argentumandcoins

This is the second bust Dave with the G of D:G: closer to the crown. I don't know what Spinks are on but Marsh doesn't list any rarity for 1890 Melbourne Sovs. The 1887 with 2nd bust is however Scarce with a 940,000 mintage.

They wouldn't would they? I haven't heard any whispers (did before Freeman was reprinted and managed to offload my 2 stock ones at a healthy price). I didn't know that their book department was run by Master Bates?

So do I or my fingers just got burnt again!!!! I would guess that Peck is so out of date that they wouldn't bother reprinting? I know there is nothing else in the market that is similar but would the reprint costs justify the project? They would probably have to sell them at around £90-£100 to recoup the outlay and if it wasn't an updated version who would buy it as most of us already have one or three?

Seems to be a few more around at the moment. They usually turn up about 6-12 times a year in the auctions I check (all major coin houses and quite a lot of provincial rooms). A good proportion are ex-library examples.

Nah! The real challenge now is to get all the Gouby variants within each Freeman number David Added about 80 to the wants list. Thanks very much Michael Might have done me a favour with the 1893 over 2 though, given the £460 hammer price for a fair example. We have a lustrous A UNC example in the collection (choice high grade example, probably finest extant and seriously undervalued by Spunk in all of their books at sweet fanny adams).... sorry slipped into dodgy ebay seller mode

That's actually not a bad price for a second edition. I have 2 coming into stock and they weren't too far off that for me to buy.

Thanks for the update Mat. Sounds like every other auction that I've ever been to though (never visited the London rooms). Coin experts are thin on the ground and crappy pictures coupled with vague descriptions and quantity guestimates do nothing to help. There are more than a couple of houses that I now wouldn't touch with a barge pole due to lots not living up to descriptions.

forgot to say that for anybody wanting all of the currency freeman numbers I know this website that..............

Coin News is okay for those times when you know that you're going to be on the throne long enough to warm the seat but not that long that you could read anything useful!!!

When I was researching my book on 20th Century Bronze varieties, I concluded that the reported varieties, based on your definitions of the obverse and reverses are; Business Strike: 1+A, 1+B and 2+B Proof strike: 1+A, 1+B and a reported but not confirmed 2+B There were no reports of any type with the 2+A combination. Also, nothing I have seen since suggests otherwise. London Coins sold a 2+B proof earlier this year.

It's a recognised variety for those of us who like such things, very rare, a specimen (graded as Fine and said to be finest known) sold for £700 here James Workman sale My example cost 45p on Ebay, which is why it's worth looking hard at the crap for certain dates David Why is the finest known only F?...nice one on the 45p coin....I've bought a few coins of which I was quite smug with...and even a few off dealers lists...a 1849 farthing in GVf for £6 ...he wasn't a farthing buff....I will have to through my sack full of pennies to see if there anything rare. Just send them to me Peter and I'll check them for you

You could use a reputable dealer to do you an insurance valuation. You should also keep all invoices/receipts that you receive in relation to purchases. A good phtographic record of the better stuff also helps if the worst case happens. The basic rule of thumb is that the insurance company will pay out as little as they can get away with.

Pay pal are a total pain the a**e but unfortunately a necessary evil in my case. I move quite a bit of stuff on ebay and if you don't take paypal you can't play ball. Last month they stopped sending me buyer payment emails and it caused a lot of hassle. I averaged 17 sales a day and the inevitable result was customer complaints about non-receipt. It cost me a small amount of spare stock as freebies to cut-off the negative cherry on my feedback. I phoned Ireland direct (paypal europe HQ) and got some very unhelpful person in Mumbai or Bombay or wherever. The questions were pretty pathetic as they read off their cutomer faults checklist... do you have the correct email address on your account? YES, I'VE BEEN A MEMBER ON THIS ADDRESS FOR 8 YEARS. do you have a working phone line... I'M ON IT NOW, do you have your email address attached to your ebay and paypal accounts... LISTEN, I'M PRETTY SICK OF ANSWERING YOUR STUPID QUESTIONS, JUST PUT ME ONTO SOMEBODY WHOSE FIRST LANGUAGE IS ENGLISH AND WHO HAS THE ABILITY TO SORT MY PROBLEM OUT. please Sir I will help you just let me help you Sir.. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS NOISE IS, (click as he hangs up). The conversation was longer and bits were repeated several times by me but I'm sure you get the drift. In the end after another 2 phone calls I was told it wasn't their fault it was my ISPN's. I phoned Sky and they told me it wasn't their fault, I phoned Ghost Busters but they were busy trying to track down the Ghost of Newcastle managers past! In the end the fault cleared, the emails came and 3 more Johnny Foreigners ripped me off with the ME NO GET MY COIN claim. Paypal froze the funds,,,,,, oh sod it I'm off for a cigar and a Whisky.

I try to light the general area rather than the object itself. It tends not to reflect off the surface as much that way. I'm no photographer though!

Spink 2010 price is EF £10, I wish I could purchase all my coins at half the value (I'd settle for that), but then again it's not the value, it's what you want to pay for a coin, unless you want to sell it. CCGB 2010 is valued is EF £5. I don't fully understand how the values are defined, between both books there can be a big difference. Take a 1934 Unc Halfcrown, one is £70 and the other is £140. It’s beyond me! My eldest lad likes Pirates of the Caribbean and there is a repeated saying in there, "it's not so much rules as guidelines" sounds like price books to me! The only real guide to value is how much it will cost to replace in the given grade from a dealer. That is not how much the coin is worth however, because I won't pay you the price I would sell it at or I wouldn't be in business very long! So now we have 2 values for the same coin, your resale price and your replacement or insurance price. There is also your cost price, taking us up to 3 prices for the coin. You can also have an auction price for resale but you should deduct an average 20% for the house fees etc etc etc. I still get emails and phone calls from potential buyers who regularly hit me for discount with the line "it's only valued at £blah blah in Spinks" and being the ignorant arse that I am I reply "well go and try and buy it from Spinks at that price, if they even have one." So, what is a price guide? Derek is quite correct, buy the coin because you like it. If you have to ask if you got a got deal you really shouldn't have bought the coin. There isn't a single coin that I own (discounting stock) that I regret buying, there are however a heap of coins that I regret not buying!

Yes - the camera is great: same one as yours but the camera is the easy bit: now I am playing with lighting, white balance, exposure, ISO and all that. Just changing one variable at a time for now to see what each one does. Already I can tell which were my early shots though. Bit short of genuine daylight where we are - in a bus under a railway viaduct in a deep valley. So I've bought a selection of different bulbs to try...that edge shot was with an angle poise over my shoulder and a headtorch on! I could have done with your headtorch this week. we have sparkies in for 1 1/2 weeks on a rewire and we had a night of no power upstairs. Doors open and shut all week, no point in putting heating on due to doors open and monkeys outside looking for brass spherical objects,,, ferkin Baltic man! anyway, back to post.... at a push, and I mean a push, halogen lights are okay if you need to take pictures when the light is bad. I know it can't be easy for you as the farmhouse we live in is nearly as bad as your abode for light. This house must have been built by vampires (every window is positioned to allow as little light as possible into the house! Azda is right (I hate to admit), not about the geek bit though, the only good light is natural light.

Forgot to say,... the new camera works okay. You couldn't have done that with your scanner!

here's mine... definitely not a star of David... A really lovely cinquefoil Declan!

Yes Declan, it's a fact. If you do have a star stops I'll give you a decent profit on it My guess would be that the star was first employed and later replaced by the cinquefoil in 1844. The cinquefoil then retained for use in 1845. It isn't listed in the English Silver Coins since 1816 book by Peter Davies, so he must have come to the same conclusion as me. I have examined hundreds and never seen one, although, as I said, I did buy one from Spinks with 3 45 cinqs The cinquefoil stop looks like a star of David, hence the confusion. The star stop is best described as being an asterisk. Hope that helps.

I had a look at one or two of the earlier bunch as I thought there may have been some resale mileage in them. Always hard to tell from pics as most of mine make the coin look a lot worse than it is, mainly due to poor natural light at this time of year. My thoughts were that they have previously met 3 men in a tub, but I could be wrong and it may just be the lighting or the camera at fault. Needless to say I left well alone as I didn't like the colour.

Hi Bob, You can forget the 1845 Star Stops as it doesn't exist, although you will see lots advertised they are always cinquefoils (even the one I bought in a lot of 4 from Spinks a couple of years ago that was advertised as 3 cinqs and 1 star!) The 44 cinq is a little tricky but does turn up. Regards, John.

What did you get for it ? £92.00. I don’t buy and sell them. It was my own copy which I had virtually never used. I'm mainly into collecting milled silver and for the copper and bronze that I do purchase, Freeman's book is quite adequate for me. The £92 went towards a vintage 1950's Hardy Altex fishing reel. Great reel maker, the rods are pretty mediocre though!

Are you the vendor by any chance? If so maybe you could let us know whats in there? I suspect it is an employee of the auction house as they are conducting an aggressive advertising campaign. I got an email from them last week that is obviously going out to all coin dealers in the UK.

Slightly off track, but.... my kid brother owns a couple of shops in Yorkshire after starting with a newsagents in Durham. He had an elderly lady working for him in his first shop, who has sadly just passed away but I'll keep it vague to spare her family any groans!! She once took in payment.........a chocolate £1 coin in gold foil and no I am not making this up!

I'm with you on this one Peter. The only ones I have are held in stock. More often than not I just sort all of the decimal stuff into my dross bags and hurl back into auction, horrible stuff!