Nick

As a quick and dirty experiment, I used Paint Shop Pro to deform the picture such that the inner ring of beads looks roughly circular. Any use to you? Paint Shop Pro also handles layers and transparency.

Overlaying images with transparency is easy enough, most sensible image processing software packages will be able to do that. However, finding a package to negate the distortion might be more challenging. Can you post a picture and explain what you want doing? Then we might be able to have a bash with whatever packages we have available...

It means that it is a coin that would have been graded around the EF mark, had it not been rejected for whatever reason (cleaning, environmental damage, surface hairlines etc).

Is "30 x 21mm" the field of view? Or does it mean 30x magnification through a 21mm lens? I might be interested.. In addition, you might like to consider looking on Amazon for a "CostMad TM 60x LED Microscope Jewellery Jeweller's Currency Detector". I bought one recently and it's the best product I've seen for inspecting close-up detail. For £4 and free postage - it's a bargain.

Not unless they are willing to accept best offers somewhat nearer the value!

Baldwins usually send out their invoices through the post.

Thanks Declan for clearing that up. That makes sense now. Some of my searches have multiple sets of parentheses, others don't - which is why it seemed a bit random.

It's a bit inconsistent. Some of the searches I have edited have allowed more than 100, others haven't. Confusing.

Correction: I've just run into the character limit that I was assured doesn't exist! It's 300 characters. It's even worse for me, my searches are still constrained to be 100 characters or fewer.

which is exactly what my complex, wildcard littered searches always used to do. I filtered the 60,000 down to under 20,000 with one click. Severe re-engineering required now though, and once you type out every date from 1968 to 2012, rather than using "-1968 -1969 -197* -198* -199* -200* -201*", it doesn't leave much of your 300 characters for filtering out: -50 -enam* -"Isle of Man" -Diana -churchi* -fift* -guin* -whitm* -africa -shell -gold -token -20p -jers* -commem* -gibr* -guer* -canad* -hamm* -1967 -fest* -£2 -1p -£5 -medal -patt* -millen* -olym* -proof -polish* -sover* You can save a few characters on your search string by only having one minus sign outside of parentheses containing all of the strings you want to remove.

What are the wildcards you can or could use and where do you find them? I thought you had to type in what you were looking for - say 1723 sixpence, or went down the category tree and searched within the denomination or era. Will this render specific descriptions impossible to use. Say the wildcard was 'all', then 'all new' or 'all unc' wouldn't be allowed. Sorry, confused. Saved searches? No. It will soon only allow specific descriptions, rather than accept the asterisk as a wildcard. For example, to search for coins from the 1860s you could just use the search string 186* (where the asterisk matches zero or more following characters). Now you will have to list every year separately. It was also extremely useful to be able to remove items from searches. Here is an example of one of my searches (for third-party graded items): (ngc,pcgs,cgs,anacs,ms,graded) -(pou*,sov*,gui*,£2,£1,50p,isl*,doll*,penn*,halfp*,farth*,olym*,aust*) which will now become useless unless all of the variants can be specified in less than 100 characters. Any search that you type into the eBay search can be saved to save you typing the same thing time after time. Just got confirmation from ebay that there is no character limit, so it's a ball-ache, but it's only a ball-ache once Except that you'll have to update your searches each time a novel spelling/typo appears.

What are the wildcards you can or could use and where do you find them? I thought you had to type in what you were looking for - say 1723 sixpence, or went down the category tree and searched within the denomination or era. Will this render specific descriptions impossible to use. Say the wildcard was 'all', then 'all new' or 'all unc' wouldn't be allowed. Sorry, confused. Saved searches? No. It will soon only allow specific descriptions, rather than accept the asterisk as a wildcard. For example, to search for coins from the 1860s you could just use the search string 186* (where the asterisk matches zero or more following characters). Now you will have to list every year separately. It was also extremely useful to be able to remove items from searches. Here is an example of one of my searches (for third-party graded items): (ngc,pcgs,cgs,anacs,ms,graded) -(pou*,sov*,gui*,£2,£1,50p,isl*,doll*,penn*,halfp*,farth*,olym*,aust*) which will now become useless unless all of the variants can be specified in less than 100 characters. Any search that you type into the eBay search can be saved to save you typing the same thing time after time.

Here's an eBay laugh: From 5th November you will no longer be able to use wildcards in saved searches. This will instantly render 90% of my searches useless because you still only have 100 characters to specify the search string. Only eBay could possibly think this is a good idea.

It's good isn't it. I can just make out the repair to the reverse but obverse is undetectable. Hard to believe it's the same coin, until you study the imperfections. A cracking job - who did it?

Unless the first picture comes chronologically after the second, that's a mighty impressive repair (or Photoshop manipulation).

That's the long set (with gold). There is also a short set consisting of just the seven silver coins.

Smart arse!

If you alone have seen 2-3 then there must be MANY more than the "two known" which they claim! If the estimate is based on that spurious claim, then they are being a bit naughty. That's the catch/beauty of TPGs. Once you build credibility, then your word becomes gospel. It's in their interest to build a myth whereby they are the definitive arbitor of the total numbers extant. That's why the 1901 penny slabbed MS66 made $600. My example, which may or may not have made that grade or even exceeded it cost me £2.21. Do I care? All of these populations require a several decades long due diligence period. Find a rarity or a previously undiscovered variety and then suddenly the whole world has one. As I have no idea of the scarcity I have mine valued in my collection for £18, I paid £12.38 including postage. Perhaps I should get it slabbed and sell quick to catch the crest of the wave. I've also got the unconfirmed Scotish shilling. I think I'll give CCS a ring to see what it would cost to have them slabbed It surely deserves a higher valuation than £18, at least 3 figures I would guess.

I can't see it selling at that price, but you never know if someone buys into the 'only a few known' rarity factor. If it does sell, I'll have to start looking for one.

He paid £25 and sold for £80 I think I know why he does it. It's a classic example of supply and demand. If there was no demand for dipped coins, there would be no supply. All we can do is to continue educating the buyers so that over time demand may lessen. On the plus side though, every time a coin is ruined - the value of the remaining unadulterated pieces is enhanced.

Based on those three and the others in his recent sales, I'd say yep.

:lol:

Hi at all! Unfortunately that link does not work any more. Does anybody of you have a copy of that pdf, still? So, please share that one once again. This article seems to be very interesting and I would like to include the citation into the literature section of my documentation. Many thanks!! Christoph The link doesn't work for me either, and I was the one who uploaded it! And after a computer disaster in January I've lost a few months of data including the scans I made of the articles. My scanner doesn't work with my latest computer so I can't re-do them. So if anyone has kept their download I too would be very grateful. I lost my downloaded copy when my hard disk failed a few months back, so I can't help either.

Or it's the shill-bidder now in the lead

I would say the straight 1888 is at least x10 rarer. Pricewise though maybe only 3 or 4 times the normal. Many people don't realise it exists, and not being in the books means you are fighting an uphill battle to get a lot of buyers to appreciate or accept it. As for the second, I haven't a clue. Thanks. I guess that the straight 1888 shilling only appeared near the end of the 1888 shilling production, when the 1888/7 dies had run out.