Peckris

Sorry to hear that But if it's been in your family that long, it should be ok. Your best bet is to put it in an auction rather than accept (at most) 2/3 of its value from a dealer. Unless you need the money quick, of course.

norwich....nickers of ready when i come home............. beats swalk any day So what does City mean? Club In Trouble - Yikes!

The Rotographic book forum has been driving me mad the last week or so - the icon has indicated New Posts but there aren't any, so I've watched the last post date instead which is a far more irritating thing to have to do than glance at the colour of the icon. But just at random, I decided to click the icon itself - and it went from dark blue to pale blue immediately! Result

Is the Spanish Riding School not in Vienna? Nothing against the Viennese branch, but I would have thought that if there actually was a riding school in Madrid - and I'm sure there must be - it must necessarily be Spanish! Unless of course, the riding school based in Madrid is called the "Austrian Riding School"

Happy Birthday! :)

It all went slow. Now it's loading again .. strange: Oh yes - super fast today! That example looks a bit porous too, though not as much. If the local shops don't know the difference between UNC & EF I suggest you ignore what they say. If a proof, then this should be obvious, but if only EF would be impaired and not worth a premium to a currency piece. There are modern counterfeits of this issue. Courtesy of the Lebanon, 1970s, among others. They are expert fakes too, and extremely difficult to spot unless the gold was tested for purity.

I went for the 1874, F70, for an upgrade to the rather scruffy looking one I've got now. It was at £180 when I bid with 5 seconds to go ~ bid nearly £100 more (£275.75), and still missed out to the winner who bid with 2 seconds to go. Christ knows how high they bid. I was watching both of those. The 1894 money was only worth it if the obverse had matched the reverse for full blazing lustre, otherwise it was way too much IMO. As for the 1874, once I'd spotted the flaw in the planchet behind Vicky's bun and the light wear to the robes across Britannia's lap, I retired immediately. That was disfiguring ultimately, though in all other respects it was a nice penny. Just not £300 nice.

Being a country bumpkin, I have a regular postie who has become a friend. I am quite happy for him to sign for my packages as a) I trust him and it saves me the 3 mile drive the following day to get it from the sorting office. Where did that bloody smiley come from? The emoticons are simply graphical replacements for sequences of text that look vaguely like smiley faces. Unfortunately, if you actually wanted to use a b followed by a closing round bracket - you can't. Most systems that use emoticons have a way to disable an emoticon (eg using a backslash to make the characters literal) but I haven't found one that works here. b ) Yeah, a space sort of works, but any programmer worth their salt would provide a mechanism to override an otherwise default behaviour. None of them are! I speak as an ex-programmer...

The picture I posted is of my own coin Dave, which is of a fairly clear example (though it's not a great photo, I admit). I'm still not convinced about the coin for sale, even comparing with the various photos in Michael Gouby's book. I agree. There is absolutely nothing on the left of the 5, as there is in ALL Michael's examples. There is a faint ghosting to the right of both the top stroke and the main loop. If I had to stake my life savings, I would suggest it was a 5/5 recut. The puzzling element is the "teardrop" below the upright of the 5, which doesn't correspond to anything. (ETA: it could be the ball at the end of the loop, if the underlying 5 was a slightly different style than the recut one?)

Being a country bumpkin, I have a regular postie who has become a friend. I am quite happy for him to sign for my packages as a) I trust him and it saves me the 3 mile drive the following day to get it from the sorting office. Where did that bloody smiley come from? The emoticons are simply graphical replacements for sequences of text that look vaguely like smiley faces. Unfortunately, if you actually wanted to use a b followed by a closing round bracket - you can't. Most systems that use emoticons have a way to disable an emoticon (eg using a backslash to make the characters literal) but I haven't found one that works here. b )

I finally gave up waiting for that link to load, Tom.

Don't worry about the supply of proof sets drying up unless there is a huge upturn in the number of collectors. You can always pick up any year fairly easily. Maybe not the first person you see, but certainly within a few table visits. It is therefore logical to cater for those who collect individual denominations. If I have duplicate year sets I will usually break the one with the worst condition packaging to provide the singletons. No qualms. As I have done in the past, also without qualms.

Now you've had it certified genuine, that's one weight off your mind. The condition is somewhere between Fine and Very Fine, I'd say nearer to Fine myself. As a VERY rough guide, allow 1/25 - 1/30 of the realised prices for Fine, and up to 1/10 maximum for VF. (Judging by Spink values). No comment Dave, except to ask "Doesn't the Aye-Phone have a scroll bar?" I read what was written Peck, but as Peter has also said, my concern was it being porous. As we all know, NGC have made some glaring mistakes on English coins which have been recently highlighted on this very forum. So it's still a concern for me my old bean................Has anyone else heard of porous Gold? It may or may not be genuine, but if you have a slip from NGC saying "genuine", and you want to sell it, then it is

Yes but... here are a couple of cases in point. Both of these were fresh out of a sealed 1970 set. Neither qualify for FDC in my view, and in point of fact, left the mint that way, the first because it's got a couple of minor scratches on the bust and the second because some bozo at the mint has stuck his thumb on it! If these were not proof, you could still describe them as Unc, the first for the reason that 'bag abrasions' are permitted, the second because toning doesn't affect a coin's uncirculated status. But as proof coins, they don't as I have said qualify for FDC, 'uncirculated' goes without saying and really doesn't help us much, GEF implies some wear which they patently haven't got and I really don't want to go down the route of calling them AFDC because that is utter gibberish! So what do I call them? Perhaps I ought to get out more... Toning doesn't usually affect FDC status, but it doesn't apply to 'bozo thumbprint"

The acid is oleic acid, and very mild. It doesn't combine with other acids, which is why oil and vinegar always separate (or maybe the acid is bonded into the oil in such a way that while an oil, it doesn't behave like an acid?)

Now you've had it certified genuine, that's one weight off your mind. The condition is somewhere between Fine and Very Fine, I'd say nearer to Fine myself. As a VERY rough guide, allow 1/25 - 1/30 of the realised prices for Fine, and up to 1/10 maximum for VF. (Judging by Spink values). No comment Dave, except to ask "Doesn't the Aye-Phone have a scroll bar?"

Be careful - be very careful! I don't want to dent your enthusiasm, and modern proof sets are a nice thing to have ... but ... they are overpriced by the Mint when issued, and over-valued by Spink as a consequence. If you go to auctions, you can pick up proof sets for much less than their original issue price, e.g. half. I'm not up with current Spink prices so I couldn't comment on your dealer's pricing of £15 - £30. (If you like them and aren't looking to make a profit in the foreseeable future, then price is perhaps less of an issue). As for singletons adding up to more than the price of a set - that's partly due to some coins being not issued as currency strikes, which raises their value to date collectors. The entire 1972 set is one such example - the only 1972 coin issued was a 25p commem so the whole set, and the individual coins, are valued higher. In other years, only one or a few denominations weren't issued so those will be higher - but only to date collectors who won't be interested in shelling out for the entire set which will therefore not reflect the higher value of singletons. Yes, it sounds confusing, but you will probably also find that even singletons are over-valued in Spink. But collect what you enjoy, and if that's modern proof sets, go for it! (But don't forget auctions, where you can buy a whole bunch of them for around half of their Spink price. Or at least, you used to be able to.)

Just so PCGS doesn't feel left out, here's an example of their incompetence. Incompetence indeed - though neither variety is rare, the thin rim is the scarcer one.

That will be inevitable I'm afraid, where the verdigris has actually eaten away the affected surface of the coin. The only alternative is to convert the verdigris itself into another, non-corrosive substance - it may be that diluted vinegar will do that? Not sure - it will certainly lighten the rest of the coin and leave the verdigris as a dark patch, but not green.

:lol: That piranha was obviously taking a fancy to Liz's chin - look, it's left its teeth marks!

It's a good sharp strike with all the details showing and minimal wear to the high points, so I would grade at GEF. For me personally, I would like to see some lustre though many collectors prefer attractive toning over patchy lustre. I think the price achieved was fair for the year and coin. Full lustre examples are going to be £200+, that was a nice 1863 penny and I am one of those collectors that likes nice attractive toning I agree with both assessments. Very fair coin and a fair price.

If it looks EXACTLY the same coin, then I would suggest it's comparatively modern. Possibly an imitation of a Greek coin? Nice reverse design of sow with piglets!

I would presume that "choice FDC" refers to a coin that's beautifully toned? However, I do think the term is piss poor, as a picture or description of the toning would be better than such puff. And yes, AFDC is without meaning (it's as stupid as "almost unique").

FDC is only used for coins with absolutely no blemishes of any kind (knocks, edge bumps, scratches, gouges, wear, imperfections). Understand that proofs are minted in a special way according to very exacting standards - only such coins are guaranteed blemish-free by a mint. Interestingly, FDC doesn't include toning, so a coin that's untoned, nicely toned, or ugly, can all still technically be described as FDC, so make sure you see a picture!

Which numbers did you pick? (Just out of interest, you understand..)