Peckris

Welcome to the forums Svenska That's a nice example. Good purchase. But, are you sure it's an adjustment and not a die flaw? Just a thought. Thanks for the comments - I think Rob is entirely correct - It was only in the London Coins catalogue description the dot was referred to as an alignment spot. It must be more likely to be a die flaw. Ah, looking at the timings, I see Rob and I overlapped, so I never saw his post until now!

I'm a bit confused - are you saying that a Georgian forgery has itself been faked in China and passed off as a genuine item? I'm assuming you haven't started collecting modern Chinese fakes! Its a standard fake of a genuine coin - All fakes of George III (silver) is of interest to me. Seems the model for the chinese fakes were a 1818 coin as both the 1819 and 1820 counterfeits are incorrect. Nope, I'm still confused! I don't know what you mean about '1819 and 1829 counterfeits are incorrect'? However, if you've extended your interest to Chinese fakes, then it's your business of course, but I'd advise caution...

Don't believe everything they tell you. I phoned FL last year about my low cost endowment (paid up halfway through term). They told me "About 9k". I asked if this included final bonus and was told that would bring it just short of £10k. Now I'm told they're sending me a cheque for £13k. And the economy is even worse than this time last year! £3k would be a nice out on the town Peck.I have to rely on Tesco vouchers. Or a set of UNC Ed VII silver, lunch at The Ivy, admission to the Olympic 100 metres final, and the cab fare home! Not to mention only Tesco Finest from then on...

I'm a bit confused - are you saying that a Georgian forgery has itself been faked in China and passed off as a genuine item? I'm assuming you haven't started collecting modern Chinese fakes!

Welcome to the forums Svenska That's a nice example. Good purchase. But, are you sure it's an adjustment and not a die flaw? Just a thought.

Yes, if you can get to a fair, you achieve several objectives - meet and get to know different dealers (and they get to know you), see a good selection of coins, get good advice, and probably pick up a few bargains too. I should say so - £810 will get you a 1902 LT proof Therein lies both the problem and the advantage. In middle grades you are spoilt for choice about the problem but can usually pick up a cheap example of most things. Obviously, in most cases it will just be wear but in this case it was verd too. If not happy with a problem, leave the coin and move on. It's always better to buy something where you wouldn't have any intention of upgrading. Do that a few times and magically you find you have enough for a coin that's a grade up on what you intended to spend originally. Buying middle grade coins can actually be quite rewarding but what you MUST do, is ensure you buy problem free coins - no edge knocks, good patina, uncleaned etc. etc. That way, the coins will be easy to sell on, and who knows you might like a coin so much that you decide to keep it long term. I agree. Middle grades can often be good value. And a GVF with lovely tone and no flaws beats an EF or GEF with bits of patchy lustre and uneven tone, IMO. I once had a superb GVF 1902 penny with even dark tone and wonderful hair detail. I wish I'd kept it even though I now have a BU.

Don't believe everything they tell you. I phoned FL last year about my low cost endowment (paid up halfway through term). They told me "About 9k". I asked if this included final bonus and was told that would bring it just short of £10k. Now I'm told they're sending me a cheque for £13k. And the economy is even worse than this time last year!

Thanks, that is very helpful Peck. I have been dismissing coins that I otherwise really like recently, because I thought anything green was verd! It is only since I read an article yesterday, about halting the damage, that I realised green spots are not always verd. I think the best thing for me to do, until I learn to tell the difference myself, is to check with you guys before parting with my money. I am glad I did with this coin now! I just hope you do not get bored with all my newb questions, as I am sure there will be many more! We wouldn't necessarily know from a picture whether it's V or staining. The best thing, if in doubt, is contact the seller and mention there's a green patch, and what is it?

That baffles me - considering that blanks are fed into the press by automated machinery, how could anyone deliberately align a sixpence with the dies?

I would say (judging from the picture) it's certainly VF for wear, but less if you calculate in the other flaws. There is very little wear on the legend which makes me think "VF", but I'd want to see the reverse before fully committing. Green is often verdigris, which is matt and rough in texture. Similar, but glossy and enduring, is the overall green you see when a penny has been buried in the ground for quite a time. This can be called a sort of patina and you will never remove it, but sometimes it adds to the character of a coin, though vastly reducing its value. Occasionally green patches can be caused by staining of one type or another.

While I agree with Rob - profits aren't immoral - I do think that when profits are put ahead of the public service being provided, then that leads to skewed ethics and therefore skewed practice. That's why the original Quaker banks were a success : they combined strong ethics with providing a service many people wanted - their profitability was a natural outcome. As for insurance, one glaring abuse of business ethics is UNUM Provident, who provided crritical illness and disability policies to employed people, then found every excuse in the book to avoid paying out on them. Their dubious code of ethics has transferred to their French subsidiary ATOS Healthcare, who are currently assessing every disabled person in this country for the DWP, and finding many of them 'fit for work'; a high % of these are overturned at appeal. So while profits per se aren't immoral, there's nothing communist or hippie-ish about wanting them to be the result of strong business ethics.

Spot on Peck. I have never seen a slab with a space for an old coin ticket. Quite right! They should have thought of that right at the start. If any are lurking here, how about it?

I bought quite often from Colin when he was still alive. I was always happy with the service, and Colin used to add lengthy notes to the invoices in relation to my Wants list His grading could sometimes be a little on the optimistic side (and still is!) but allthough I returned a few coins, I always got a prompt refund. I'd say buy with confidence, but the CC best is in the top grades.

Rob is the man, and he's given a good answer. However the key phrase is "if you're buying at the top end of the market". If, like me, you have gradually made your focus the milled series, then only the very highest grade, rarest, patterns and some proofs, or new varieties will count. Needless to say, I don't own any such piece. As for the post-1816 milled, there's little there that would benefit from provenance - patterns, the rarest proofs of William IV and Victoria, unique items, that's about it. What seems to have replaced provenance is the TPG services. Its ironic that a slabbed coin commands more of a premium than the old-fashioned kind of provenance that floats Rob's boat and is infinitely more interesting than a plastic slab.

Robbing bar stewards. The whole banking system needs better regulated, but just like goverment, they do as they please, rip off customers with a £35 bank charge for going a £1 overdrawn, charge £30 to make an EU bank transaction, its free in Germany. Just shows how much the UK public are ripped off by banks. I read the other day Mercyn King forced the Barclays Chief out because he was'nt going freely............... There will always be complaints about bank charges until the true cost of a service is reflected in the fee structure. Nothing in life comes for free, every action in a business has a cost. If the banks would stop cross-subsidies and make people pay for services received, the cost of going overdrawn for example would drop. Everyone likes the idea of "free banking" just as everyone thinks the customer is ripped off when going overdrawn. One is just the quid pro quo for the other. The fairest solution would be for everyone who uses the banking industry to pay for their accurately costed services, but then that would mean everyone complaining because the banks are charging THEM for daring to write out a cheque, or use the cash dispenser, or make a transaction, or whatever. With no free lunch on the table - people will just moan whatever the situation. What you're forgetting though, is that we are a captive audience. The vast majority of working people, and even those on benefits nowadays, have no choice but to use the banks. None of us can opt to have our wages paid in notes and coins each week, via a brown envelope, as I understand used to be the case many decades ago. We have to be paid via banks....... ,,,,,and newsflash, banks are not user friendly. Literally every single act they perpetrate, however they dress it up, is profit driven, wholly for their own convenience, and anything but for the well being of their customers. Moreover, as far no free lunch, yes, you're right. But the up front charges of banks are out of all proportion to the real cost. The stories about people going a few pence into the red for one day, and getting stung for a £35 fee, are real. They aren't Daily Mail hype, as I can duly testify. They continue to close branches considered to be non cost effective, despite the adverse effects incurred to customers in the towns concerned. Not everybody does their banking via the internet, and need the reassurance of face to face contact, especially elderly people. Again, this is 100% based on their own convenience. They couldn't give a toss about their customers. In some places they haven't even had the courtesy to leave a free ATM. You mentioned cheques, another old fashioned valuable facility they would like to abolish for their own convenience. Fortunately this is one area where they've found themselves squashed, and the cheque, used less, but still highly useful in certain situations, will remain beyond 2018. At least it might mean that fewer tradesmen get paid in cash and thereby avoid income tax, something that will no doubt please those politicians who now seem to be regularly offering up sanctimonious lectures about tax avoidance/evasion, whilst staying strangely silent about when the billions of bailout money will be repaid to the taxpayer (this year, next year, sometime never, probably. So I say, roll on the challenger banks. Maybe they will act with more customer care principles in mind.....well, we can always hope And don't forget the £5 note shortage a few years back. It was apparently caused by the banks who hated them, as they couldn't dispense them in ATMs (minimum £10). I think customers protested long a loud about the number of coins they had to lug around because of the shortage, and maybe that's why they seem to be in ready supply again.

That does look more useful and versatile than a spreadsheet Peck. I did not even look to see if Microsoft Works has database software... It does! The templates on offer are of no use for listing coin data, but this is what it looks like blank. When I get some spare time, I will have to have a play around with it and see what I can create Great - it will only be a simple database, Access-lite, but I'm prepared to bet it's more powerful and versatile than the MS Works spreadsheet. Make sure it includes total / summary fields where you can dynamically see the running total of - e.g. - your purchase costs, latest values, etc.

You could go for specific Roman coins minted in Britain, but there's not much point unless you're specialising - they're rarer and more expensive, and anyway coins circulated throughout the Empire. The best value are denarii of the later emperors, you can pick up high grade examples for under £100. The early coppers - big beasts like the dupondius and sestertius - are quite pricey, but later, smaller bronzes can be very cheap. Especially those of Constantine, Constantius, Constans, etc. Again, high grade examples can be picked up comparatively cheap. Then there's the anoninianus - these virtually replaced the tdenarius in their cash-strapped economy, and are basically bronze coins washed with silver. Also cheap. Roman coins are nice to have, and as you've noticed, very affordable. Thanks Peck. Your post has just reminded me of something! Perhaps the coin bug seed was planted in me long ago, and has just been laying dormant, I completely forgot about this. Here is that little story When I was around 12 years old, I was browsing a boot fair with a friend. I walked past a stall that had one of those glass cabinets full of jewellery and such. Something caught my eye, it was not a shiny piece of metal, but more like a lump of dirt! Turned out it was a "Roman" coin, which I purchased for the sum of £1. I took it home and showed my parents, and asked "how can I clean it?", the advice was to stick it in vinegar! Which I did. In the morning ALL of the claggy dirt had gone, and I was left with a coin that had a nice looking portrait, and what looked like a pig feeding its young on the reverse. The next weekend, me and my friend (without permission of course), "bunked" a train to Rochester, visited the Guild Hall Museum and asked if they could tell me anything about my coin. They kindly took us into what looked like one of those posh libraries you see in films, sat us down and said "we wont be long". They came back with a little piece of paper with the details of my coin written on it, and a book with a picture of similar reverses. Turned out it was a coin dated sometime just before BC! It is a shame I can not remember the details now. The coin was tucked away, never touched again, until ebay hit the internet! I sold it for around £25-£30 if I remember rightly. I wish I had kept it now The buyer left feedback saying they loved the coin, so I guess that is some consolation, that it went to a good home. Phew!... That was a long post, like a can of Pringles, I could not stop Fascinating - I found a Julia Domna denarius in the spoil heap of an archaeological dig ("finders keepers" was the rule with spoil heaps), and I too cleaned the clag off it by soaking overnight in vinegar. Sadly as an impoverished student in the 1970s I needed cash and sold it to a dealer for £7, a good few pints back then But I have since bought a Julia Domna denarius in quite high grade so all is not lost (and the £60 I paid for it was only a tickle to me then compared with the £7 in the 1970s).

Robbing bar stewards. The whole banking system needs better regulated, but just like goverment, they do as they please, rip off customers with a £35 bank charge for going a £1 overdrawn, charge £30 to make an EU bank transaction, its free in Germany. Just shows how much the UK public are ripped off by banks. I read the other day Mercyn King forced the Barclays Chief out because he was'nt going freely............... There will always be complaints about bank charges until the true cost of a service is reflected in the fee structure. Nothing in life comes for free, every action in a business has a cost. If the banks would stop cross-subsidies and make people pay for services received, the cost of going overdrawn for example would drop. Everyone likes the idea of "free banking" just as everyone thinks the customer is ripped off when going overdrawn. One is just the quid pro quo for the other. The fairest solution would be for everyone who uses the banking industry to pay for their accurately costed services, but then that would mean everyone complaining because the banks are charging THEM for daring to write out a cheque, or use the cash dispenser, or make a transaction, or whatever. With no free lunch on the table - people will just moan whatever the situation. Yeah but no but yeah but no.. I can see that for everyday banking they have a right to recover their costs (though those costs are vastly reduced when enough people use their online services), but it's their investment arms that have caused all the trouble and mess we're in. If banks had stuck to what they traditionally did - lending money and taking deposits - there wouldn't be the issues we have with them, and apart from a bit of grumbling about charges (the way of the world!) we'd all get along fine. The trouble is that banks have become massive multinational corporations that operate across national boundaries, hold entire economies to ransom, have a significant hand in Third World poverty, and all in the name of profit. The Quakers who started Barclays and Lloyds would be spinning in their graves at the thought of the behemoth that banking has turned into. The Nationwide is more akin to what banks used to be, differing only in that it's a mutual.

These are given out by Spink with their SCBC. They're good fun. Pfft - a biit easy looking at the pieces size! now if there was a 2000 piece jigsaw of both sides of a 1933 penny..

What date, time, Peter? Do you want that in the Julian or Gregorian calendar ?

I am going to rename you Pessimeter! A true Fine 19KN would go for a few pounds, maybe even £10 - £15 on the right day on eBay, maybe half that at a fair. It would have to be pretty damn worn to only fetch 99p.

The attachment in question: Hopefully it speaks for itself!

Not a problem for me pies, I can "sort" any of the columns whenever I need to, with the click of a button!... by date, denomination, grade etc. and also by denomination + date. That is one of the good things about a spreadsheet It seems to me a great pity that databases have gone out of fashion - they are much more powerful and versatile, and unrestrained by columns and rows (unless you "convert to table" which you can do for a particular layout), you can create layouts of great beauty and elegance, with fields where you want them, drop down lists to select from and save typing, and yet still with a range of calculations and functions available, just like a spreadsheet. And you can have total fields, summary fields etc Apple Works came with a simple database - is there one in MS Works? If so, and assuming it has a good range of functions, you might find you don't need Excel. Here is an example of one of my layouts (history of Seaby/Spink values) oops, it won't let me add an attschment on a Edit - see next post

It makes you wonder if the person responsible did it hoping to creqte a future rarity? After all, in purely monetqry terms, his 1p cost him 2.5p! Unless it really was an accident, but you would wonder how on earth it could happen with all the security they must have.

You could go for specific Roman coins minted in Britain, but there's not much point unless you're specialising - they're rarer and more expensive, and anyway coins circulated throughout the Empire. The best value are denarii of the later emperors, you can pick up high grade examples for under £100. The early coppers - big beasts like the dupondius and sestertius - are quite pricey, but later, smaller bronzes can be very cheap. Especially those of Constantine, Constantius, Constans, etc. Again, high grade examples can be picked up comparatively cheap. Then there's the anoninianus - these virtually replaced the tdenarius in their cash-strapped economy, and are basically bronze coins washed with silver. Also cheap. Roman coins are nice to have, and as you've noticed, very affordable.