Peckris2

LOL - that's obviously operating on the principle that next to "her friend" "she" could pass for Marilyn Monroe It almost works - that Fair example looks quite attractive next to the "I was found between two tram lines" example! Just that little word "uncirculated" that's giving me that nagging feeling.

Welcome! And you'll be in good company, Azda already does just that

Word up (if you're ok with this?) : 1. Regard Spinks as merely a guide. They overestimate the values of modern coins quite severely, and underestimate others. Treat it as a 'rough and ready' guide and if youre about to take the plunge, do some more research into what your target coins are selling for. 2. A few high grade 'type' coins of Victoria beats low-grade date runs hands down, and will prove a good investment in the long run. It's always good advice to buy the highest grade you can afford, and one EF item will always trounce 5 or 6 F items, unless you're talking major rarities. Good luck collecting! The very cheap coin yearbook seems consistent and reliable as far as prices are concerned. In fact there might ber a slight under estimation. CCGB? Yes, I agree. And it can be purchased easily through this very site, and no, we're not on commission!

"Composition: Metal" No, go on. Well it's certainly coin shaped!!! Yes, I agree. If you study Victoria,the bust looks out of proportion, especially the eyelid and the lower left truncation. It just looks 'all wrong', and I never saw a genuine 1860 without a flaw in the date numerals or an overdate.

Word up (if you're ok with this?) : 1. Regard Spinks as merely a guide. They overestimate the values of modern coins quite severely, and underestimate others. Treat it as a 'rough and ready' guide and if youre about to take the plunge, do some more research into what your target coins are selling for. 2. A few high grade 'type' coins of Victoria beats low-grade date runs hands down, and will prove a good investment in the long run. It's always good advice to buy the highest grade you can afford, and one EF item will always trounce 5 or 6 F items, unless you're talking major rarities. Good luck collecting!

Looks like the current eBay generation are the 'dipping' generation. I hope it doesn't become the expected 'norm'.

No it doesn't. Either cleaned to within an inch of its life, or else made of purest aluminium. The bidders seem to agree (all 2 of them) with a current bid of £10.50!! Which is what I'd pay to have it as a place filler. But on second thoughts I will hang on to my Fair specimen. At least I know it's genuine and hasn't been cleaned.

Do bear in mind that even mahogany CAN cause what is called "cabinet toning". I have two Peter Nichols cabinets, and the smaller one (with punched coin recesses) causes no toning. The larger one with flat felt-lined trays (no recesses) causes some toning on silver. Which ones are they from the range he provides, Peck ? Phew, now you're asking. The one I bought new (the smaller one) is about a ten inch? cube and has about 10 or so trays, I can't remember its name. The larger one with the flat-bottomed trays is about a fifteen inch cube, but approx the same number of trays. I got that one second-hand at an auction. I found the only things that made scrotes bend at the knees were; A) A kick in bollocks A punch to the solar plexus C) Compression of the trachea D) A red dot on the chest coupled with the word "tazer" Tony Martin had the right idea as far as thieving toerags are concerned. The thought that something I have worked, saved and scraped for over many years, could be taken by low life criminal chavs, really makes my blood boil. You and I are about to fall out for the first time, 1949! A violent man who has made previous threats, and then proceeds to kill a boy burglar by shooting him in the back as he was trying to run away, is not my idea of a hero. Don't get me wrong - I do want there to be a householder who tests the law on 'reasonable' levels of violence in protecting their own property, but to me, a low-life like Tony Martin is not that person.

Do bear in mind that even mahogany CAN cause what is called "cabinet toning". I have two Peter Nichols cabinets, and the smaller one (with punched coin recesses) causes no toning. The larger one with flat felt-lined trays (no recesses) causes some toning on silver.

How odd! They only illustrate the obverse! David Yes! I noticed that too. Bit of a deficiency when you think what they're auctioning. Also, when you look at the small photo, did you get the impression that Victoria is bearded?

This is where the iPhone - nice bit of kit though it undoubtedly is - falls down. It's a very good communication and entertainment device, but no way is it a computer. I still mourn the demise of the Psion Series 5 with its touch screen, spreadsheets, WP, etc. A true pocket computer. Good luck in your search but I suspect that developers are not falling over themselves to create apps for minority groups like hobbyists. You might need to develop it yourself.

Thanks for giving the lot number Beebman (Note to other members : when giving a link to a Spink auction or similar, PLEASE give the lot number or similar unique identifier, it helps so much when you're staring blankly at a home screen!!)

I'm not a collector of Willy 3 shillings (though I'd love a decent type example for my collection), but the general point stands : Spink value purely on what coins fetch in the market. This includes perpetuating rarity myths (1942/3/4 silver threepences) and non-rarity myths (1894 halfcrowns) etc. Also don't forget the kind of customers like me - a type collector - who distort the market from a rarity POV. To explain : people like me will want a 1902 shilling or halfcrown in BU for our type collection. They are plentiful, that's why. But because they are plentiful, type collectors will chase them and hence their prices are artificially high in relation to rarer issues. I would agree that high prices in Spink may well indicate rarity trends, but it's by no means a given.

Die CAP - hasn't he missed an R there?

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 AUNC sounds fair enough

Spink do not give relative scarcities. The only time they mention rarity is to occasionally say 'Extremely rare' instead of a price (which is shorthand for "We don't know as this coin has not been offered for sale recently"). Their values are not listed on the grounds of rarity but on current market value, which may or may not take rarity into account. So if you want to know rarity, go by ESC.

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).

It's only opinion, but I wouldn't think it would be worth much over face. However, you just never know with eBay, and there appear to be more anoraks collecting decimal than predecimal. Don't get your retirement hopes up though.

I visited your website, very impressive, will bookmark !! The picture of the 1860T (lot 8) is highly unrepresentative of the actual coin. The scratches and scars that appear on the picture are not as apparently obvious and the coin is a chocolate brown colour. The area around where the (missing) colon dots should be is unclear. I therefore are attaching a picture of the area. There appears to be a picture of Lisa Simpson's head to the right of the F:D There are others more knowledgeable than me, but my understanding is that blobs of weld are laid into the die and then ground down but this does leave a couple of problems in my mind; 1) When patching the bodywork of a car, a skilled automotive welder can lay blobs of weld into the interface between old and new metal in such a way that you have no idea there is a patch there. That being the case, why couldn't the mint make a better job of it? 2) When did they invent welding anyway?* * Just searched the internet. In the Bronze Age apparently... Many thanks for the enlightenment (and later posts on the same topic) Theory : The 1862 mintage was very large, but maybe they prepared even more dies than were needed. The small 1863 mintage was maybe expected to be larger, so therefore a leftover die or two there too? 1864 was modest. The 1865 may also have been expected to be small too, but then they discovered they needed more, so re-used the leftover dies from 1862 and 1863?

Yes, there was. And no, I cant remember where, either. Just a word on scans : Photoshop will bring back to life a coin that has been muddied somewhat in a scanner. Levels and Curves will do a wonderful job.

First come first served?

Some overstrikes are clear, but that one isn't. You need, and quite reasonably requested, a close up pic of the date, and it seems a bit unintelligent of Cookes to simply send you the existing pic. This very coin in the auction was the actual discovery coin owned by Malcolm Peake which led to the recorded variation in the "Bronze coinage of Great Britain" author Michael J Freeman How would just the top of the 1 survive when the rest of its downstroke should show within the loop of the 2?

And your point is? My point is that if inexperienced collectors believed that grading, and didn't realise it was cleaned, they could get their fingers burned. You didn't, you clearly knew when to stop bidding. But not everyone is sensible and I hate to think of newbies getting ripped off.

Oh dear. Let me be the one to break this to you Accumulator : if that halfcrown had been anywhere near the EF he claimed it to be, do you think you would have won it for fifty quid? I'm not saying you paid an unfair price, but considering it HAS been cleaned, and is around VF, you probably paid a FAIR price for it, without getting a bargain. As with all transactions caveat emptor. I've not bought anything off MP but after seeing what I've been pointed at in this forum, I'm not likely to.

Here is a copy of the article from the Sept 1967 Spink Numismatic circular, Author Jim Noble, Formally of Spink & Son, London, now Noble Numismatics Sidney Australia. That seems to bear out my "speculation" (above), and Charles Wilson Peck agrees with me. I knew I'd chosen my username well