jaggy

Actually, Boris Johnson is American .... born in New York City.

The vote is what it is. The question is what are the next steps? In my opinion - and once the dust has settled - the EU are going to come back with a better offer to try to keep the UK in. This is a wake-up call for the E.U. elite. However, there have been many such calls in recent years, yet nothing seems to happen; Brussels appears impervious to the dissent. The E.U. system desperately needs reform but has shown little inclination in that direction. Perhaps this is the kick in the 'proverbials' that it needs. And let's not forget that the UK is not the most Euro-sceptic country. France, the Netherlands and Italy are out there too. A reformed EU and a better deal for the UK could be something that the electorate can accept. The EU has form for renegotiating and coming back for a second vote. They have done that with both Denmark and Ireland in the past. That may be the reason that nobody is in a hurry to invoke Article 50.

This is a photo of a coin I took recently. I use a Nikon D5100 with the kit lens (18mm - 55mm) and use the built in flash for the photo. Settings are f/14, focal length is 55mm and exposure time is 1/60 sec. I always use a tripod with the shutter set to automatic 10 second release so that there is no 'wobble' from me pressing the button. I always position the coin on a black background. The photo then goes into Photoshop Elements where I crop it to size and 'clean up' the lighting and the contrast. I could probably get a better shot if I invested in a 105mm macro lens and better lighting. But I think this works quite well for my purposes.

Catalogue is now out! http://www.londoncoins.co.uk/?page=Catalogue

In defence of Londonn Coins, I have never had a problem with them. I bid by email, they are always recorded right, I always get a printed catalogue sent to me, their photos are excellent, my bids are executed properly and I often get my coins for less than my maximum, I call up an pay by phone and lots are always despatched as promised. My only gripe is that they don't have online bidding.

For me, there are a number of aspects that go into desirability. Eye appeal is probably the most subjective. What you or I might find attractive in a coin may be different to what others find attractive. I remember as a child we always liked to get the new shiny coins and some collectors may well prefer a coin that looks like it has just come out of the mint. Price is another variable. Still subjective but, perhaps, less so for some than for others. I take a view as to what a coin is worth. That can be over 'book' or over 'auction estimate' depending on my own criteria. Atlas do have a coin that I would be very interested in. But not at $3,500; market value is probably around $1,500 and with 'juice' would probably cost me around $1,800 at auction. So my high-end price would be around $2,500. I don't know how 'flexible' Atlas are on pricing as I have never dealt with them. Your coin above is nice. I thought at the time that it was expensive. But I already had three examples of that coin. Not toned like yours but two of them are UNC and look great in the hand (i.e. not grey ). One cost 30 pounds and the other 17 pounds. That is a huge price differential.

I have won three so far. Two under low estimate and one over high estimate. So a mixed bag so far.

Middle of the night here (wife thinks I'm nuts) but just got on. No technical problems. After one of the earlier lots then back to bed for a couple of hours before the other lots I am interested in show up.

Personally, I think my example has more eye appeal (and wallet appeal) than their coin:

Presumably the business model works and they have a market at those prices.

He does have one that I would really like and which would fit in really well with my collection. But at $3500 I think I will wait till one shows up at auction.

Another 'comp' ..... an 1816 MS64 sixpence selling for 2.3 times what I paid for my MS65 sixpence of the same date.

I had a look through their site trying to find a 'comp'. And, indeed I did! A 1790 Pattern sixpence by Droz. Their coin is graded PF66. Mine is a GEF (DNW grading) although, in my opinion, their coin is over graded (and possibly mine is a rather conservative grading). Anyway, their coin costs 3 times what I paid for mine; 1,115 pounds ($1,595) compared to 366 pounds fully 'juiced'.

I have a small group of stocks that I monitor for significant movements. If, like Citibank, they look cheap at any given time then I will buy a few and then sell later on. However, for the most part I don't trade on my own. I work with two brokers. One is a 'moderately conservative' portfolio with a well known financial management firm which hold the bulk of our retirement dosh and the other is a much more speculative arrangement with a much smaller sum of money using a small broker where, one day, we hope to hit the mother lode. What I have realised over the years is that the amount of work you need to do to manage your own stuff is huge and that, generally, you are better off letting the professionals do it. The trick is to find the right professionals.

I'm a Mac user and had been using a product called iCollect which was okay but was lacking some key printing and exporting functionality. Anyway, when I installed the latest MacBook operating system, El Capitan, iCollect no longer worked properly although I could still see the data. So I decided to pull the trigger, get a new database product and re-catalogue. The new software I bought is called Steward. It is very intuitive and easy to use and I was up and running in minutes. What do I like about Steward? 1. You create, customise and label your own fields. So you can include as little or as much information about your coins as you want. 2. You can attach photos. And not just Obverse/Reverse. You can attach multiple photos (e.g. a ticket that came with the coin or a key detail. 3. Export and backup functionality is very good. I haven't tested restoring a backup but I have done an import/export and it works. 4. It only costs $21 What don't I like. 1. I think the reporting engine is weak. I would like to be able to customise how I display data on the screen or what I print. 2. I would like to be able to customise the look and feel of the data on the screen. At the moment it looks bit like a flat file.

Anyway, I upgraded my MacBook Pro to the new El Capitan operating system and, guess what, the software I had been using to catalogue my collection no longer worked. The data was there but, because of the limitations of the old software, I couldn't export it in any meaningful way. The technical failure forced my hand but I had been unhappy about some of the lack of functionality in the old software and the failure of the developers to take it forward. So I found some new software at around $20 and which has more than a few advantages over the old package. I can specific my own fields and call them what I want, I can import/export in industry standard formats and I can print off individual records and listings. More importantly, having to re-input each record - or each coin - gave me a chance to take a fresh look at my collection and at coins that have been sitting in the trays largely ignored as I plotted my next acquisitions. And there were a few takeaways .... 1. Data was often incomplete and inconsistent from one coin to another. This exercise has allowed me to drive some consistency and identify where I need to spend more effort. 2. The latest ESC is a much better reference book than the previous edition. I had not realised how much better. 3. While most coins were what I thought they were, I did discover an unnoticed William III R5 in the mix. And, yes, I recognise that R5 is a fairly unscientific indication of rarity but I will take it! 4. Valuations can only be very approximate despite the best efforts of CCGB and the auction archives. Best to put a conservative valuation and then triple it for insurance purposes. 5. Some of my photos are awful and need to be redone preferably with a better lens and better lighting. 6. The importance of being able to export data in an industry standard format should not be downplayed. We are always at the mercy of the computer industry as new systems and standards creep into our world. The ability to recover data when the software no longer works is critical. And, now, back to the data entry.

The pound floats freely. If Britain votes to leave then it will probably see a short term dip. However, in the longer term, the value of the currency is determined by the overall strength of the economy and by other factors such as interest rates. If UK economic performance does not dip significantly then the pound will gradually appreciate back to the level it is at today if not higher. If the UK raises interest rates it will also appreciate. In the event of a Eurozone economic dip - and like the Swiss Franc - the pound may be seen as a refuge currency and there will be some capital flight from the Euro and into the pound. That would also push its value up. Obviously, the opposite can also happen.

That is part of the problem. There is a dearth of hard, quantifiable and generally accepted numbers on which to form an opinion.

The whole debate has become a bit hysterical and especially from the Remain side with dire warnings of economic catastrophe, the latest being a warning from the IMF of a drop in GDP greater than that experience in the Great Depression. Frankly, most of it is not very believable. There are also a few red herrings in the debate. First, 'trade deals'. Remain is giving the impression that we need trade deals to be able to do business and, if we leave the EU, we will have difficulty in getting those deals. Nothing could be further from the truth. Neither Europe not the UK has a trade deal with the USA at this point in time but it doesn't stop us doing a ton of business with them. Second, unfavourable tariffs with the EU. In 2014, the EU had a trade surplus with the UK of around £68 billion. Tariffs are always reciprocated. Anyone who thinks that the EU will risk incurring tariffs on its huge trade surplus is clearly smoking something not quite legal. Trade will continue. Third, immigration. Only about 40% of UK immigration is from the EU and the government has complete control over the rest. If we wanted to cut immigration in half then we could and without reference to the EU. Also, there are about as many Brits living in other EU countries as there are EU citizens living in the UK. Around a million Brits live in Spain, many of them retirees. Fourth, benefits. A University College, London, study found that immigrants who arrived after 1999 were 45% less likely to receive state benefits or tax credits than UK natives in the period 2000-2011 and had contributed 34% more in taxes than they received in benefits. Ultimately, I think that the key issue in this referendum is what kind of relationship the UK wants to have with the rest of the EU. I suspect that most people do not want to be part of a not very democratic European superstate (and this might be true of other countries as well). The rather hysterical scare tactics we are seeing are a not very subtle attempt to avoid this core issue.

Actually you can as a number of Scottish Labour MPs found out to their cost at the last General Election.

'We' as in Britain cannot get rid of them in the way that we could get rid of our own civil servants. The issue here is that the EU is an evolving federal structure and these 'Eurocrats' are the civil servants of that structure. However, there is a very weak control and accountability mechanism in place. Effective power resides with qualified majority voting by national governments while the European Parliament is a pretty weak counterbalance. So there is no real day to day oversight of bureaucratic actions and decisions by an organism that has the power to do anything about it. Other federal structures (e.g. USA, Switzerland) have a well defined understanding of the division of powers with an established legislative process at both state and federal levels to manage that power. Thus, civil servants at both levels are accountable to the relevant legislative bodies. The EU does not have that understanding or even a consensus on what the overall entity should look like and has not developed the legislative structures which can hold civil servants to account. What this has led to is a democratic deficit at the centre where decisions are made but with no oversight or accountability. Clearly, if the EU is to continue down its existing path then it needs to develop the democratic institutions that can manage the 'federal' power. The problem in Britain is that many people are not comfortable with that 'existing path'. They thought they were joining a trading block and not a nascent European federal state.

Citibank now trading at $43.11. So that is a 13% appreciation in just a couple of months. UBS have a $53 target for end of year. I will take $50.

Which is why you need to look closely at the photo and make up your own mind. I am currently tracking a coin in another auction where they have missed a very important detail. Just hoping the other interested parties have not picked up on it.

The valuation is one thing and what one is willing to pay is quite another. And auctions can be fickle. I have bought coins at Heritage for half of what very similar examples fetched at DNW while other coins have fetched far more at Heritage than they have in other auctions. So it is far from being an exact science.

My primary source of reference for prices are auction archives and mainly LCA, Heritage and DNW. That works very well for fairly common coins. Rarer coins are trickier as they come up at auction less frequently and so there is less of a track record. Then you have to factor in how badly you want the coin and how much of a premium you are willing to pay for it.