Paulus

Glendinings sale on Wed October 30th 1974 sold one, lot 356 graded as "practically mint state" and sold for 1500 quid hammer Mmm, sounds good now, but back then I bought my first house for £6000, so £1500 was quite a price. £1500 in 1974, that's probably around £40,000 now so it wasn't much of an investment According to an inflation calculator website, it's actually just over £15k in today's terms!

Far too worn for my liking!

Thanks Rob!

Surely you at least wore a pair of cotton gloves? Nope!!!!! But I must say I was a lot more careful to only handle by the edges than they were!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Edit: Ooops, now I've said it!! I suppose the thrill of handling such gorgeous coins made you impervious to the cold, then Indeed, the requirement to view their coins while stark bollock-naked was a surprise at first, but after the brief initiation ceremony I am now totally converted!

Surely you at least wore a pair of cotton gloves? Nope!!!!! But I must say I was a lot more careful to only handle by the edges than they were!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Edit: Ooops, now I've said it!!

Yes, but .. what? If a coin was struck in 1640 and handed straight to someone who put it in a box, it's clearly uncirculated. Same as if Bolton handed a halfpenny to someone in 1797 or a mint employee pocketed 20p tomorrow, the amount of wear those coins have been subject to is zero. So ... why aren't they the same grade? As for using proofs for benchmarks, well that suggests to me that the grading is less about wear and more about how well a coin measures up against an idea. The idea of what a 'perfect' coin will look like. Seems to me to be a bit of arbitrariness here ... which brings me back to .. why do we grade coins? If it's a measure of 'perfection', well, OK. Though there are problems with that, I can accept the concept. But if it's to do with wear, why are we using different grade ceilings just because a coin is older? Yeah, I know. Not strictly about CGS is it? But I'm curious now what people think. What you say is perfectly true. I wonder if it's something to do with the fact that minting imperfections were almost inherent pre-Boulton & Watt? Or maybe it's more to do with the fact that people didn't tend to put coins aside in those days, as they were valuable things as money and only kings collected coins numismatically? It's certainly true that there are ARE early milled UNC coins, and I would grade my 1708 shilling as virtually that, also my 1697 sixpence. Both are quite common in those grades, so maybe there was a bag stashed away in a bank that didn't come to light for a couple of centuries. ETA: even in the early 20th Century, collectors weren't obsessive about high grades, as long as they could see the "fine detail" they were happy enough apparently. I really don't know, I must say it surprised me, after all proofs are not a grade anyway. But they had many benchmark proofs, and many with various types and varying degrees of wear and imperfections, of many types, monarchs, dates and denominations, against which to compare submitted coins, and that did impress me ... their benchmark collection, which I imagine they own (along with London Coins!), must be amongst the finest to be found outside of museums

Or you might be taken by this pretty 1729 Halfpenny copper proof with no stop (Peck 835): The great thing was, I was allowed to handle these coins at my leisure, in the raw (ironically!)

I asked if the benchmark coins CGS use constitute part of the population report, and was assured that they do ... which means that we can look at them on line! However, they are not tagged as to whether they are benchmark coins are not, which might be a nice idea -- Bill? This is typical of one of the rare proof coins I was shown, but I don't know whether this particular one is a benchmark coin. It is a 1718 silver proof farthing struck on a thin flan (Peck 790), and graded CGS 92: I felt a bit privileged to be handling some of these coins, perhaps for the first and ony time, and needless to say, I wish I was posting in the 'Coin Acquisition of the Week' section!

As I understand it, different grading strictness for different periods (hammered/early milled/milled/late milled) and even years and types is accommodated by CGS having many sets of benchmark coins. I was shown many of these coins but I don't know how many they have in total (certainly not every year/type/monarch/denomination) but the total value of the coins I was shown certainly runs into 100s of £ks) - probably more than their total revenue to date! There were many very rare early milled proofs among the benchmark coins. Obviously, as at least 2 people have highlighted on here, whoever graded the benchmark coins, and how they graded them in the first place, will be one of the keys here!

Personally I find the term 'uncirculated' misleading and unhelpful as a grade. The only way of knowing for sure whether a coin has ever been circulated is if it is still in its original Royal Mint packaging, or if the owner has owned it since it left the Mint or has provenance back to the time that it did. In most cases UNC is used to mean 'Mint State' and I prefer MS over UNC as a grading term.

yes indeed.....a nice coin is a nice coin all the same, regardless of whether someones given it a score out of 100. Ski I agree totally, they have just perpetuated the confusion! Remove all cross-references to VF/Ef/AU etc and the Sheldon Scale, and maybe the CGS percentage scale will gain more credibility

Yes, it's a bit strange that they think that a CGS score of 60/100 could equate to a Sheldon score of 60/70!

Don't think so, despite the absence of the greedy old King of Spain on the obverse the legend reads Philip and Mary, there's proberly a story about why he was removed if anyone knows it? Love that sort of stuff!

The reverse pic is in the main description section, do you want bigger/better pics of it? What die pairing is it? I can't seem to find any daylight bulbs that fit my desk lamps, I am using 2 cheap Ikea desk lamps (your suggestion!) with halogen bulbs - so yes to the offer of the spare bulbs! - but the fittings are the 'small Edsion' screw types (is that what they are called?) and the local wholesale leccy shop does have any daylight bulbs for that fitting in its (extensive) catalogue. I am just getting to know the camera, it has all sorts of WB settings, I am currently using one called 'K' - whatever that means! A lot better than no WB, then my silver collection comes out more like gold, but much room for improvement! The bulbs I have are screw fit, the larger screw size, will measure tomorrow, all your's if they fit! I think the reverse liz image is a duplicate of your P&M coin? I think I will buy some different desk lamps if not, they are dead cheap and it sounds like daylight bulbs are the way to go! And what a pillock I am, I was listing while multi-tasking, always a mistake! Think I will have to get my eBay listings checked by you lot first in future! And despite the incorrect reverse being pictured, I already had a bid, so couldn't edit the description! I have added the correct reverse on now, so feast your eyes on the incredibly rare die pairing I know you are hoping for! PS I can do some more unique die pairings for you remarkably easily! But I think it would be hard to beat pairing Liz with Mary and Philip, the 3 of them all loved each other sooooo much! Thanks for pointing out my schoolboy error

The reverse pic is in the main description section, do you want bigger/better pics of it? What die pairing is it? I can't seem to find any daylight bulbs that fit my desk lamps, I am using 2 cheap Ikea desk lamps (your suggestion!) with halogen bulbs - so yes to the offer of the spare bulbs! - but the fittings are the 'small Edsion' screw types (is that what they are called?) and the local wholesale leccy shop does have any daylight bulbs for that fitting in its (extensive) catalogue. I am just getting to know the camera, it has all sorts of WB settings, I am currently using one called 'K' - whatever that means! A lot better than no WB, then my silver collection comes out more like gold, but much room for improvement! Colour temperature is measured in Kelvin, so it could well be a WB mode that allows you to specify the colour temperature as a numerical representation. Daylight lamps are usually 6500K. Thanks Nick - a whole new knowledge chasm has just opened up for me! Better get swotting ... Just looked at the PDF manual for your camera and that is what K mode is. You also have the option to set your own WB, so you can use the plain white piece of paper illuminated by the light you intend to use (let it fully warm up first) and then save it away for any future coin pics. That's mighty good of you, I will have a thorough go at it this weekend!

What a 'pleasing' elephant - 1666 too - I must get me one of those one day, and a CII plumes of course, bit rich for me at the moment - £2,100 as I expect you know

The reverse pic is in the main description section, do you want bigger/better pics of it? What die pairing is it? I can't seem to find any daylight bulbs that fit my desk lamps, I am using 2 cheap Ikea desk lamps (your suggestion!) with halogen bulbs - so yes to the offer of the spare bulbs! - but the fittings are the 'small Edsion' screw types (is that what they are called?) and the local wholesale leccy shop does have any daylight bulbs for that fitting in its (extensive) catalogue. I am just getting to know the camera, it has all sorts of WB settings, I am currently using one called 'K' - whatever that means! A lot better than no WB, then my silver collection comes out more like gold, but much room for improvement! Colour temperature is measured in Kelvin, so it could well be a WB mode that allows you to specify the colour temperature as a numerical representation. Daylight lamps are usually 6500K. Thanks Nick - a whole new knowledge chasm has just opened up for me! Better get swotting ...

The reverse pic is in the main description section, do you want bigger/better pics of it? What die pairing is it? I can't seem to find any daylight bulbs that fit my desk lamps, I am using 2 cheap Ikea desk lamps (your suggestion!) with halogen bulbs - so yes to the offer of the spare bulbs! - but the fittings are the 'small Edsion' screw types (is that what they are called?) and the local wholesale leccy shop does have any daylight bulbs for that fitting in its (extensive) catalogue. I am just getting to know the camera, it has all sorts of WB settings, I am currently using one called 'K' - whatever that means! A lot better than no WB, then my silver collection comes out more like gold, but much room for improvement! The bulbs I have are screw fit, the larger screw size, will measure tomorrow, all your's if they fit! I think the reverse liz image is a duplicate of your P&M coin? I think I will buy some different desk lamps if not, they are dead cheap and it sounds like daylight bulbs are the way to go! And what a pillock I am, I was listing while multi-tasking, always a mistake! Think I will have to get my eBay listings checked by you lot first in future! And despite the incorrect reverse being pictured, I already had a bid, so couldn't edit the description! I have added the correct reverse on now, so feast your eyes on the incredibly rare die pairing I know you are hoping for!

The reverse pic is in the main description section, do you want bigger/better pics of it? What die pairing is it? I can't seem to find any daylight bulbs that fit my desk lamps, I am using 2 cheap Ikea desk lamps (your suggestion!) with halogen bulbs - so yes to the offer of the spare bulbs! - but the fittings are the 'small Edsion' screw types (is that what they are called?) and the local wholesale leccy shop doesn't have any daylight bulbs for that fitting in its (extensive) catalogue. I am just getting to know the camera, it has all sorts of WB settings, I am currently using one called 'K' - whatever that means! A lot better than no WB, then my silver collection comes out more like gold, but much room for improvement!

A few odds and sods are listed now, for anyone interested. Unsold CGS coins next week. eBay pics are experiments with my new camera - which I am very pleased with! It's a Panasonic DMC LX7

Just teasing!

I wonder if I can detect the green shoots emerging of some healthy competition amongst our members on CGS grades achieved! I expect Bill will be reading with a big grin!

Nothing listed as yet, a few in the next day or 2 hopefully, nothing particularly exciting! EBay id is starling69 How do I clear out my inbox?

Actually I'm not. Not sure lower grade is really their thing. Probably said this before but I've certainly seen one of theirs graded F which really should have struggled to make Fair. Could have been an aberration, but unlikely as it was hen's teeth rare. In this case I'd give it NF but could change in hand. A good £69 worth - that definitely doesn't suck! I concur with your assessment of Fair+ Peck (obv better, reverse only Fair), but at £69 you stole it! I am old school when it comes to this issue and find it hard to reconcile F, GF and NVF (which most dealers and auctioneers would grade it) with a coin exhibiting so much wear. I think W&W back then were more realistic in their grading, and (if memory serves) didn't rate it even Fine. But prices have certainly gone up dramatically since then! But it wasn't as much of a steal as my 1903, which I bought from a US dealer for the princely sum of £26 !!!! Ah, the good old days Ebay used to have loads of nice bits on across the pond at very reasonable prices too. Sadly our cousins have caught up in the pricing game This was the 1990s (pre-eBay) but still one hell of a steal when you see it... It actually looks better than that in hand - there's lots of lustre on the reverse, which tends to disguise what appears to be heavy wear to the shield edges and is not so noticeable really. These days it would probably grade VF so £26 in 1999 really was a steal. When I saw it on the dealer's list for that price, I thought it was going to be a pig, but you should have seen my face when I opened the package! I was selling A/Fair 1904's at the time for £12, so you get some idea of the context. SOOOO glad I have stopped collecting dates and 'micro' varieties! For me the added spark of a rare date didn't/doesn't give the same buzz as a new type, and I can't do both! Btw I have a few boring old rare varieties and dates I will be listing on the Bay soon!

Wow! I didn't realise my collection had risen in value so much! Question is, is the bubble about to burst? Hold or sell ... thanks for the heads up Rennes, must have taken my eye off the ball for a moment!