argentumandcoins

About 5 years ago I briefly lived in Workington while I was still in the police. I sent out 3 cased silver proofs from 2 different post offices to different addresses over the course of 2 days (all had to pass through the Workington sorting office). None arrived at the buyers addresses and none were returned to me. I spoke to the area manager and told him it was obvious that there was a thief in the Workington office and he told me he would pass it on to the Post Office investigations department. 3 years later it was publicised by the local press that an arrest had been made of a post office worker in the Workington office for theft. You're right Rob, the collection of a postman would be a thing to behold! One bad apple out of the many thousands of honest people that must have handled my deliveries.

I've got quite a few you can have for free young Patrick. They're lower grades but will do until you can afford to upgrade them (if you want them of course). John.

I've had many days on the day when I have been too drunk to stand let alone cast. My ghillie would have taken the bottle from you to drink himself and wouldn't have raised an eyebrow at the rifle!

Thanks for the warning. Already hit my first snag, coin I sent to Australia has failed to arrive. Was on international signed for, so fully insured, but a right hassle that I could definitely do without. It'll be a pain in the proverbial trying to get the Royal Snail to pay out, I know from bitter experience! How long has it been since posting? I only ask because I have had some mail take up to 10 weeks to arrive there, others in less than 9 days. I once had a packet take 6 WEEKS to get to Eire!!!!!!!

Good luck Derek, just in time for the Christmas rush and then you'll have to start discounting for your Winter Sale!!!

42 but I still feel like an 18 year old (don't tell the wife though)

The picture you have uploaded is of a perspex case with a card insert. The coins are seated in slots in the card so that you can see both sides. They are about £5 retail without the coins and can be wall mounted with spring holders or desk mounted on a small display stand. Hope that helps. John.

I need better photos.Both coins have good eye appeal and are clean and bright.Both fields are very clean,edges and rims unmarked.St George and the Dragon are worn down to around an F grade,King George also worn.Weight and size are perfect.Ring testing by dropping coins produces a poor ring,not good or bad.If I only had one coin I would be happy with it but as there are two I compared the two together.Ten small marks,dings that I found on one side were also on the second coin.The coins seem to be clones of each other.Could dies be so marked or damaged that they transfer defects the coins. The seller of the two coins has two more same date 1918S.Dave Hello Dave, The pictures are not the best, but from what you have said I would be inclined to say that they are both forgeries. Identical indentations on two coins is worrying, especially on sovereigns. Die damage produces raised areas not indentations and die damage on 20th century gold coins dies is rare anyway. 4 coins same mint, same seller, same damage........ A client of mine recently had the offer of 10 GV sovereigns from a friend, all the same date and all acquired in Egypt 20 years or so ago. He took one to a jeweller for the acid test and it came back as 9ct gold. John.

Extremely rare mule 20p but he has a set of 14??????? My best offer of £2.80 was immediately declined! Good luck with the £10,000,000 asking price

I usually get a lot of whine from my wife! I took her salmon fishing last year to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. I have a friend who is a ghillie on the Tay and he took us out in the boat. The lucky so and so only hooked and landed a 12lb fish on her first day fishing, her response "well I don't know why you never catch anything, it's easy" I should send her to the auctions for me, she'd probably find a Petition Crown in a box full of wasters!!!

I put my xmas order in with the wife this week, a Hardy Demon 7000 reel. She baulked at the £280 price tag and I politely pointed out that the reel will last me a lifetime, unlike the hundreds of pounds worth of make-up, clothes and hair "product" that she throws money at every year. "prosecution rests my lord"!

I think you probably will at some point, but... When I tried to get some images of 7 coins in the BM for an article, they wanted to charge £50 per uniface or £60 for both sides on one picture. I offered to take the pictures myself and let them use them for their own purposes but that wasn't allowed. The reason given for the huge increase in fees from say 5 or 10 years ago is that they wanted to raise funds to pay for imaging the entire collection and make it accessible from the website. Failing to make use of goodwill where a private individual is willing to provide free labour to help do the job is probably not the best way of doing things. Yes, and lets not forget Rob, WE OWN EVERYTHING IN THERE!!!!!!!

I found the only things that made scrotes bend at the knees were; A) A kick in bollocks A punch to the solar plexus C) Compression of the trachea D) A red dot on the chest coupled with the word "tazer"

Hello Ian, It is indeed a set of pence coins, a Maundy set. Worth around the £90-£100 mark to sell or £140 mark if you were buying. John.

I'm re-reading my 1966 version of Freeman's The Victorian Bronze Penny. He mentions veiled head pennies with milled edges:- 1896 5 out of 4943 1897 4 out of 4297 1898 1 out of 2971 1899 19 out of 5688 1900 15 out of 6901 1901 16 out of 4533 my 1970 edition of his The Bronze Coinage of Great Britain mentions just 1896 F144 R18 1899 F151 R18 1899 F152 R18 1901 F155 R18 Is there anything in his later additions? No mention to my recollection in either of Gouby's books I have a couple that are almost certainly fake - I'll dig them out and see if I can get a photograph Anyone here know the story behind these? did the coins get sold? were they all dismissed as altered? Attached is a picture of the milled edge. I thought the general consensus was that all those listed in Freeman's 1st book had been consigned to the "altered post striking" category David Yes, they are all post production and post circulation. That was confirmed by the mint themselves after microscopic examination.

My ebay listings are now taken on a cheap as chips Canon Powershot A480 Declan. I bought it after a plug from Hus and find it okay. Lighting and focal distance don't seem to be a problem at all. It does have a tendancy to only partially focus on the coin for some strange reason, which sometimes leaves (usually the bottom) a small portion slightly fuzzy. I bought it from Argos online and it was only about £55 I think.

Without seeing them they sound like Victorian Parian ware medallic issues. What are the diameters?

Oh dear. Let me be the one to break this to you Accumulator : if that halfcrown had been anywhere near the EF he claimed it to be, do you think you would have won it for fifty quid? I'm not saying you paid an unfair price, but considering it HAS been cleaned, and is around VF, you probably paid a FAIR price for it, without getting a bargain. As with all transactions caveat emptor. I've not bought anything off MP but after seeing what I've been pointed at in this forum, I'm not likely to. I don't know how many 1925 halfcrowns you have sold recently Peck, but I would have sold this at £70 (that's taken £70 not asked for). No, it isn't EF but it is better than VF with the usual weak portrait. Cleaning, or more accurately dipping, on these doesn't deter the buyers. I would therefore say that a £20 reduction on my price was a snip?

I worked predominantly armed response on traffic Dave, which meant I left all that shit to the CID shiney arses

Christ Dave, I hope you never spot me selling an overgraded coin The 1925 Halfcrown that Accumulator bought was a snip at that price, even if it had been in the bath! I have "helped" coins in the past and would do again. Ammonia solution lifts all manner of crap from silver and leaves the toning alone, provided that there is no mechanical cleaning as well. That method is virtually undetectable and leaves a black coin black. I have not dipped, polished or whizzed coins and never would as all of those methods are clearly obvious to all but an idiot and ruin the coin in my opinion. Nor have I ever even attempted to "help" copper or bronze. The coins that I have washed in ammonia were not sold as being cleaned, does that make me dishonest? As Colin has said, grading is very subjective and open to interpretation. Auction houses are by no means experts, not even (in some cases especially) the speciallist coin auction houses. I had always found London Coins to be grossly overgraded. They seem to be a bit tighter now, but (AGAIN MY OPINION ONLY) still tend to be over optimistic. The problem is £signs Those of us that make our living selling coins have to choose a path and the choice is pretty tough; You are either honest and scrape a living or you are "economical with the truth" and make a decent a living. I try to be the former and rely on repeat business from happy buyers, but that's the way I was programmed at birth, hence my 13 year tenure upholding the Queens peace! If other sellers wear rose tinted spectacles when "helping" coins and grading them to sell on, then that's their perogative. Let them get on with it and vote with your feet. That's my Pennies (pardon the pun) worth

Rarity is totally irrelevant to a collector who is looking to purchase, availability is more appropriate. Much of the work done by Peck was on coins held in museums and choice collections, Rayner was similar. Freeman devised rarities based on the tens of thousands of coins that he had gathered himself. Gouby has tried to use the method that Rob advises and therefore his rarities for bun pennies are probably the most accurate. The only work that I know of that lists rarity based on grade is "English Milled Coinage in silver, copper and bronze" by Cope and Rayner. It is dated now but is a useful guide. At the end of the day there might be 15 examples of a particular coin known but if 14 are held by museums that makes the 1 in private hands almost unique.

It's not a gold proof is it?

Spink probably underprice this one. Much rarer than the 1869 in my experience. For every 1 1875H I have had I must have had 6 or 7 1869's. The 1871 is even scarcer than both but rarely gets a mention!

If the total sum was a Penny it must have been worse than the X Factor !!!!!

There was some wear to the convex shield, which brought the reverse at least, down to EF. Still a very nice coin, nonetheless, with considerable lustre. I'm not surprised it fetched £2560k. Take a look at this one for sale at the online coin website for £3950. Still some slight wear on the shield, much more expensive, and in my view, not as nice as the e bay offering. Here's the image for ease of reference ~ hopefully not too small It brought roughly £1000 more than it was worth because of dishonest selling. The coin was EF or nearly so and called A UNC by the seller. The last high grade example I sold was also bought from London Coins. It was graded by them as A UNC and downgraded by me to GEF with all of the flaws mentioned (so I lost money rather than making a £1000 profit by lying). I'm not surprised it brought £2560 either, I'm f***ing gobsmacked!!!!