Coinery

The slab plastic costs pennies! Even at non-commercial rates, you can buy the plastic shells for around 50p (I think it was something like that, I do remember it being insignificant when I looked) from the US (made me consider encapsulating my own coins, if the main argument is 'protection'). Without the post, £11 fee, or petrol costs involved, it wouldn't be a such bad day-job, sticking a £2 coin in a slab and calling it AU/UNC etc, and then firing it out to the masses at £20+ a throw. In my view it's only economically viable for one source! I've never heard of any collector submitting a 1967 1d for encapsulation, but I bet they're out there! I bet someone somewhere once had a mint roll of them, and just sat up all night with a tube of glue and a cup of coffee, just before a holiday in Mauritius?

I think this is a major issue. If people are relying on their grading then they need to be independent and seen to be independent of both buyers and sellers. As the Americans might say ... it is Ethics 101. I have my high grade coins slabbed by CGS mainly for protection and ease of viewing. I do find their grading generally strict but I think that's probably a good thing. I too find their intimate relationship with London Coins of some concern. As stated on their website, London Coins (Holdings) Group Ltd owns 51% of CGS. I don't have a real problem with that or the fact that London Coins auctions CGS coins on behalf of clients. However, I just think that the selling of CGS slabs on the London coins website (and the auctioning of these slabs when they fail to sell) raise questions of on the independency of CGS. The problem here is not whether CGS act ethically or not - and I have no doubt that they are entirely ethical and above board. It is the perception that matters. While there is a link to a major vendor - in this case London Coins - there will always be a suspicion that they grade higher to get better prices and therefore higher commissions or profits. And it only takes a couple of unhappy customers to start that ball rolling. I wouldn't say VS is unhappy with his '35 Crown!

Must change my name to Martin Platt - those puppies look like they could do with some cleaning.. by hand of course (oh, now I need a dip - in cold water ) Class Pies! And you too Peckris!

3+C '75 Farthing (H below) and WHAT'S wrong with the ER '22 thrupence? Explain? VC - Oh lazy me: don't have mine available - 530? Not the 1922 bit? (someone had their tongue-in-cheek mode on!)

And there was only the 1736 and the 1746 for George II. Your's is the Young Portrait George, confirming this coin as the earlier dated 1736! The British Museum Collection number for your coin is: BMC850 and catalogued as Scarce (enjoy that bit)! If you've ever heard of the Spink's guide, which is pretty major in this country (though not as important as Peck [bMC]), it is S3717 in that catalogue. Looking forward to your next find! Sorry, just re-read your full post: Market Value would only be a couple of dollars! For around $30-$170 you could get a pretty little companion for it. A really interesting day for you and your son, however, and that's the essence of it all!

3+C '75 Farthing (H below) and WHAT'S wrong with the ER '22 thrupence?

The poor thing, I think you should have left it in the slab! Nice coin!

Shift + R improves the quality of the images! Should I have done that BEFORE uploading to PhotoBucket?

Just picked this up on the 'bay! This one is DEFINITELY 'dull' looking! Is it the upgrade? A thought occurred to me, does anyone have that very significant die-crack you can see on the reverse of the 'unclassified' 3D? A better indicator of type could come from that, possibly? Namely, if a couple of coins with a matching flaw, on a more distinguishable flan...you get the picture! It's not going to be ground-breaking, so I'll not hold my breath, of course!

And the unforgiven! Sorry...unconfirmed!

Really superb find, NormalNovice, that's what the 'bug' is ALL about...historic finds! That's a big old land you've got over there to pull a George coin out of the ground! You'll be buying a nice grade example soon...not to replace your exciting find, of course, but rather to sit them side by side in maybe a photo frame, with a little bit of history typed out below! I didn't look that closely at your coin (and I can't now, as I'm typing), but it could probably be really tightly tied down to a full provenance!

1) Superb, and I too would bow with folded hands at that philosophy! 2) No wonder my coins took so long to come back!

Spooky, my book fell open on that page, maybe it should've been mine? R17 where's the pictures? Oh, and huge congrats, by the way!

Class Pies!

That rim by the date might be damage? Nope, thankfully just oxidation; nice coin overall as were it's mates - I tried to pick out decent ones but was more interested to get the inferior CGS specimen just for comparo & sad to see its getting worse with time as one would think. Was referring to the eBay link by Paulus!

I wouldn't worry about it Stuart. I used to deal (and still dabble) in antique silver. I bought one for tarnished flatware and it was pretty useless at removing anything, other than the £10 from my wallet to buy it of course! I've so very nearly bought a couple of books on the subject! I quite often get my head into the Clevedon Salerooms, and I see all this lovely GIII/WIV silver going out, just wishing I knew enough to buy some without throwing my money away. WIV is the better bet, short reign for the mark collectors and usually better quality. Flatware is a non-starter unless you can find Paul Storr (VERY VERY collectable) workshop pieces. You have my number if you need advice (25p connection charge and £1.50/min after that as it doubles as my wifes chatline ). Thanks, John, will bear that in mind!

That rim by the date might be damage?

They're not Pandas, they're puppies! Great Minds think alike...guess I should get to the end of the thread next time!

Leaving aside CGS, I have 2 1689 halfcrowns on my website, both slabbed by NGC and both identified as incorrect ESC varieties. One even has the wrong shield type for the ESC number it is supposed to be. Basic errors in my opinion and if they can't get the basics right what else can they get wrong? And not forgetting, Jaggy, that we have even pulled-up counterfeit coins in NGC slabs on here!

WOW! That's the end of blind-buying CGS too! As the Big 'O' once cried.......'it's over'! I'm so very glad the two CGS threads have happened these last weeks, it's really resolved a lot of nagging issues for me. I kind of feel at peace with it all, which is great!

Bill, I have a book called "cleaning and preservation of coins and medals" by Sandford J Durst, ISBN 0-915262-03-7 It is an achedemic work and probably written with museum conservators in mind. If you cannot find a copy for sale I am more than happy to loan you my copy if it would help. John. I've got 'Cleaning of Coins and Medals' by G Welter (1970) SNB8244-0193-X. It might be useful once I get my Chemistry Masters! It is good though, if you want to borrow that one too (it would post as a large-letter, so not expensive)!

I wouldn't worry about it Stuart. I used to deal (and still dabble) in antique silver. I bought one for tarnished flatware and it was pretty useless at removing anything, other than the £10 from my wallet to buy it of course! I've so very nearly bought a couple of books on the subject! I quite often get my head into the Clevedon Salerooms, and I see all this lovely GIII/WIV silver going out, just wishing I knew enough to buy some without throwing my money away.

Oh dear, oh, dear! That can only have developed in the slab if it's CGS! You're going to have to crack it out to arrest it surely? From some of the previous statements made in the other CGS thread, I'm assuming if you return it to CGS you'll get compensation (not!) but, at the very least, you'd think they'd be happy to re-slab for free and cover your postage costs, once you've neutralised the verd? Re the grade, at that end of the scale you really do need some serious close-ups. I did mention in another thread about the buckles on the side of the boot, are they still proud/struck-up? Or have they been pushed back into the seam? Actually, I'm really looking forward to a major close-up on the boot of Dave's proof, must remember to ask him! I'm certain that CGS don't pay compensation for any deterioration in the slab. They only pay market value if you can prove that it's a fake, and even then you have to be the original submitter and also prove it's fake without removing it or tampering with the slab - so you have zero chance of that. Surely, they would refuse to re-slab after removing the 'green' as it has been cleaned. I agree with Nick. Quoting their website: "In fact we guarantee to pay the submitter the full market value of any non genuine English Milled coin that we may encapsulate.". Hence there is no compensation even if it is a non-English fake or an English hammered fake. They would probably only reslab it with a yellow label. I absolutely agree with Nick too! I was referring to an overzealous remark made by Bill (I think), who highlighted a 'bad in the slab' guarantee that CGS were offering (which I didn't think for a minute they were, of course)!

Looking at the boot (?ear) and the obverse generally, I'd really struggle to part with NEF money. It going to be off the scale, isn't it!

The face, leg detail and blanket binding all looks less than perfect to me. Not that I know anything about milled coin grading , but VF ish? Whatever average number that might be. High 50s? Now here's a nice one: You can definitely buckle THAT boot up! Where's that one for sale, see if I can't beat Dave in the CGS League Tables?