Red Riley

I'm presently grinding my way through it...

German was never the most succinct of languages but when you sling in all the marketing bullsh*t it becomes a cure for insomnia. Nice coin but about 3x overpriced.

Don't get me wrong, I am not casting aspersions(?) on Chris Taylor's grading at all, I just suspect that some bidders may have been bidding the grade, not the coin.

I noticed that. In fact I bought the 1878. Looked like a bargain - let you know when I get it... £200 for an 1894, however good is way over the top. A quick search of the internet should get you an equally good coin a good deal cheaper. Looking at the images, there didn't seem to be a lot between these coins and I rather felt people were bidding purely on the strength of the quoted grade rather than looking at the image and assessing it themselves.

The date is on the edge. Mind you, in my experience the coin has to be well above average for this to be actually visible. Don't think I'll be bidding...

I don't even know where it is. Just the most ludicrous name for an English town that I could think of (didn't Reginald Perrin refer to somebody having a 'degree in applied manure from the University of Steeple Bumpstead?). It was a toss up between there and Chipping Sodbury.

The error is possibly planchet rather than die related and likely to make the coin less rather than more valuable. It makes it rarer I suppose, but only in the same way as if somebody had scratched their initials on it. Incidentally, I have a William III halfcrown which has a very similar problem where a piece of the planchet seems to have flaked off before the coin was minted.

[in best chavlish] Is you disrespectin me an sayin I is Old?? Do what sonny?

Pretty much agree with that, so perhaps we are getting things wrong when we describe coins in VF as being in the 'soggy centre' and perhaps we should just look at hard values - an Oliver Cromwell crown in VF is hardly middle of the market whereas a dickey mint 1967 penny is stll bottom of the heap regardless. Easy really!

Accepting that you may be new to grading (the coin is probably around GF), there is one other thing that would earn you a teensy slap across the wrist, and that is in describing the coin as 'rare' when it's nothing of the sort. The coin is perfectly collectable but your heading is likely to get collectors' backs up and result in a lack of trust. If you want help with grading, I'm sure there are plenty of people on here who will throw you a lifeline, juat post a picture before listing and we'll help out but as regards the description, if you are unaware of how rare the coin actually is, suggest you say nowt. Lecture over!

I think you will find this is a gripe in every walk of life, it certainly was when I was flogging pensions and investments. I don't think there is much that can be done about it other than to forget the bottom line for a moment and console yourself with fact that people without two halfpennies to rub together can be just as interesting as captains of industry.

The question is how you collect your coins. All of us are on a limited budget, it is just a question of scale. A low ranking local government worker from Steeple Bumpstead may have £1,000 to spend on coins; he could go for one corker or 10-20 middle grade coins. If he goes for the forer then he has a coin, the latter a collection, which would tell him far more about coins and history in general. Mid-grade coins may get hit in a recession but most of those collecting them aren't investors, so it is of little moment to them if they're in it long-term. And if he manages to hang onto his job through the lean years then he will be able to expand his collection exponentially. Collectors of low-grade coins can, in my experience, also be the elderly who are on a very limited budget and want an absorbing hobby for their twilight years - it doesn't cost much and can give many hours of pleasure. We are all different and there is no right or wrong way to collect. Just go with what suits you.

This guy (Ian Fall I believe) usually knows what he's doing, so I'm at a loss to understand why such a peculiar listing. I guess he must just have attached the wrong picture, but then surely he would just replace it. Dunno.

I've seen the colour go back as far as 1893 but it is probably just the origin of the metal which accounts for the reddish shade.

That's a very interesting report SEUK. As I've said umpteen times in the past, coin collecting is about history, not serried ranks of near identical coins all in BU condition...

Or possibly a sixpence... from a design point of view the two coins are virtually identical. Without knowing the size, I'd go with shilling. Unfortunately both are among the most common coins of the 18th century being minted way beyond their dated year. This isn't a bad coin, in my view falling just short of VF but don't look forward to retiring on its retail value!

Off the top of my head, maybe a fiver or so? Common date but nicely toned and definitely too good for the scrapper.

They also re-based the date so that 1792 became year 1. I've got a nice little centime from year 7.

Yes, and too many! Works the other way as well though... as a seller, I always state in the description 'sensible reserve' or words to that effect, yet people still bid £1.24! Why?! I'm hardly going to 2nd chance offer you at that price! I've got some junk from bulk lots that I would happily exchange for £1.24...

I find it nigh on impossible to grade these hammered coins and tend to fall back on longhand descriptions. If it were a milled coin it would be worse than Fair as some of the legend is unreadable but that's commonplace on hammered stuff even in otherwise higher grade coins. I have a feeling that hammered pieces have become more popular in recent years, in my view largely as a result of internet images being available obviating the need to describe or use grading terms. Buying them off of a dealer's list was often a shot in the dark.

Technically illegal, 66% is the maximum and for most people you would have had to work 40 years for the same employer to get it!

You buy it and I'll lend you the Brasso. Incidentally, do both Rob's higher grade coin and that on E-bay look as if the 7 has been struck over a 6, or is it just me?

I have to say that in the main, I have found it difficult in the extreme to spot trends in the market. What I have noticed however is as follows: Prices at traditional auctions have held up pretty well in my opinion, certainly at the ones I went to - so much so that I suffered the strange experience of travelling 100 miles to an auction and coming home with nothing whatever - in my view everything was overpriced! I have found that quality is avialable, as is rarity but both at a price. Where I was looking for a combination of both, I came home empty handed which pretty much bears out what Peckris was saying. Over the summer e-bay prices took a huge hit, have now mostly increased but perhaps not back up to previous levels. As this is my first year of trading, it may just be that this is the way of things caused by buyers being on holiday and slowly re-entering the market. It was matched by a similar downturn in my sales! Coins which have been unexpectedly popular (to me at any rate) included maundy odds, copper pennies and the hammered series which I am frantically trying to understand... Bronze pennies have been OK but no more than that (mid grade specimens being way behind book) and I can't sell a farthing for love nor money. And finally, I have found it a little disconcerting how many people are simply led by the nose when it comes to traditional auctions' estimates. Frequently I just cannot see any rime or reason to these and yet bidders just seem to treat them as gospel - rather I suppose as some collectors stick rigidly to their price guides. Incidentally, Croydon Coin Auctions estimates usually equate to the reserve which makes it a hard place to get a bargain.

i dont know how i managed that, one of those mystery's of life, however it was probably a peabrain to cumberland finger error for sure karzi cos theres a pic of one in the link to salvaging silver. is karzi a london term? interesting, i live in west london and not heard it soo much, but then i cant explain why i used the term either..........back to the peabrain Used, as I recall in 'Carry On Up The Khyber' when Kenneth Williams played the Kharzi of Khalabar and Sid James was Sir Sidney Rough-Diamond. Charles Hawtrey was Private Widdle of the 3rd Foot and Mouth. They don't make films like that any more...

I used to have one of those but the big end went...