Coinery

Did you have that in your watch list, or is that a bottle of Henry Weston's Vintage Cider in the post for me?

would work on the same principle I guess! Everyone just adds the word 'variety' along with the other information...'1864 penny variety' at its most basic!

There's ALWAYS two bidders whenever I want anything cheap! If I leave it alone, someone gets a killer deal...WHY can't it be meee!

If I could've got £200 I'd of sold mine! She must be laughing her olympic pants off at £4500

Edward VII always seems to achieve good money in the better grades on eBay, just one of those monarchs I guess!

Not a laugh, really! This 120953945602 (please do add link if you're on a grown-up computer) is being sold by someone who sells a lot of coins, and the best they can do is put 'POSSIBLY a forgery' at the bottom of the listing! Fortunately, it's obvious, and would probably be an interesting study piece if you could pin the type down exactly, as it was likely a good counterfeit in its day. I just dislike the dishonest approach to this, I wouldn't trust him an inch as a distant seller!

That should do it!

Always sad to see holed coins of any kind, Elizabeth I, Henry halfgroat, shame really! I'd go a bit more than bullion though for the hammered! I'd cut them off, leaving the rings on if they're soldered, and put them on eBay separate from the rest, or even sell the bracelet complete, naming the coins, could do alright as-is! Sorry, not a coin collectable, though, as Peter says!

I'm a bit confused - are you saying that a Georgian forgery has itself been faked in China and passed off as a genuine item? I'm assuming you haven't started collecting modern Chinese fakes! Its a standard fake of a genuine coin - All fakes of George III (silver) is of interest to me. Seems the model for the chinese fakes were a 1818 coin as both the 1819 and 1820 counterfeits are incorrect. Great resource, thanks seuk!

I knew I'd seen this copy before (or at least an example of it)! I'm just in the process of backing everything up onto an online server, and have been going through all my images to reduce the folder sizes! Here's something I had a number of years ago (at least 5, as I can't find any records to go with it, no weight, origin or, unfortunately, what happened to the coin)!

Spot on Peck. I have never seen a slab with a space for an old coin ticket. And you are reliant on the TPG getting it right, which is a real problem. Famous names from the past are rarely noted on the slab, but I've seen two coins for certain with the incorrect provenance on the label. One I now own and the other I wasn't prepared to bid up as the name (Norweb) appeals to US collectors who accordingly were bidding by number plus name. Not to mention the fact that there are occasions where TPGC's can't even get the denomination right on a slab!

Blocked die for me! If you look at the general profile of the A's on your coin, you will notice they are all leaning forward, including the 'inverted V,' whereas the V of Victoria, if turned to view it as a potential A, actually leans slightly backward!

I've had a couple of responses from the 1578/7/6 emails and have provided them with the link to this thread, so can I thank-you again for your help if you are following this. Of particular use is an image (below), which I've kindly been given permission to post here. I wonder whether anyone has any thoughts? It's obviously a different die to mine, and we already know that only one single reverse die is thought to exist for this triple overdate, so I'm ever curious! Failing anything conclusive I feel I will need to contact the authors direct, and invite them to view this thread and beg of their opinions. Rob has given me an indirect link to one of the authors, does anyone have any other suggestions about how I might track either of the three authors, Brown, Comber, Wilkinson, down? An email address would be perfect!

i didnt jump ship, ive been here most days , reading the various threads. all informative of course, all very interesting.....i too would like to say a big thank you to all for everything ive gleaned along the way. Ski Good to see you!

That's an interesting distinction in what constitutes a variety, and a decent and clear boundary for me to halt at! As I said above, I would likely want both the discussed coin AND the complete O coin without a good check-chain about my neck, it's a disease I'm happy to shake off in favour of the divide mentioned! However, I could still so easily find myself with 166 Broad Arrow Sixpences, purely on account of the fact that BCW have clearly distinguished the differences between them!

Well here's to longevity it all things matrimonial then!

The best never comes cheap! I learnt that getting married and buying coins!

C'mon, ya all, buy yerselves a caravan, a truck, or bus, and come live with us in the land of the free! Big love goin' out to all you forum peacemakers! Welcome aboard mongo! I'm a newby too, and you may have 'read' me say, over and over, how I have learnt more on this forum in one year, than I have learnt in the previous 15ish years of playing around with these ancient old artefacts (Dave's latest Elizabethan [not the old one] purchases excluded!)! I get the impression that members have found your questions intelligent and angled with an equally intelligent degree of sensitivity! You never know, one day you'll be as old in coins as Peck, and as sophisticatedly gourmet as Peter, as pictoral as Dave, as generous as John, as book-wormy and up there as Rob, and as good-hearted as Richard and, one day, may even grow to love engraved coins of the phallic nature, as does another esteemed member! Also, not to mention the other great members would be a crime, they're all great and helpful folk, I just can't leave this post on my iPhone to check and jog my memory about who they are, so apologies! Ps. (_|_)

Same thoughts as Dave, no biggie, but I'd definitely prefer something of interest like this to a box-standard! Though truth be told I'd probably want one of each, it's not an ugly clog! No varieties mentioned in Peck extra to those in Spink!

Deja voo, Peck! I can hardly believe people actually knowingly paid for a repro crowns just so they could have one, I'd rather not bother! I think if the fake industry one day becomes a legitimate reproduction industry, then it will be supplying a totally different market to those that are the true collectors of historic coins! It would be akin to going to a superstore to buy a repro Tudor four-poster, in the hope you'd get anything like the experience of sleeping by candle-light in the genuine thing (you can spend 3X as much and get the genuine article, worth it I'd say!). Give the Chinese a spot-on planchet of .925 silver at a competitive price, then it's game over! I think we all have our own strategies to minimise the impact of the Chinese on our own areas of interest, and to each their own!

Without checking records, I'm pretty sure I've had a number of happy purchases with this eBayer! What's going on now, a 50's penny? You've got to be kidding me? I presume someone is about to tell me they are all ghosted?

Here, here! Then we can produce our own fake coins instead of having to import them from China!! There's a big enough market for them here it seems, could restimulate the whole British economy!

I often despair to find you cannot find a simple replacement part for anything! I think entire industries, even countries, are dependent upon the future supplies of, not individual replacement pieces, but entire units! I had an electric window unit fail a couple of month's back. I dropped it into the garage, being too busy (and possibly too lazy) to look into it myself, and the quote came back £150 + VAT! When I queried the problem, I was told 'the window motor's knackered,' to which I replied 'but I can hear it working'? He then replied 'it's something inside the unit, and that will cost you ????, they only supply the unit!' The short of it is I took the car home, pulled my sleeves up, and dismantled the unit (it had 4 screw, not moulded, so why no spares?). Issue: Just a failed but simple flat, plastic, component with a little hole, a notch, etc.....made one myself in 15 minutes! We need more people who can jump on a lathe in this country, and know their way around an old machine shop! Definitely a dying breed!

A distinct possibility, so protecting yourself from China will not be easy, and I think they will get the weights right eventually, and then... If we take the Northumberland XII, for example, a really high-profile fake, i wonder how many of those are now sat in expensive collections around the world! I would think there are very few people today who would comfortable hand over the big money without either some big-guns pawing over it or, perhaps, dare I say, a credible paper trail to go with it! I guess it's to each his own, but I'd say it's near-damned impossible to be an expert in all areas and, as I say, my florin's genuine enough but, if I was taking the big Victorian silver thing seriously, I would definitely look to upgrade it to a provenanced coin, and would likely do the same thing for any of the high-class fakes that broached my collection area (if I had one!)! On a slightly different, but related point, the florin discussed at the start of the thread was 0.5g underweight. It would be a very interesting thing to see the range of weights for theses fakes, as I guess they fluctuate (presumeably if they had the technology to achieve a consistent 10.8, they could achieve a consistent weight more in keeping with the genuine article), so are there random heavier coins too? Half a gram extra, spread over the disc-area of a florin, would barely make a decimal change on even the best micrometers!

I think that's fine if you have deep pockets. There's one occasionally posting member here who buys nothing but the very best examples of everything and of course, as such, they all have amazing provenances. But for the average collector on a budget, if you have the choice between a handful of provenanced coins or five or ten times as many, albeit in most cases slightly lesser coins, it's going to be difficult to resist buying the cheaper coins without the history. The additional problems as I see them are that there are many uninspiring coins that have nevertheless been part of a major collection. Is it better to buy a coin lacking eye appeal for the provenance over one without history but clearly nicer? Plus, although nowadays most coins tend to be illustrated in catalogues, more than 20 years ago, that wasn't the case. It's my experience that grading companies (and even some dealers) have not been good at retaining old tickets with coins. Without either a photograph or some other support, such as a ticket, it's very difficult to be certain about an individual coin's history. The vast majority of coins now on the market probably have little or no evidence of where they were before their last sale. Buying only coins with history will compound the challenge of finding an example for most collectors. What the answer might be, I'm not sure. I quite agree that the best answer is to only buy coins that can be trusted, which is those that have a history prior to any known fakes, from reputable sources. But modern (post 1800s or so) machine made coins are by their very nature much more alike than the earlier, cruder, efforts. Making distinguishing between one made in 1869 and 2009 very difficult. And of course, it's not just milled. Most of us here know of the run of replica coins that were on ebay a little while back. I myself nearly bought two of them, one believing it was the coin from Rob's website until it dawned on me that I'd seen that particular coin too many times for it to be true. Fakes are a real pain. I'm not suggesting for a second that everyone should go out and buy only provenanced coins. I do however think, for example, that if you wanted to collect Victorian silver, you could do far worse than to 'cover' yourself with a bit of provenance on a Gothic Florin, given the recent discussions. I've got an example that I'm totally happy is genuine, but I would now consider it a valid upgrade to have one sat on provenance, if only to get the best value out of it in the future, when either I or my family come to rehome it. So, I guess I'd look at it as an upgrade, and probably a financially astute move should the trust fall out of the G.Florin market, as it could very well do!