortable, I guess and the few days spent at interview will give her a chance to find out a bit more from current students. My daughter finished at Nottingham last year and I know a few others who also went there - all spoke enthusiastically of their time there, but all were into medicine or sciences. I don't know any of her former schoolfriends who did languages, so wouldn't like to offer an opinion, but as long as they are red brick universities she'll be ok. I have a nephew who recently studied linguistics at Oxford (Hertford). Whilst It comes down to college and course, Oxbridge (live Harvard, Yale etc.) still have the name and reputation which carries so much weight, particularly overseas Does not do any harm if you fancy working for MI6 either. Apparently if you don't have a degree (especially an oxbridge version) you are far too thick to work in the intelligence service

Really ? Even old, long since demonetised ones ? Never knew that. It's not true. The Coinage Act of 1971 says: "10.1 No person shall, except under the authority of a licence granted by the Treasury, melt down or break up any metal coin which is for the time being current in the United Kingdom or which, having been current there, has at any time after 16th May 1969 ceased to be so" Please don't Nick, poor old Peck will have a melt down if this one starts again I know, I know. I thought long and hard before posting, but maybe he has forgotten. Forgotten? I don't think either he or his therapist will forget the anguish that that particular little discussion caused. I'm not an idiot and it left me with pants on head, pencils in nostrils and uttering "wibble"..........................

Thanks for your input John, on that note I will put it back where I got it from for now until another day. On another note, how long ago was it since you left the force? I cannot remember how long ago it was we last spoke about that.... however I have still managed to stay in the recruitment process but things are taking forever with the finance cuts.... Mat 2 years 8 months and 17 days but I'm not counting If I was still in I would still have 11 years, 11 months and 10 days to do. According to my former colleagues the job is going from bad to worse, someones got to do it though! Hang in there Mat and I'm sure it'll all pan out in the end.

Definitely not the open 3 Mat. The central arm points way below the base (the open 3 points at the centre) of the 6. It isn't a slender 3 either. Condition is a killer even if it was something undiscovered it is just too bad to try to ID a die variety from.

Ahhh were the 48 yours I bought from London coins? If so you let me have them at a reasonable price!! No I had already disperesed of mine then, I think they must have been another part from the same hoard....I was tempted Matt Put an advert in Coin News for "1825 UNC farthings wanted...will pay £100 each" let this run a few months then drop a load at auction. I didn't know that you used to be a double glazing/used car/kirby cleaner salesman Peter.

Really ? Even old, long since demonetised ones ? Never knew that. It's not true. The Coinage Act of 1971 says: "10.1 No person shall, except under the authority of a licence granted by the Treasury, melt down or break up any metal coin which is for the time being current in the United Kingdom or which, having been current there, has at any time after 16th May 1969 ceased to be so" Please don't Nick, poor old Peck will have a melt down if this one starts again