scottishmoney

The EU is not going to admit anyone out of Europe. Look at all the noise from France etc that Turkey is an Asian nation. The only logical steps for countries outside of Europe is to look within their own particular regions of the world for trade agreements. The USA has done that with Mexico and Canada, as well as Chile in S. America. The APEC organisation is looking towards this goal in the Asia Pacific region. Membership in APEC includes Japan, USA, Russia, Canada, China etc. If anything I think the EU is going to go through some growing pains, and perhaps countries might even leave it if nationalism takes stride. The EU constitution was voted down in formerly driving EU countries like Netherlands and France. France's election this Spring will be an indicator of where France is going to go with the EU over the next few years. The election pitting Segelene Royal against Nicholas Sarkozy will be one of France's most important elections in a long time. Some newer EU members and candidates for the Euro are starting to have second thoughts, Poland for example. Estonia's economy is very strong and driving in the Baltic region, but... how long will that last with a huge labour shortage that cannot even be augmented with labour coming in from Russia and ex USSR states. I am not predicting the demise of the EU, but rather that I believe there will be some bumps in the road on a way to a Unified Europe.

I placed my Maundy coins in coin fitting capsules and placed them right back in their now 105 yr old home.

Something to consider seriously with Australian politics, they will more likely become Communist than re-integrate themselves with something in Britain. Australia will become a republic sometime, it nearly happened a few years ago but the referendum was buried in another issue. Frankly you have an independent country on the other side of the globe populated with people whom have very little if any ties to Britain anymore. Many of the earliest settlers in Australia were not settled there willingly so their descendants don't feel a particularly strong affection for Britain nowadays. Canada, with the exception of the French Canadiens, is a bit different. More people in Canada are there more recently from Britain and still have some ties to the homeland. People I know in Canada are generally favourable in opin of the monarchy though in reality it touches their lives little. Australia is much more integrated economically with countries in the region, China, Japan, New Zealand, Indonesia etc than it is with Britain. So any such link to what the British shall elect to perform with their currency is moot in Australia. Canada is much more integrated through trade and diplomacy with the USA than it is with Britain. It all has to do with proximity. The USA and Canada together have the largest trade betwixt their two nations than any other countries. There has been no discussion of using any currency in Canada other than integrating their currency with that of the USA. With the US$ tanking in international currency markets any such notion is unlikely. Canada's $ has appreciated 25% in value against the US $ in the last couple of years. In the short term that is beneficial for Canadian trade, however in the long term it is not.

Chinese and Russian collectors delving into other collecting interests are driving prices on their material, but also on other stuff as their collecting habits grow. I could not get over the availability of numismatic material whilst I was in China last Spring. It was possible to unload your cash for gold, commemoratives or whatever your wallet could be lightened for. The same is true in Russia. When you haven't been able to have something for so long it is tempting when you finally can collect without fear the government is going to come after you.

Yep indeed, you can click the wee banner right below my message et voila!

I have a link on my website.

And bought by all our Russian customers

The states quarters were interesting at first, but after awhile you lose interests in them. I don't even save the new ones when they come out anymore. The Presidential $1 coins mean nothing to me either. Frankly some of them are commemorating individuals not worthy of such. For instance Richard Nixon, for whom stuff is still being revealed about his chicanery even most recently.

Then you have some counties which are independent in spirit, say Cornwall. For they even have their own language out there. And even occasionally their very own sterling notes. I hate the state quarters, being near to Canada I confuse them with Canadian coins, which I try to avoid like the plaque since they are worth less than a US 25¢ coin.

From the cngcoins.com site, this is the Triton sale they are having in January, there are several tin coins, I like this one best though.

I made the switch about 6 months ago. I like Mozilla Firefox better for many things, for one posting images in forum messages is much easier since you can copy the image location on the right click of your mouse button. I am still not quite sure how this is done in IE. Another thing, most popups are designed for IE, since it is far and away more used than FF. So I have yet to see a popup in FF, with IE despite having a popup blocker I get them still, especially on CNN.com and BBC.CO.UK etc. All in all once you get used to it, and it is quick to learn, it is much easier to use than that Microsoft product.

You guys are aging yourselves with all this discussion of games etc that are well before my time.

My best badly listed was a poor image of a Scottish £1 note from 1961, I bought the note for £5, it is worth about £150 as it is a trial issue.

I received an auction catalog from Alan Davisson yesterday, he has a Petition crown in the auction closing in February, you can see the auctions at Britishcoins.com. There is also a nice Scottish £20 coin from the reign of James VI, but a bit rich for my blood.

I use Mozilla Firefox for a browser, not IE, it is easy to save a link to a photo location in FF, just click the right button on the mouse and save image location as and then post the link to the image via the image link thingy on the menu bar in Predecimal. IE is not easy to do this with, in fact I am not sure how it works or if it does in IE. I have been using FF now for about 6 months and like it a lot better navigationally and functionally than IE. So for Hussulo's lovely Noble, I can do the following:

Isn't there registration approval? I see spam just about everytime I go on here.

I seriously believe especially with China and Russia that not only is spam and hacking not discouraged, but that in fact in the pursuit of having a means of destructive capability on an otherwise unimaginable scale that the governments of those nations might actually be encouraging it elicitly of course.

It is this guy we are up against. Captain Kung Pao from N. Korea.

We say here, C новым годом! Happy New Year

Of course it would be busy on Christmas day and the Boxing holiday also, since they do not have such nonsensical holidays in Spamland.

Go with your own grade and nothing else, nothing can be more true than your own opin of a coin.

Actually since I collect Russian/Siberian/Ukrainian coins I often trade with collectors over there, and have had great experiences everytime, and wonderful surprises like BU Nikolai II coins from the 114-1916 era show up out of nowhere.

The Brussels hoard of 1908 is still making it's way into the market, I have several Scottish coins and a few English coins from this hoard. Curiously these coins all have a curious tone to them, as though some environmental factor caused their colouring. The Cnut pennies are an example of market oversaturation however, they came out all at the same time and did not permit even a modest growth of interest in them. 10 yrs ago they were tough to find, now they are all over the place and they are cheap.

Wouldn't touch with a 10 metre pole.

I don't believe one off metal detector finds have a whole lot of an effect on market prices for coins, even if the collecting base is somewhat specialised and limited. However finds of small hoards do if they are all released at once. Example the famous Colchester hoard is still being released, and coins from the Brussels hoard of 1908 are still making their way out of vaults and into collectors hands. However the finds of Cnut pennies are a bad example, where they all got released at once, and the prices of the coins declined.