£400 for a Penny ?

Just as long as Spink aren't reprinting it and this is everyone rushing to get rid before the bottom falls out of the market One could easily make a case for them doing it - they are known to have bought from ebay, copper is on fire and they might take the view that making Peck widely available will pour petrol on the flames - and above all else, if the price is £150 then there is probably a good market for the book. I hate it when they do that. Hope I'm wrong...

Is this a normal level of Peck trading or are there quite a few appearing at the moment ?

I believe they use 60% of Spink ?

I ran my own business for 3 years. We had 5 staff and one day I got carried out feet first into an ambulance. It is enjoyable working for yourself, planting your standard in the ground and saying, I fight from here. Looking back on the experience from a distance now, the one thing that I took from it and would pass on is this: Never go into any enterprise unless you can visualise the ending.

You'll get a reputation for yourself....

They were collected by his younger self. Pay attention now Peter.....

Bazaar coin is probably the appropriate phrase. It's most likely a gimmick. If you put £2 coins into liquid nitrogen the middle falls out due to the different expansion coefficients of the two metals. Reinsert the centre piece the wrong way round whilst still cold and you get what you see. How many would you like? Fascinating.

It's not really a case of is it cheap, but does it represent good value, i.e. if you were Bahrain (where incidentally the average wealth of a citizen is £11 million pounds ) and you were looking for an alternative investment, could you make money out of buying Ireland and would the people of Ireland be agreeable to becoming Bahrani. I would say no to the first point, because Ireland doesn't really make much, it's mostly about banking and all their banks are stuffed and anyway Bahrain has it's own banks. Secondly, the Irish don't like foreign powers messing about in their domestic politics. In time, when things get really bad, people will have to get their heads around this and it will be interesting to watch, almost 19th century politics in reverse. It's not really any different to the Glazers buying Manchester Utd, only on a grander scale

Yeah. At the end of september I decided it might not be a bad idea to lay in a few 1OZ silver Britannia's, so I started bidding £21. I got 5 but the pressure was definitely upwards, I missed out on about 20. Now you can't get one for £30. And that's happened in just over a month.

Met him too.

I met him once. I just hope Spink don't reprint it, I hate it when they do that.

There is quite a lot to be said for concentrating your efforts on a particular series, because they all have their own peculiarities, rarities and grading foibles. I'm a penny collector and I could easily make an arse of myself with a shilling for example. (I can still do it with pennies) Having said that, I do appreciate that when you are starting out the temptation is to dart about exploring. Also needs to be said that in my opinion, the 'safest' beginners coin is the sovereign.

Very 'Chris Yates' of you.....

I think that in 50-75 years time we will have seen a catastrophic failure of a sovereign nation, so a question such as the one you pose, probably will get lost in the wider scheme of things. From an economists point of view, I thought the most fascinating act in the first round of the credit crunch a couple of years ago, was Russia's genuine offer to buy Iceland. It was rejected by the international community, but it does illustrate the way the future superpowers of the world are thinking. Can you imagine the implications of the UK going bust and being bought by, say, India ? You would have to say that we are sitting ducks - we must be quite attractive in terms of potential savings/profit that a competent regime could bring just by running the country efficiently and effectively in a way which we are no longer able to do ourselves.

What did you get for it ?

I ran a business a few years ago - it wasn't coins. Website traffic is everything these days. Are you familiar with Google Adwords ? If not, these are the results which come up on the right hand side of the page when you google something. You have to pay based on an open market system, e.g if you want to appear as the first result when someone google's 'wreath crowns' you bid for it. Now that may cost you as little as 5p a hit, but if I'm also out there competeing with you to be first, I might be prepared to pay 6p and on it goes. You can restrict the amount of physical spend a day - e.g. on this day I want to spend no more than £20. £20 might last until 10.00am or you might go all the way to midnight having only spent 50p, it depends on the number of hits you get. It's a very effective tool and I got to the stage where I could pretty much make the telephone ring at will. The other big challenge is to get an effective checkout and payment system.

Talking of inflation, being an Army brat, I was in Germany in the early 70's and my pocket money was 1 Deutschmark a week. 10p basically. When the Germans joined the Euro, a D'Mark was 3 to the pound I arrived in the UK to learn (yet another) curency and I was instantly taken with the old florin (doubling as 10p) I liked those. Things that Germany does better than England - cold wursts at breakfast, schnitzels and busty maidens without foul mouths. Things England does better than Germany - warm bitter and rugby. Curry.

Encouraging that it got removed so quick, no ?

Interested in what circumstances a wage packet would remain unopened ? I think we all drank light and bitter because it was the trend. My local used to have 14 different pumps in those days, serving 6 different courage bitters. On a friday or saturday night you had to get there by 7.30pm or risk being turned away as the place was stuffed to the rafters, everyone went there. 30 years later there are seldom more than a handful of people in there at anytime.

Looks and sounds eminently plausible...

Compared to Australia where everything is commemorated, we are still fairly restrained. At least we haven't got onto silly 'privy' marks - yet.....

Hello Beth, And welcome along. I would support 1949 and suggest that if one wished to concentrate on any one particular area hoping that it might prove more fruitful than the others, then £2's would be my bet. Apart from anything else, it's the most interesting for the simple reason that they don't come along all that often.

That would match my experience. In comfortably over a 1000 trades, both in and out, I have had an India General Service Medal basically stolen on it's way to the isle of wight, a package from Oz opened and some of the contents removed, and a coin from san fransisco that never showed. Apart from that, I've sent bayonets to Queensland that turned up in 4 days, it's pretty good really IME. One ebay win sticks in my mind, I bought a Krugerrand on ebay and the clown posted it in one of those A4 soft plastic envelopes you can get at the post office for special delivery. No packaging, nothing, just a Kruger basically in klingfilm. I got it though.

Welcome. Are you suggesting that the two coins are too exactly similar in their wear points ? If so, we would need bigger and better pictures. As you collect sovs, I'm sure you already know of the existence of these: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sovereign-Scales-Balance-Box-/330496694458?pt=UK_Collectable_ToolsHasdware_RL&hash=item4cf32358ba Very simple (like all good ideas) if it doesn't balance the scales correctly or fit through the slot, then it isn't a sov. Good enough for the Victorians, good enough for me.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/REPLICA-1922-Australia-ONE-PENNY-COIN-COPY-UNC-/270607425131?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f01759e6b Because it surely won't be long before they aren't stamped copy