£400 for a Penny ?

Hmm, I'm just going to go off on a walk on my own here, no need for anyone to come with me.... Having collected Roman gold for a while, there is a big issue with bespoke forgeries from eastern europe. It's interesting that you ask a question about a correction, an overdate from a common coin. Are you fishing perhaps ? See if there's any excitment amongst collectors ? Joined today 01/07/10 What about htis one, what about this halfcrown....... If I'm wrong, I prostrate myself, but......

Pulls down ESc from the shelves... So this is 220A....R3...20 of date altered from 19 ? Confirm ?

Fools rush in, where Angels fear to tread.. I'll have a go. VF+ but with problem (as noted). Attractively toned on the Obverse. R3 ? What, like a Freeman R3, i.e. Common as muck is C20, moving to C10,9,8.... and then R1,2,3.......R20 believed to be unique ? Marsh has his rarity scale for sovereigns, etc, etc Who's R3 are we talking about ? Remember that you are a bull in a field and there is a man waving a red rag at you, trying to entice you to charge. What happens to 98% of all bulls that charge ?

Get anywhere yet Mick ?

ebay is fine for selling IME James, it's just when one is buying that due diligence is required. I'd sell them on there in a heartbeat myself.

Very difficult to pick up the pace of this when you first enter the hobby. Yes, each year there are several price guides issued. There's a load of blurb that say's the prices have been aggregated from auctions, dealers lists etc etc. Funny thing is, they never seem to go down. We all when we start, meekly pay full list for something we're not even sure we want. The penny really drops when you try and sell something back to a dealer. This is when everything becomes clearer. You'll be lucky to get 50% of list in a lot of cases. Er, but..... Take it or leave it mate. As has been said, it's worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. Forget the list price. Sharpen that tongue and get stuck in Sir

Mike, Lucky you. I'd say you have two options. 1. Relax, take your time and don't put yourself under pressure. The collection was probably put together over years, why should you be expected to know exactly what's what in 4 hours ? Buy a good reference book and get a few coins out every now and then when you feel like it. The chances are, like any collection, there will be a few centre pieces that are of interest and value and a whole heap of rubbish. It's much better if you can identify this yourself. or.. 2. Panic and sell it without ever really understanding what it was you were left. OK, so you are no kind of coin collector, but it isn't rocket science. Take a step back, breathe, and do some reading. Don't treat it as a chore to be got off your list, treat it as fun and you never know what you might find/learn. You can always come on here and ask questions.

Nods of agreement to all, but what I really meant was 'reads' rather than catalogues if that makes sense ? Most of us, I guess, dip in and out of the catalogue variety of book. The splendid shilling is not a catalogue, it's an historical portrait. Another example of a 'read' would be 'A Silver Legend' The story of the Maria Theresa Thaler by Clara Semple. Just wondering if there were any more of the genre to put on my list.....

I have always had this theory as to the reason behind the comparative rarity of the 1915 and 16 pennies. Mintage figures would not lead one to the conclusion that they are rare: 1914 - 50,820 1915 - 47,310,807 1916 - 86,411,165 1917 - 107,905,436 A Martian landing today, would look at those and tell you that it is the 1914 which is hard to find. I don't pretend to speak for everyone, but my experience has been that 1914 is relatively easy, it's 1915 & 16 which are hard to find in BU. My theory for this is that your 'average' penny collector of the day was almost certainly male, relatively young and was sitting in a hole in France with other things on his mind at the time. One of those things we can never know of course, but interesting to speculate.

Seasonal greetings and best wishes to all. I'm a very keen collector of books on coins, as well as coins, and I thought I would ask the Forum "If you had to take one coin book with you to prison/desert island/shopping with the missus, what would it be" I would take "The Splendid Shilling" by James O'Donald Mays It's tremendous. Any others that I need to know about ?

There's a book you need to lay your hands on as well, James, if you're going to be serious about crowns. The "Standard catalog (it's American) of world crowns and talers (taler being the word from which dollar is derived) " by Chester L.Krause and Clifford Mishler. It's a weighty tome, my edition has 1360 pages and is pretty old - I presume there are more recent editions around, though I don't know. Perhaps if you acted quickly Santa would 'Thud' one down the chimney. There may be a book dedicated solely to British Crowns, maybe someone will tell us. I'm a big fan of books about coins, in fact I have so many books about coins (more than I have actual coins) that I have to question whether I am a book collector rather than a coin collector. It's astonishing, actually, how many books about coins there are. And of course, they tend to be cheaper too. In fact, writing this, has given me an idean, I might start a new thread.

I like it, I think it captures the 'Zeitgeist' admirably - although it makes no reference to tit queens and footballers ? Seriously though, why do we beat ourselves up over the definition of our collections ? Few of us have the resources of the Schneider family, nothing most of us do will ever be significant, yet we bully ourselves to define our collections, crave gravitas. I'm beginning to think we must all be fools

A farthing gets you a guinea James, that in 5 years time you will be specialising in something else - probably the obsidional coinage of the great rebellion, or some such, so my advice would be not to worry about it too much. If you want it, buy it. The important thing is to enjoy the hobby and see where it takes you. ebay is wonderful for moving on 'mistakes', explore the whole breadth of how kings, queens, countries, parliaments etc, etc choose to portray themselves through their coins. You get to decide whether you like something or not and you don't have to explain your decision to anyone. That said, personally, I can't stand them.

How very unseasonal Sir.

Ah, ex-wives. I forgot to mention the Lighthouse capsules. These are hard 'plastic' capsules that you might want to have a look at. I've furiously dived into 'the drawer' and come up with a packet. My time with these is past, but if you want them to experiment, pm me with your address and you can have them gratis.

Hi James and welcome. How to store your coins is a personal preference and every collector probably does it differently. Albums are ok as long as the pages aren't PVC. Why don't you have a look at the Lindner coin trays ? I'm sure Chris can help you with these. There are some wonderful old coin cabinets around as well, or you could use acid free paper envelopes. Some of us use third party grading services which involve the coin being sealed into a 'slab' There are many different ways to skin this particular cat. What are you collecting ?

Oh, come now, surely not ? I once had a copy of Major LL Gordon before it was reprinted that I bought for £60 and sold for £1 because of the reprint, but you're not telling me that my £20 snaffle is worth $1000 ? So much of todays pricing is ambitious to say the least. Sometimes I wonder who's in charge of the bus and where the cliff is.... Rgds,

No Sir, not for sale, but if anyone wants anything identified Found it in a bookshop in Tunbridge Wells and managed to get it for £20 - one of my better days.

I've got Dalton & Hamer on the shelf next to me, if that's any help ?

So just the 50p and the £1 we're short of. Or have we had the £1, I've stopped paying attention......

Ditto here. The 'coppers' are toned quite badly now though. Did I read somewhere that there was an issue with the glue used in the 1970 set ? Of all of the mints proof offerings, I think the only one worth trying to get hold of is the one ounce silver proof britannia. Quite rare birds those and they tend to appreciate in value in my experience too. The rest of it ? Bah.

I've got one, though I don't use it much. There is something about it that makes me feel shifty, as if I have to constantly look over my shoulder - I never feel relaxed while detecting, myself. Also, I think maybe one has to find something 'encouraging' early doors, or the belief fades and the mud becomes more of an issue. On a side note, I believe the Saxon word for hiding something is 'Banken' It's all out there somewhere. As I said, I don't do it very often, but not many things make the heart lurch like a contact, hope springs eternal. Go on, buy a detector.

No problem at all sir, there should be more disputes in life as long as they're done properly. I don't know how you can rule out it being Roman. The Romans were in Devon for around 25 years based at Exeter, but in Britain for 400 years, anything is possible, including the everyday use of Roman artefacts by the locals. Unfortunately it's unidentifiable, but the point I was making is that if you find anything in a field, whatever it is, it's far more likely to be Roman than anything else. The Roman occupation of Britain accounts for nearly a quarter of the last two millennia. Regards to all.

As you probably know, being a detectorist, statistically, it's almost certainly Roman - most coins found in fields in the UK are. If it was me, I'd stick it in a small pot of Olive Oil and forget about it for a while (3 months +) You could also cruise ebay for pictures of uncleaned Roman coins, see what you thought, maybe even buy some for comparison. Ultimately though, whatever it's made of, I doubt you'll ever identify it. Good luck.

Yes, agree with that wholeheartedly. Overall, I think it's a good product and I use it frequently, BUT, I don't like this 'best known in population' business and certainly not the price tag that goes with it. Let's face it, in most cases the total population in slabs is very small, often less than 10, some of the prices one sees for 'best known' say an UNC85 is sometimes twice that for an UNC80. Most of that price premium seems to be because it's the 'best known'. What, out of 10 they've slabbed, I don't think I care. I have also found that they only reply to emails when they want to. Another slight irritation is that of provenance. They are quick enough to list a coin as being ex London coins, but it seems if a coin comes from another dealer's auction, it is not deemed worthy of note and the field is left blank. I think it's fair to say that there is a business plan in place. It is, however, a very stiff test of a coins grade and they seem to be very consistent. I mainly get my pennies from two sources, one invariably comes back graded lower than the other source. Whatever else you may feel about them, they don't overgrade.