Peckris

I agree with you David. Baldwins have a full lustre example in their Winter Fixed Price list for a hefty £1,750. Mine has a the remnants of lustre: Beautiful - that's the best I've seen. I dare not ask how much you paid! I paid £420 about 3 years ago. I know that a significantly better one would be over £1k now. I just checked Baldwin's website and note that their 1897 High Tide is no longer listed, which suggests it sold for around the £1,750 asking! That would have to have lots of lustre IMO. Anyway, I really like the toning on yours.

Yes, absolutely. It was the tendency towards overpricing the modern coins which, in retrospect, seems a bit odd. But, like so many things of any given era, it was probably totally the right thing at the time, or seemed so. What is obvious is that huge quantities of circulated coins were being taken out of circulation and offered by dealers at enhanced prices. Another noticeable trend was the one of offering for sale, tubes or mint bags of uncirculated modern coins. I wonder if psychologically, the effect of seeing uncirculated items which were theroretically still available from circulating coins, but in practice almost impossible to find, lent them the cache they needed, pre decimalisation, to cause an unrealistic explosion in prices. Just a thought. I did notice a BU 1918KN which was being offered at £150 (just over £2000 today), and indeed, £2000 might well be what it would change hands for now. Possibly more. Those issues of Coin Monthly are just packed with ads from dealers offering quantities (sometimes quite large!) of 1960s coins in BU for a premium over face - the premium increasing year on year as you went back. Noticeably it dried up once you got back to the 1950s, with a few exceptions like 1959 sixpences, 1957/1959E shillings, 1958/1959 halfpennies, stuff like that. There must be two of those ads for every one offering 'proper' coins. It is certainly the people who 'invested' in such things, or in buying up low grade 'key dates', who got burned the worst.

Sometimes I can upgrade and have no regrets, but I will look at the coin it replaces and think "Hey, I still like it" and then it goes into what Declan calls a B collection (though it's not organised as such!). I remember when I got my first BU Eddy penny in the 70s (yeah yeah 1902) it replaced one that was dark in colour and AEF. But somehow, the older one begged to be kept, and being dark with a little rubbing wear to highlight the hair details, it was easier to see the hair details than on the BU specimen. Weird I know, but there you go.

Mine fits as snug as it can be into a cut out in a tray in one of Peter Nicholls' mahogany cabinets ... which is fine until you want to see the other side, then it's an absolute B to get out of its little "prison".

I agree with you David. Baldwins have a full lustre example in their Winter Fixed Price list for a hefty £1,750. Mine has a the remnants of lustre: Beautiful - that's the best I've seen. I dare not ask how much you paid!

Yeah. Never mind buying coins to slab and sell in the US ... we should be building a time machine, going back and buying up everything at 1960's prices! But nothing post-1936 Maybe we should think about selling some items at 1969 prices !!! I can't believe some of the prices back then. For instance, in November 1969, "Earl of Tooting" were asking £60-0-0 for an UNC 1925 shilling, and £25-0-0 a piece for uncirculated 1930 & 1934 shillings. Manor Antiques wanted £8-0-0 for a BU 1958 threepence, "City Coins" were asking £24-0-0 for a GVF 1949 threepence. "Joan E Allen & Company" were asking £48-0-0 for a BU1932 penny. Given that the average weekly wage back then was £26-0-0 it's no wonder the average punter would have been priced out of many good purchases. I know - the ultimate silliness in my book was from a 1970 price guide, where a BU 1932 penny was valued at £50, while a BU 1797 twopence was valued at a mere £35! Two weeks' wages for the 1932!! £50 then adjusted for inflation, would be £683.50 now ~ for a BU 1932 penny !!! Some people must actually have paid those amounts, and sustained a significant loss on their investment subsequently. Even if collected as a hobby for keeps, there'd still be the gnawing feeling that if they'd waited, they'd have got the item/s massively cheaper. inflation calculator edit: at 2010 prices I suppose the fever was so strong that no-one predicted that the end of predecimal coinage would actually have the opposite effect on prices. But it's also true to say that pre-1887 stuff was at least as undervalued as some modern stuff was overvalued. But it didn't all come out in the wash until the mid-70s. I think dealers must have suffered the worst in the lead-up to 1971. Yet those who concentrated on the 'average punter' like R&L, the Beaumonts, Peter Ireland, etc, seemed to survive for a good few years unlike the serial overpricers such as Mayfair and Joan E Allen etc.

Which is why, as a very junior employee in that era, I stopped collecting coins once predecimal stuff couldn't be got from circulation, just too expensive for me then - and that was before mortgage and kids I was fresh out of school - even more poverty-stricken than a guy with a mortgage and kids

Exellent! Thankyou very much for providing that information davidrj. Thats great news and a big help. (how does the saying go? buy the book nefore the coin) Louis seems quite character! Just like all 16th Kings i suppose, Looks like he was busy fighting in 1693 in Belgium. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XIV_of_France I emailed the editor, and some other specialist in France. I'll post the response here. Many thanks. #walks towards the door and slowly turns one other question! #the assembly gasps in the listing provided by davidrj it states "36.384 rf" "rf" = refrappe (restrike on earlier issue) does my example show evidence of this?? :unsure: C'est possible, peut-être? Mais il n'est pas très clair, à mes yeux!

Yeah. Never mind buying coins to slab and sell in the US ... we should be building a time machine, going back and buying up everything at 1960's prices! But nothing post-1936 Maybe we should think about selling some items at 1969 prices !!! I can't believe some of the prices back then. For instance, in November 1969, "Earl of Tooting" were asking £60-0-0 for an UNC 1925 shilling, and £25-0-0 a piece for uncirculated 1930 & 1934 shillings. Manor Antiques wanted £8-0-0 for a BU 1958 threepence, "City Coins" were asking £24-0-0 for a GVF 1949 threepence. "Joan E Allen & Company" were asking £48-0-0 for a BU1932 penny. Given that the average weekly wage back then was £26-0-0 it's no wonder the average punter would have been priced out of many good purchases. I know - the ultimate silliness in my book was from a 1970 price guide, where a BU 1932 penny was valued at £50, while a BU 1797 twopence was valued at a mere £35! Two weeks' wages for the 1932!!

Certainly fits the picture of S1699 in Spink.

That would be a clincher You could have said, though...

I wonder how you're sure about that - considering their UK portraits are almost identical?

Sorry, photos only! And scans?

Don't know ~ could be, but need a better pic. Agreed

The Royal Mint's currency striking standards have slipped appallingly in recent years - there are any number of errors, often 'blobs' of metal appearing somewhere on the design. Some people do collect these, but IMO they crop up too often to be of any real value, compared to the rarity of such phenomena predecimal (e.g. the 1946 'die flaw' penny).

This sounds a fantastic idea, and though I'm too feeble these days to offer practical help, I'm all in favour. Personally I like the denomination idea (i.e. much like CCGB and Colin Cooke and Freeman and ESC), then probably going back in time, like CC does. One slight problem - I'm too disabled now to operate a setup to take photos of coins, and my scanner - like all scanners - is great for detail but lousy for tone, lustre, etc. For example, my scan of a virtually "As struck" Queen Anne shilling looks dreadfully ordinary, nothing like what it does in hand. That would put all my best coins at a disadvantage I'm afraid, as the scans would look pretty nondescript. It would also put anyone else in a similar position, or those who simply cannot take decent photos of coins, at the same disadvantage.

Well it IS a scarce variety in a high grade. I'm not surprised. That may well set a benchmark for 'price guides' though I suspect they give eBay a wide berth.

Nice You've got a plethora of reverse indicators - the downstrokes of the R T I or N can all be used as pointings

BU value is between £20 and £30 - if it becomes more popular, that could go up a fair way (undervalued IMO).

Yeah. Never mind buying coins to slab and sell in the US ... we should be building a time machine, going back and buying up everything at 1960's prices! But nothing post-1936

There used to be an application (in the 80s and 90s) called HyperCard - using it you could build the equivalent of a website, i.e. something with pictures and links to other pages, in a pretty short time whether you had IT experience or not. HTML is just the same really, and evolved from HyperCard which itself was based on HyperText which is as old as the hills. It sounds much more complicated than it is.

Ask our friend Accumulator, who has done such a sterling job on his pennies. Whether it was a simple job though.. now you're asking.

You knew it was 1927 all the time, didn't you Stuart ? Just joshing with us to see who was on the ball........ I have to confess I was on the ayePhone again, and couldn't actually make out the numerals! I did go to the trouble of opening up Freeman & Peck with beating heart, wondering whether I'd missed some massive mint error or something! Whoops! Reminds me of the time my blood pressure rose to feverish heights when a seller on eBay had a 1928 penny with the larger portrait of 1927. I was all poised to bid a silly price when I just happened to notice he also had a 1927 penny with the smaller portrait. Blood pressure dip, loud sigh, finger off the trigger...

Just to extend thanks to Rob for a very kind offer, which I've accepted, of some old Coin Monthly mags at a very reasonable price. Thanks Rob They arrived today and I've been reading one or two from 1969 (only two months so far). First impression are of a pre-occupation with 1951 pennies back then. They were almost the holy grail. One dealer wanted more for a BU specimen, than for an uncirculated 1881. I'm intrigued by some of the prices being charged back then, and might well do some comparative experiments with inflation and today's prices. They really are an intersting read. Once again thanks to Rob. Snap - I filled in some gaps from Rob's "stash", and you're right, they make very interesting reading. In one 1969 advert, there's a grid of UNC coins in all denominations from 1937 to 1967 - they are asking £35 for a 1959 halfcrown. Turn the page, and Lincoln Coins are asking £22 for an EF 1689 halfcrown, and £33 for a "Vir. BU" 1836 halfcrown. What absolute madness those times were.

That's complete and utter bo***cks. Virtually flat or better would be more appropriate. I assume Virtually Flat was deliberate Rob?