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2 books i would recommend is Michael Goubys Bronze pennies for dates and rarities, an excellent book, you can order direct from his website, cost is 50 quid but definately worth the money, this is for PENNIES only. The other for general coins spread over many years is the Spink book, but you should wait a month or so before buying as the 2011 edition is due out. Its always better to read first and perhaps look at various gradings and how those are graded, as i said, a high graded coin doesn't always come cheap, especially bun head victoria pennies and the rarities that come with those bunheads. Maybe take a look also at colin cookes website, they are selling some pennies from one of our members son James workman, there is a link here in the forum under lots of british coins topic i think. Here is part 2 of the workman sale http://www.colincooke.com/coinpages/workman_superior_pt2.html

Welcome boomstick. I think firstly you need to know what types of coins you want to collect, Gold, Silver or Bronze, or perhaps a mix of all. Also what grade you would like to collect these in, coin values will differ greatly at the grade you collect and storage will differ to what type of coins you will collect. Some coins come in graded plastic holders and so these have a different box to house those in. personally i collect pennies mostly, i put those in coin capsules with a foam ring and am looking for a good case to display those in. Attached is a case i'm looking at buying for storing the capsules in. Just one last thing, it might be better to read a few books first on the subject as knowledge is power as they say

Ok as stated a few days back, i bought 4 different Maundy coins and all seem to have errors on, i don't think all are listed for errors and there's a George II Maundy that has a 3 over 0 error, but on the OBV the first E in GEORGE looks to be over something also, i initially thought it was an H, see what you think of them all. Feedback is always welcome, all pix are titled and have left in Hi Res for a good look, so a few posts. I'll do the George II as the first picture post

First come first served? Yes Lol, short and to the point Rob

Yes saw a few of those myself 1949, not in the market right now though, time to make a few pennies now and save for one or 2 rarer dates.

I've bought from him in the past, he often has good bronze for sale. Meanwhile this 1875 non-H narrow date (F80) penny has appeared on eBay, very nice coin yes, but a starting price of £380??? Link Fantastic coin, but as you say Beebman, the starting bid is perhaps too highly pitched. He's probably hoping to pique someone's interest sufficient to make the only bid at that level. Mind, you don't often see pennies before about 1880 in that good a state. Pretty much full lustre. Very desirable specimen. I would'nt have said FULL LUSTRE as the legends have better lustre as the land and bust, so for me it would be about 30-40% lustrious, quite a high start price though, maybe pricing himself out of a sale at that

Spink is quite a general book, i would say 80% of people go by the prices inside the book. A dealer for example would sell at Spink prices but would want to buy at 50% of those prices. I think the only time people actually bid to book is when a coin is really rare such as 1905 Shilllings or 1854 shilling/sixpences etc. Collectiing varieties is quite a specialist theme because not everyone does so, you may have bought a coin because of its rarity value in whatever denomination you collect, but for a general collector it wouldn't matter if its 6 over 9 or so and so mint etc. ESC will always be your best bet for silver as its more of a specialist book for silver,unfortunately it doesn't give prices, just rarity levels, hence Spink do make some huge prices for more common coins for some reason and for others we collectors would consider rarer, they have crappy book prices, but as i said, most people tend to go by Spink for the price value as not everyone has an ESC plus ESC gives no values.

He sold that 1835 Shilling for 285 GBP. I seriously wonder what people are thinking buying a coin that quite plain and clearly has been dipped/cleaned/shotblasted or whatever he's done to it.

I'm assuming these are all very small coins? Which would explain the lack of hair detail. In which case you could fairly confidently grade them all as EF (perhaps even slightly better in one or two cases? Hard to say without the coins in hand). Yes Peck, they are quite small, 2 of them were graded as AUNC by the dealer i bought them from. These are very difficult to photograph, i took most of the pictures with the usb microscope but i'm going to make another attempt today for some better pictures

A friend of mine sent me some old detector finds over from the UK as he wants me to sell them for him. In the bag was this hammered coin and am unsure what it is. Can anyone help with identification please.

Definitely been dipped though

And the REV date closeup, looks like a blob, dunno how anyone made 70 over 69 from this lol........Thats all folks!!!

REV, not the close up yet, for grade

Next one, Chas II 1d, it says 69 over 70, but make of it what you will. OBV first from grade

This is from a 1746 3d date error, not got a picture from the OBV REV as yet

And the REV of same for grading

And the 1746 REV date error

More George 1746 2d this time, OBV for grading

And the REV error

More George, just the OBV for grade

I'm just wondering what he's done to that 1835 Shilling he has on ebay, looks like its been shotblasted

Could be porcelain, but as we always say here, a picture paints a thousand words. You got any lol?

We should have an irritated thread, where no one comes in unless they are prepared to seriously debate, makes sense don't ya think? Get things off your chest when you're peesed off

Is it safe to come back in now? David Of course David, come and join the friendly banter, dip your toes in if ya like

Prepare for a counter suit as my posts were much longer trying to explain my reasoning lol. We should call Vicky the UN