scottishmoney

Good luck - if I saw it in front of me and could rotate the coin I might be able to determine the markers for the different types. Kind of looks like farmland find materiel that got chunked into a rotovator.

A bit like the Irish punt, was worth about 90p but you only ever got 1:1 if you spent an English pound over there. There was a brief stint ca. 1975-7 when the Irish currency was actually worth a bit more than a British quid. It was so unusual that it made the news in all rounds.

I could rather see it like the Scots pound of old, ie 12:1 - the Scots pound was a unit of account until the 1760s or so and was valued at 12 Scots to 1 British/English. When the Brent crude dries up the Scots pound will trade like toilet paper.

In these days bankers go on in their perfidious pursuits. In days of old they were in the very least run out of town, but much more likely were gaoled or even worse. I do believe that a few exceptional cases shall have earned the latter sentence - as an example. AIG, RBS, HBOS, Lehman Brothers - doesn't matter the ilk - but a wee bit of drawn blood might satiate the need for consequence.

http://news.yahoo.com/uk-39-osborne-rule-currency-union-independent-scotland-074618069--sector.html Canna have your cake an' eat it twa it seems. In the unlikely event that Scotland did opt for independence I could see some two decades down the road serious regrets ala the split up of Czechoslovakia. Now Czechs and Slovaks are pondering why the world they needed to split a country that was getting along just fine - no real ethnic tensions etc like Jugoslavia.

That's true for the US I'm sure, but the observations I've seen here are that they are not so good with UK coins. That's my perception too. I was referring to non-USA (world) coins in general between the two main USA TPGs. Almost without exception, when offered two coins of the same numeric grade from PCGS and NGC, I rarely prefer the PCGS example over the NGC example. I'm just talking numeric grade here, not either services ability to attribute varieties, etc. And, I'm also speaking with reference to not just UK coins, but also other European, Asian, African, and South American coins. Again, just my opinion based on my observations. Mileage may vary. With USA coins I view the opposite - USA coins in a higher grade tend to be better in PCGS holders than NGC. Quite frankly PCGS is a veritable virgin whence it comes to grading British or other "foreign" coins - they were rather late to the boat.

TPG plastic does nothing for me. Someone in some oxygen and light deprived cubicle's opinion of a coin is just that. All that really matters is what I think based on my knowledge. Maybe more collectors should pony up and learn and have confidence in what they collect.

As a person of Scottish descent I can offer a unique opinion. Quite inconvenient the truth about the whole Union of 1707 it is - it really was not the Anglish that wanted the whole deal - but rather the Scots. There was a little trifle in Scots economics called the "Darien Scheme" which was a colonial project in what is now Panama in Central America. It was Scotland's attempt at a colony that failed miserably and practically bankrupted the whole country. So Scots politicians brought up the whole Act of Union idea with the English parliament - seeking in return for their political acquiescence to a United Kingdom a practical financial bailout in the form of the "Equivalent Fund" which was paid out by England to Scotland into the 1720s. Fast forward three centuries - the whole Royal Bank of Scotland bailout by the British Treasury. Hmmm. Autonomy - certainly. A clean break, might wanna think about that, could have some narsty consequences.

I wonder how much the BRM is melting - ie post 1971 coinage, but pre-plated steel? I know the Royal Canadian Mint is actively retiring all bronze and nickel coinage and melting them and selling the result.

My oldest finds by denomination: Cent - 1874 - just last week, also found an 1890 the following day in a roll search. Nickel - 1890 found early last year Dime - 1923 got last year Quarter 1928 - found in the reject slot of a coin counter machine in 2012 Half - 1942 found in a bank in late 2012 Dollar - an 1897 I bought in a restaurant when I was a kid - the customer before me had spent it.

That good old yank preacher Pat Robertson called Scotland a dark dark land - after he was hired to do promos for the Scottish tourism board - he referred to Scotland so because of some similar thing. Those busying themselves condemning others to a hell will oft find themselves there instead.

From experience not many tellers would think the $5 gold piece was real. I have never found gold in a bank nor have I heard of any stories of it in the last 20 or so years. But silver, even silver dollars from before 1935 turn up from time to time. I have come across large quantities of silver halves: These I found in 2011. Here is one that a teller saved for me a couple of months ago: It pays to pay these young, attractive tellers off with candy etc. There is one that when she gets bored she goes through the rolls looking for stuff that she then lets me buy for face value. I am trying to get her to collect.

In the past week of searching through coin rolls from my credit unions I have found an 1874 Indian cent, an 1890 Indian cent and a 1909 Lincoln. With the Lincoln it just looks pretty much the same as a bronze coin from pre-1983 but the Indians look different enough you would think someone would have noticed them and kept them. I canna say I mind getting a 140 year old coin from circulation. I have wondered that the farthings might slip out as a penny coin from time to time. Occasionally I have found tanners masquerading as a nickel - most recent was a 1960 Irish tanner.

Bank card only, no cheques in some years now.

No joke here - our furnace gave up the ghost yesterday and we are using our gas fireplace for a bit of heat but temps are falling precipitously and we may leave for a hotel this afternoon if they cannot get the part we need for it. Snow thrower gave up the ghost on Sunday and have to get a new one. This cold stings.

My second great grandfather was from Germany, from Hamburg. Anyway he came over on the boat in 1871 because of the Franco-Prussian war and his father didn't want to lose anymore sons to the Prussian war machine. Fate would have it that some 46 years later he would send his sons off in the US army to fight what he termed "Prussian-Junker militarism", my uncle mentioned above was one of his sons. I have a newspaper article from 1917 where my great great grandfather was mentioned as sending his sons to fight the Kaiser - the editor thought his accent was still heavily German enough to note about it in the article. With WWI our family lost all contact with the family back in Hamburg and didn't re-establish contact until 1997. We are lucky in one respect, the house where my great great grandfather was born is still there. And in the end you will realise that all wars are this - Rich man's war, poor mans fight.

It is the sign of the ruination of the British nation. My first encounter with the new British coinage was a chance find on the floor at Kyiv Borispol airport a few years ago - and my thought was wow- what a downer! An 82 year old monarch and a smidgen of a shield on the reverse. No proud Britannia looking out to the seas she ruled, no pride and no powerful statement.

Hate to admit, I am still using some 100+ year old tools that were my great great grandfathers. My grandfather said they were made to use, not collect. So use they are. Treat them gently and carry on.

I'd like to see before and after pics as well.

The lettering is different, suggesting that individual lettre punches were not used to make this piece - the M, the A, the R in Maria are not of the contemporary "Gothic" style that were used for the punches in the official mint. In fact they are more rounded.

Merry Christmas - remember the Reason for the season.

Another date that comes up frequently at least for sixpences is 1758, a decent hoard of high grade examples was found in a vault somewhere years ago and dispersed into the market. 1787 also saw the coinage of a decent amount of gold for a change - nice because I have a guinea from that year.

Certainly a provenance isn't everything, but it is nice to know that a well known collector thought well enough of something you own that they owned it also. I have a very rare Scots coin that has a provenance going back to 1903 and also a very nice English noble that has a rather well known former owner. But seriously, I wouldn't pay a premium for a provenance - if the coin is nice buy it. Don't buy just the provenance and a stupid piece of overpriced plastic.

As ever it is up to the buyer to determine the grade and the price he/she will pay. I am going to bid on a few lots. But there is only one coin that I might be willing to pay over the odds on. For the others, they are either not all that scarce or I already have a better example than the one that is up for sale. My Scottish 22/- from Queen Mary is nicer than example that got a MS-63 grade in the NGC holder. One thing I cannot overcome is that the coin displays a couple of instances of tooling. There are other coins that don't make the grade on the holder IMHO but are still very nice examples - I just think plastic factory grading means nothing to me. There are a couple of coins I might swoop in on - but I may well do a crack-out fest in the event I get them. A plastic tomb doesn't a provenance make.

Lot of overgraded coins in overpriced plastic. There are some very nice coins, but the grades on the holders are obscene.