DaveG38

Can anybody recommend any literature concerning late 19th/20th Century tokens? I'm not so much interested in any catalogues/price indices, but more how and when they were produced, who struck them and how they were used. Any info. gratefully received.

Thinking about this a little more, I suspect that this job is intended for somebody from a wealthy family, who doesn't need the money, but who has to be paid, hence the minimum wage quoted. Joining a business like this one would be a prestige appointment, rather than a financially valuable one, and thus suitable for somebody who wants a job in a 'posh' environment working with often high value items.

The skill set needed goes way beyond a minimum wage job. Factor in travelling into London, and it is difficult to see who would be attracted by this job. Certainly not people with the skills and experience required, who would do much better elsewhere.

Can I be very rude, and say that I'm overwhelmed with indifference??

That's what I call a cud!

Paddy, You have done well. Like you I'm collecting the 'maundy' issues over that period, but I still have 20 to find. Funny enough the expensive ones tend to have been fairly easy, but there are some dates I don't think I have ever seen.

Who cares about Harold or Harthcanute, when there is Alice??? Lol.

Reference your first line, you surely aren't suggesting that when somebody comes to sell their collection, this somehow makes them a dealer, rather than the collector they were?

Not only is it what is sold, but surely, whether it makes any profit or Capital Gains? Last year, I sold around £4.5k of coins on ebay, but these were all as a result of upgrades to my collection, so no business transactions. Overall, I pretty much sold them for around what I paid, so from a 'business' point of view, there was no income or gain, as such, so how can HMRC determine what constitutes a business. On a completely different area, I have just about finished clearing out a whole load of my wife's unwanted clothing - about 8 charity bags in total. Looking at ebay, I could, if I was motivated, have put them on there, and made a thousand or so, overall. That is peanuts compared to what she paid, so no profit there, but again, how can HMRC determine what has been sold, and whether it is likely to have generated a profit? Based on the above, it strikes me that HMRC will spend more time and money investigating and checking than will be gained in income to the Treasury.

So, what level of sales qualifies as 'private' and 'business,' in the minds of HMRC? Does anybody know? After all, it is quite easy to sell multiples of items, simply by clearing out cupboards etc.

Back in the day, when I worked customer service for the Post Office, I was asked to organise a Meter Check Printer on a customer's line. As I recall, this was in connection with the theft of 50 tons of newsprint! My mind boggles as to how many trucks it took to nick that load and store it. And what for? It's not like you can flog it at a boot fair!

Certainly, this purports to be one of the Lavrillier coins. What I don't get is why anybody would try and 'sell' this coin on ebay, even at the price of £86k. Given that ebay now withholds payments until the transaction is complete, they are not going to release this amount to the seller, just like that. Once it becomes clear that this is a con, it will be cancelled and the seller has failed. All I can think is that the seller, with an amazing feedback of 3, has no idea that they don't get their money immediately.

If in any doubt, avoid! It's not like these are particularly rare.

Thanks to Paddy for the information about this lot. Sadly, I won't be bidding because, unfortunately, this auctioneer does not have an in-house packing/postage service, which means any wins would be at the mercy of an external packer, and in my experience they charge at a rate that would make any wins way overpriced. Just be careful everybody.

I'm afraid that I didn't spot it. I picked up the attribution from a shilling collector on Facebook. I managed to win one 'want,' and then noticed that the 1671 plumes shilling wasn't bid on, so I snaffled it just in time. Later on, I found a couple of other varieties of Victorian shillings were not bid on, so I got those for well under the expected price. All round, I'm pretty pleased.