scottishmoney

I am sure that peacekeepers in some sense will be there in 2070 also. And curiously enough the King of Afghanistan back then is still around today and a minor player in the current political situation. I doubt he will be around in 70 years though.

Actually Theodore Roosevelt was a very religious individual, and as such, he believed that the Deity was lessened by having "God" on money. There is an old saying, "Money is the root of all evil". When the first St. Gaudens $20 pieces were released in 1907, they did NOT have "In God We Trust" on them, and this is largely believed to be because of TR's intercession with the designer of the coins, Augustus St. Gaudens. However the public as a whole objected, and the motto was later placed on the coins. It is a curious irony that atheists and the religious can both object to the placement of the motto "In God We Trust" on coins, but they do, albeit for differing reasons.

Maybe you don't, and that is okay. Right now there are nuts complaining that the US mint and the Bush administration have instigated a plot to take God off of the money, they have completely missed that the mint made the so called "Godless" coins in error, and that it was not by design. Even if they can find God on the edge, that is not good enough, because God was removed from the face of the coin. Frankly I am with Theodore Roosevelt, God does not belong on money. And quite frankly that is the vain with which I wrote the post above which you have taken issue with.

Frankly I am a hell of a lot more concerned about all the Americans(and our British friends) getting blown to smithereens in Iraq, and the billions wasted on that dung heap of a country than whether god is on the dollar coin. Next Monday morning there will be a funeral for a local man killed in Iraq last week. He leaves a 21 yr old wife and a 5 month old son. This Washington Dollar stuff is all fluff and no consequence. The billions wasted in Iraq and the 3000+ Americans and British needlessly sacrificed is!

I have dibs on the ones from Inverness and Londonderry.

I'll say they messed up, this 2007 thing looks like one of those clownish Coincraft Edward VIII repros. At least I really like the 2007 Britannia, now that is a coin I have to have with the Lion on it.

Rolls are more convenient for automatically knowing how much you have. But most Canadian banks roll coins in little plastic rolls that fit together, and they are like little trays for the coins. They are actually better than the USA paper rolls in that you can see the edge of the coin and they are re-usable. For some reason they still use paper rolls for cents, and I have gotten a few Canadian cent wrappers with USA cents in them this way. Now UK banks poly bag most coins in fixed denominations, prior up to the 1980's or so they were in paper bags. Occasionally you will see wrappers from National Westminster or Lloyds bank with predecimal coins in them on eBay.

There were rolls to some extent in the old days, but bags, starting with paper and now plastic ziplock bags reign supreme. Before paper was of course linen, and I have a few of them from Scotland.

The GV pennies were notorious for shallow relief, most notably on the reverse where you will notice a halo around Britannia which is from the obverse stamping on the coin. For this reason the Royal Mint changed GV's head size on the coin, but it only bandaged the issue. The first coins I have noticed the halo is not present on are the 1936's, which of course were struck in huge quantities. Despite the striking challenges above, I believe this piece likely exhibits post mint damage.

Surely thou canna taunt us with such without an imagery?

Somewhere I have seen a self portrait that the then Princess Victoria drew of herself sometime just prior to her accession to the throne in 1837. She would be described in our time as rather plain, she depicted herself with a slightly doubled chin etc. One must note however that in her youth she looked not so much like the dowdy old dowager that most of us remember her as. In essence by 19th century mores she was a moderately attractive young woman. In fact her mood and looks changed considerably after the demise of her beloved Prince Albert in 1861. Actually as far as no chin monarchs, here is the so called playdoh princess, Isabel II of Spain:

Might just as well drill a hole through it as clean it. Other than rubbing grime and dust off with a towel like cloth, you should NOT take the patina(toning colour) off of the coin, or it dramatically loses its value.

I have wondered how often that might happen, farthings got a bit scarce late in the predecimal era but you have to wonder if it slipped out of a collection somewhere. Out of 6000+ predecimal coins in my hoard, only 28 are farthings.

I started noticing the spam appearing on the tail ends of threads too. I found it rather annoying to have to go in delete, block etc. Now maybe we will have a bit more time for discussion of our favourite topic:)

William IV 1830-1837 Victoria 1837-1901 Edward the VII 1901-1910 Edward the VIIIth 1936 All the rest were George, by golly.

You stick with George, you have committed yourself to collecting all but 4 monarchs that reigned from 1714-1952.

The best coins to collect are those which know one tells you are the best to collect, but rather what appeals to you, and most importantly...you! For me it can be some overlooked 17th century token, a scarce Scottish piece, an ancient Syracuse coin, a lovely early American coin etc. I would sure be bored and lose interest in my hobby if I let others tell me to collect what they like.

It is a sixpence, it is possible that it toned to that colour after being harshly cleaned, or that it was plated sometime after it sat in the ground.

Rcvd this morn in the post, this is a 10mm medallet, which may have been part of a series made in the early 1840's commemorating the Royal Family. I have found reference to similar medallets being made for Princess Royal and Queen Victoria, so this would date these to approximately 1844-1845. This piece is rather interesting for the wear it has, such a small piece would have easily been lost in a pocket or a purse. Amazing to have something so small from 160+ years ago with wear on it.

You have to love these early coppers

You can get a paper filtered mask that fits over your nose and mouth, that stops your condensation from getting on the coins. In addition get some cotton gloves for handling the coins. These should be available in a home improvement store. For imaging the coins - Since they are proofs and valuable as such, do NOT scan them. I don't place anything too good on the scanner, but rather play with the new digital camera until I get the image just right. That way you save yourself placing coins on glass(safe by itself, unfortunately not with finger oils, dust, glass cleansing agents etc) With a bit of practice with a decent 4.0+ MP camera, you can take amazing shots of coins. You will achieve much more satisfactory results with a camera over a scanner any day. The only reason I still use the scanner often is that it is less time consuming, and for most of my images I can give a bit on the quality. I only started photographing my coins after some of them looked terrible when scanned, especially darker bronzes, I have some ancients from Syracuse Sicily that absolutely refuse to be scanned, but I can image them with the camera. The second coin, second AE from Sicily on this page is scanned, all the rest are imaged with a 4.1 MP camera(now replaced by a 6.0 MP) Notice the difference in the images?

Or that Hank the VIIIth debased the currency so, that he was referred to as "Old Coppernose" because his coins looked so coppery

I gather my lovelies on the basis of their artistic and historical merit, not on whether they will be saleable in the future. I view slabbing as an admission of lack of suitably intelligent outlook in the pursuit of one's interests, namely hobbies. I have about 3 slabbed coins, but I didn't buy them for the slab, but for the coin.

Well it gets very muddied, some companies are products are traded higher, since they are perceived to be stricter graders. PCGS, especially the older green labels, and NGC are usually highest priced. Others do not trade at high prices, and some of my local dealers actually downgrade these coins on their own, and price accordingly downward from the stated grade on the holder.

Interesting comparison of different grading companies grading the same coin Borrowed from a USA discussion site. This is the same coin graded by five different companies, the owner had it "conserved" for the last submission which is why it looks a bit different. But notice the grades are all over the map. Go figure.