Coinery

So you're not a Buddhist then? I love rice, the solitude of mountains, sitting under trees, and have an expanding waistline...I'm in! ;-) Me too! And don't forget the getting up at 4 AM ... oh, wait... Happy Easter or whatever you celebrate, one and all A happy secularist Easter (from Venice, hence the lack of activity!) Oh, very posh! I'm rather partial to Venice myself!

So you're not a Buddhist then? I love rice, the solitude of mountains, sitting under trees, and have an expanding waistline...I'm in! ;-)

God, I never thought of the Scots, not sure what side they're on? ;-) We're on the right side of Hadrians wall Gave me a good belly laugh! So, what are the stats, just a single post/entry in 24hrs, I don't think that's happened in the 7 months I've been nosing around on here?

I would but I'm none of the above. I'm a bit of all of them, Christian and atheist too, you have to cover your options if you want the coin Gods to look favourably upon you!

God, I never thought of the Scots, not sure what side they're on? ;-)

How about...all the VF's could likely follow the trend, so you're getting richer by the day! And, if they don't, you can buy lots more coins! Best of both worlds :-) The variability is a pain in arse though I have to admit! Starting a particular type of collection, only to find you're priced out of the market before you complete it to your satisfaction, is a bit of a drag!

I guess this is what happens! When the cream gets too hot, we all step down a grade, or stop buying coins, which eventually revives that slack market, which in turn drives those who have been happy collecting the VF coinage into scratching around in the buckets (more or less).

Maybe take a good look at the ebay seller ID and see what you spot. To give you a little hint, there's a * in the name, so i would'nt trust that price what so ever You've got me there, Azda, what do you mean? If it was shill bidded, there's still £33 to pay in fees! And why bid up your own item that high, surely it suggests there was still someone willing to pay over £300? As I said, though, the coin may well have been UNC, but without having it in hand, and no talk in the description about lustre, etc, I couldn't even conceive of a bid at half of what it went for! That was one of the sellers with whom there was more than a whiff of collusion between him and other eBay sellers with similarly styled names. The coin definitely looks to be a proof though, not a currency piece. Correct on all counts Nick Ah, right, the penny's dropped! :-)

Maybe take a good look at the ebay seller ID and see what you spot. To give you a little hint, there's a * in the name, so i would'nt trust that price what so ever You've got me there, Azda, what do you mean? If it was shill bidded, there's still £33 to pay in fees! And why bid up your own item that high, surely it suggests there was still someone willing to pay over £300? As I said, though, the coin may well have been UNC, but without having it in hand, and no talk in the description about lustre, etc, I couldn't even conceive of a bid at half of what it went for!

It isn't as clear cut as you might think. Americans view our coins as cheap. That's why a 1901 1d sold for $600 in a US saleroom - finest known, i.e.highest graded equals worth paying megabucks. This country is not unreasonably the largest source of British coins, which means that any overseas interest will look to these shores when trying to buy the series. The internet has unquestionaly made buying easier for a worldwide customer base, but the real driver of prices will ultimately be the same old boring supply and demand. The finite numbers of coins available are augmented daily by detector finds, but the old cabinet toned rarities that have been sought ever since collectors existed are the real prize. There are now a lot more people chasing the limited numbers available, and we can't all have one. A few very wealthy individuals will pick up more than the likes of me and you, but it is only a relative thing. Even the less affluent collector can win something he or she desires if he is prepared to push the boat out, even if only on a very occasional basis. It was ever the same with a clear pecking order amongst collectors even back into the 19th century. Looking from the other side though, more than one person on this forum has spent quite a bit in CNG sales or from their shop, so it isn't all one way. The exchange rate has been quite stable for a while and so currency volatility isn't really an issue. It has been in the past and will be again in the future, but the climate is benign at the moment. There is a ready supply of money from both sides of the Atlantic for the right pieces, and both sides will compete on fairly equal terms. It's certainly interesting to see how coins bounce back and forth across the pond! One of the first 'proper' coins I ever bought for myself was a common enough, but really pretty, martlet XII of Elizabeth. I had to part with that coin soon after I bought it, and was surprised to double my money in a sale to Canada. Two years later, I spotted if for sale on eBay, but now in the hands of a UK seller. Call it luck, but I won it for less than I paid for it the first time around, and then re-presented it for sale, where I took my second handshake from the coin, and posted it back over the pond! I'd very much like to have it back at this point in my life, I wouldn't sell it a third time!

I have got to confess on revisiting the images, that it is somewhere near the grade, but there is little to point at the FDC price it achieved, certainly not in my humble opinion! I lost out regardless!

Apologies for side-tracking the classic cars (my first PROPER classic was a Jaguar 420G, would have loved an XK150, but alas) but returning to the title, an apparently 'UNC' EDVII 1902 halfcrown went on eBay tonight for £330 + post, how did that happen? You couldn't even tell if it had full lustre from the photo, or any at all for that matter, not to mention it would have been difficult to grade much over EF from the images! I had a go at it, around the EF mark, but wouldn't even have bought one side of it with my bid (150786453548)!

Class, I've struck a deal with them! They're gonna give me £140 for all of mine and go into business making £59 on each one! ;-) Hell, I'm gonna buy every one I see for £130 and make a tenner myself! :-)

I'm wondering whether British coins are now being collected more widely, internationally that is? Around 75% of what I'm selling has gone to the US, Aus, Hong Kong, even Taiwan. The last five coins over £1K that I've sold, gothic crown, anne gold, charles crown, etc, all went overseas. How many of us are buying from overseas? Is the UK pot getting smaller? Also, whilst I don't actually know this, as I neither follow, nor understand, the complexities of the world economy, but are people buying from abroad at 'regular' prices for them, when taking the exchange rate into account, leaving the UK buyers paying with GBP with nothing but saliva dribbling down his chin?

That's amazing, 300? I nearly fell in love with 1887 myself then for a second! I have to confess, I am looking for a collecting 'slot' like this myself, anything to do with minute detail and perfection really appeals to me. This collecting 'high' happens to me over and over again on this forum, the sudden realisation of the breadth and diversity of collecting coins, and the learning and specialist knowledge that comes even from collecting a single year. Thanks for the inspiration!

The original photos maneyer posted were from the cointalk website but whether linked to someone showing off their purchase, I don't know. Perhaps pm him? Thanks for the info. I've tried to look it up on Cointalk but eventually gave in. I'll not trouble moneyer, though it would make for an interesting finale, or not, to get it out of its slab and put the pictures up here. Hey, ho!

I really want to buy the coin that sparked this conversation, does anyone have the link? I'm confident this is nothing other than fancy, overdone, photographic software! I raise this point again, because my original request is slipping further down the posts unanswered! Anyone?

Hi, do you mind me asking which site? Have you got an easy link?

Yes, Valium can affect one in many different ways! :-)

(I had to see this via Tom's relinking...) I'm afraid I'm going to buck the trend here. From the description I expected to see yet another artificial 'rainbow' ugliness, but this wasn't. I agree that it may be artificial and the golden toning is a little too rich, but on the whole I love silver coins with a single colour toning - e.g. blue, or gold, or even grey-pewter. That's not nearly as ugly as I thought it was going to be. I'm with you Peck, I like toned silver. Although, in this case the obverse is not very attractive, but I could easily live with the reverse. Agreed With you two on this one! The toning over the veil looks very 'right' to me, I wonder whether the photography is to blame here and not the toning! I think I'd take a gamble, expecting it to turn up in hand more golden than caramel, I rather like it! I've taken a few pictures in natural light recently that have 'invented' colours I never knew existed on the coin. How much is it? I'd buy it to look!

It's the recut 19 in the date that makes this die pairing such a sought after rarity! I must have it! ;-) perhaps someone should tell him about this rare variety, and see if the 'extra information' gets added to the listing?

What I find especially odd about these two coins is how the obverses of both coins seem to be, as near as damn it, complete. I would have expected to find at least a small crescent of the obverse missing, strange????

Just has another thought on the same matter! I think it would be really effective to swamp all known spotted fakes on eBay with questions regarding authenticity. Subtly put...'hi I was just wondering if you can tell me where you got this coin? There are obviously a lot of fakes on eBay, so I'd like to know a little bit more about the coin before bidding' ...a series of these kind of emails, maybe a tad more accusing perhaps? If we all had a couple of 'copy and paste' standard emails, and each sent a message to these naughty so-and-so's on eBay whenever any forum member identified any fake and marked it in the 'new' fakes thread, I think the item would be pulled on most occasions and likely not relisted. Dah, dah, huge reduction in the confidence of sellers who list fakes!

God, wouldn't that be useful! So much useful information on this forum just gets swallowed up amongst the thousands of other posts.

I live in fear of any historical questions that can be linked to my interest in coins, and that I 'should' know the answer to...pub quiz, pub game machine, who wants to be a millionaire game at Christmas, brrrr, gives me the shudders just thinking about it! Poor you that you got bagged! :-) :-) :-)