azda

I had a 2 email discussion about the attached coin, his grading was VF-EF, i emailed because i firmly believed that in no Way should this coin even Have an EF anywhere attributed on it. As we know with poor grading comes inflated prices which in turn may take years to even achieve the price that you initially bought it for. I'll copy amd Paste his replies in due course, but your comments are invited on your thoughts of the grade, i may even invite him to click on the forum if He wishes to read the comments and how we actually grade british coins

Many forgeries of these of which one was highlighted in the ebay section of the forum just a few weeks back with the same story from an old collection. If he wants to sell it tell him to send it to CGS first ifhe believe it to be genuine and tell him you'll only buy if if they then send it back in a slab as a genuine coin, you don't want ripped for a few grand

Normally yes, but those coins will also command a premium.

Every coin that arrives via ebay is rare because the seller says so and the buyer has'nt done his homework. Coins in low grade nvf etc are'nt worth their salt Right now unfortunately, but welcome to the forum And i hope you have'nt paid much for those

55 years young. Lets hope you don't start a fire with that amount of candles on the cake , if you should, Then save the coins first, women amd children second (null)

Well done Mckenzie, but open your eyes, coincraft is the worst place to buy, darkly lit and Dickensian, its like that so you don't see the shite they're selling you

Each to their own.

I've said it before, but who Exactly is saying "slab a coin amd get top $" Well of course it's the TPGs because it's in their interest to get people to salb coins. It's American marketing at it's best and the sheep will naturally do as they're told and follow the masses. In heritage their start prices for British coins are generally at Spink book price for said grade, so of course it's going to achieve more ESPECIALLY if you have no option to start bidding at a lower price amd see where it goes. I buy a coin on eye appeal and it's price, not on what a slab grade tells me, mamy times we have seen American TPGs slab a coin at a grade that would never achieve the same grade in the UK by the more astute buyers, countless times i've seen american slabs in English auctions that never achieve the price because of the grade and same goes for the number on the slab, we work a little more differently Marvin and not sucked into the American hype and marketing Jaggy bought an unslabbed coin in a heritage auction and Sold it a month later and made $1000? On it, i'm sure that was a raw coin which in turn makes a bit of a mockery of "slab a coin" to achieve more, it's down to buyers on the day and how much they want a coin

Has CGS ever slabbed a fake?

There is a small bell tab in your ebay, this tells you whats happening, like items ending, pay now etc

It's a Scottish sword and sceptre of James VI of Scotland, a rarer date for the type but the huge crack in it means it's worth no more than say £400

I Totallly agree Christoph, its the overgrading to make money amd in turn RIPPING off buyers that gets to me, not everyone is up There in terms of knowing how to grade, it would probably take 10 years before you even got back what you paid for the gold one

Here is another of European standard grading, although this has obviously Been so overgraded in Order to make money, graded as VF-EF, really. It was for sale at 1700 Euros but after my enquiry as to grade it's been reduced to 1500 Schottland Sword and sceptre piece 1603 Grade: VF-EF, Schrötlingsrisse | Abbreviations Material: Gold SCHOTTLAND, James VI, 1567-1625. Sword and sceptre piece, 1603, Edinburgh. 4,95 g. Fb. 46, Seaby 5460,

Grading is as Always subjective, i don't know which British dealers he spoke to, maybe whom he bought it from and in turn in order to return profit they've said GVF or so, but for me the coin is no more than VF IMHO, i have'nt bought it, more enquired about the grading

I generally know when i've won something on ebay as i'm the highest bidder

The 2nd email reply after sending him an EF graded coin picture from Londoncoins results list. Thank you for the pictures. Yes, that coin is a higher grade than mine. But I don't see what that proves. As I explained, I use the range VF-EF partly because it's a convention that many continental dealers follow and partly because I believe the overall appearance of my coin to be slightly higher than VF for the reasons I noted in my previous email. The price that coin fetched also proves the point - my asking price is significantly lower, which accounts for the difference in the grade. I can only repeat that I find my piece has considerable eye appeal, particularly due to the minimal amount of wear to the Queen's face. At the last International London Coin Fair at the Holiday Inn back on 6 June, I only saw 2 other crown coins that in my opinion had better appeal. I mightn't have seen everything of course... But I saw enough and I've also seen a lot of images on the internet. It's not my purpose to mislead anyone as to the grade and the price and I don't think I'm doing that in this case. And I hope you wouldn't deny that there is a subjective element to grading as well, and that's where eye appeal comes in.

This was his email reply to my initial Query regarding grade Thank you for you interest and your critical comment. I beg to disagree with you on the grade. It's definitely better than a VF, how much better of course is subjective. This opinion has been borne out by 2 British dealers I know. Since most of my clients are from Germany, I simply follow the convention of describing anything more than VF bur less than EF as VF-EF. You'll find this applied to many items on the MA-Shops. The reason I quote the price in the EF grade is simply for orientation - after all, I don't ask anything near that and this isn't an auction, so it won't push the price up. Now about the grade. If you were to do research on the Anna Crowns featured on E-Bay, you would be hard pressed to find anything in comparable condition, although many of them would be graded as VF. As you correctly pointed out, the drape is worn, (and so is the upper part of the hair!) but, as you no doubt know, Anne's bust doesn't wear well and that is the reason why there are so few good portraits among Anne's coins graded as VF! In this case, however, Anne's face is only slightly worn and, in my opinion, this alone warrants a higher grade. I can understand your annoyance with overgrading but I'm definitely not guilty of it. In fact, I think at roughly £800, this coin is priced very reasonably for a collector and I fully stand by the price.

Did'nt you know that CGS dictated prices? Lol the 1860 1* halfpenny i recently bought they have one slabbed at 80 something amd reckon it's worth £750 I was more questioning of the slab contents You mean CGS don't know a fake from a genuine?

Did'nt you know that CGS dictated prices? Lol the 1860 1* halfpenny i recently bought they have one slabbed at 80 something amd reckon it's worth £750

Mr Cartwheel Twopence

I did the same with the sixpence that i'm still waiting on, the bid was sitting at £155 in the last Minute but i entered my max amd waited until the last 3 seconds before placing my bid, in the end i won it for £120 less than my max

Sorry about that. I ASSUME you won Then Rob?

I Really still can't see how they are Allowed to overcharge on import tax. 5% in the UK and 7% here in Germamy, their cost is between 25 and 30% trading standards amd governments should be stopping in here. I'd emailed an American seller last week about a coin, it was $425, i noticed there was no global shipping but also only internal shipping. I asked if price was negotiable and if he posted to the EU, he Replied Monday and said he'd now entered into the GSP, he dropped his price by $25 but the GSP had taxes of $95, i can see EU buyers not bothering with ebay.com soon enough, dropping profits for ebay again amd them having to make up the shortfall eventually, vicious circle comes to mind. I remember the old days of ebay when you could report a seller for OTT postage costs, it seems ebay is Exempt from this these days

You send it to the affiliate and in Turn they'll send to Amerrica, NOTHING is graded anywhere other than their US offices. I enquired about it Here in Munich and their turnaround of 6 weeks was actually quicker than CGS who Have up to a 3 month wait

Gold scratches easily Marvin, you also put reason to Slab and not to slab, enviromental and Mechanical, not sure what you mean by mechanical, can you explain that one?