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TomGoodheart

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Everything posted by TomGoodheart

  1. TomGoodheart

    If you were a millionaire......

    Everything has its price. The question is, how much money would you need to have in the bank to feel able to part with a sufficient some to pry those suckers loose. Do you mean the guys with the rare coins or my wife and child?
  2. I think I've raised this before but... most gradings are only really useful for modern coins. That's because there are really fine examples out there that one can compare with. With the older coins it's much more subjective. I see no point in a fifty (or whatever) point scale with hammered coins. You get a coin 'as struck' that has perfect lettering but a weak bust and another with a strong bust but with weak lettering. Despite being as close as one gets to in 'mint' condition they could grade just good VF. How would you grade this for example?...
  3. TomGoodheart

    If you were a millionaire......

    Hmm... I'm not sure a million would help me much. It's less the cost of the coins I collect that's the problem than the availability. There are a couple of guys I know who have pretty much the only known examples of some of the Charles I shillings and I'm not sure they would part with them! I'd probably just use the money to retire so I can spend (even more) time looking for examples I don't have. I think my wife may have different ideas however!
  4. TomGoodheart

    Scanning

    I don't use padding. The colour balance I just fiddle about with. The detail is determined by the dpi setting. Trouble is the higher the dpi, the more memory the file takes up. I find a setting of 300dpi adequate. I have gone up to 800 but you can't email 10 or 12 MB without people whinging! If you scan several coins on high resolution, I find you can cut out one you want with someting like Paint. This cuts down on size and it can then be posted etc. That Will IIII in Fave coins was scanned at 300 or 400dpi along with my other shillings and then edited like that. Oh - I find I can do more with the pics if I save as JPEGs. I'm sure some young'un can tell me why. (No, no, that wasn't a request, I'm happy not to know!)
  5. TomGoodheart

    Dictionary additions.

    i dont know...but a sovereign as a pound seems strange... I think you're thinking of a Guinea, which was 21 shillings. George III introduced the Sovereign to replace the Guinea in 1817. I like the table EO. Very colourful!
  6. TomGoodheart

    My Favourite Modern Coin

    So you're not on the Times Rich List either...?
  7. TomGoodheart

    My Favourite Modern Coin

    Thank you! It may soon be on the market too! (Gotta finance my hammered addiction somehow!)
  8. TomGoodheart

    Grading

    Ah well, I gather they were rather different characters! Pistrucci wasn't the type to hide his light behind a whatever by the sounds of it.
  9. TomGoodheart

    Grading

    Whereas this is a good VF (Spink told me to say that..)
  10. TomGoodheart

    Grading

    Aha! I have learnt to attach (you'll all learn to regret that!) Dificult to see but WWP in centres of shamrocks and WW initials in border three notches up from the end of the serif of A in ANNO. Sadly not a perfect coin else it would be clear as er... something or other.
  11. TomGoodheart

    My Favourite Modern Coin

    Sadly ther'e a dint on the rev.. Sold to me as good EF.
  12. TomGoodheart

    My Favourite Modern Coin

    I was going to post my 1834 but it doesn't seem to like BMPs, lets try this...
  13. TomGoodheart

    Grading

    Mint Mark has the right idea. We can all agree what makes a good EF George IV shilling because we know the degree of detail that they were minted with. (Some chap called Wyon put his initials into the border and those of William Pole, Master of the Mint into the shamrock leaves - that's pretty good for a coin the size of a shilling! (you'll need a decent lens to see it!)) And if you can't lay your hands on one at that grade, Spink's yearly catalogue normally features the best examples they can find. It is however virtually impossible to find a perfect example of every hammered coin to compare. I have to refer to old sale catalogues (useful because they tend to state grades) and books cataloguing major collections (If someone like Brooker who amassed 1,356 Charles I coins could only find a weak example of something and you find a better one there's a good chance you're on to a winner!) If I lived near a major museum then I could make friends with the curators but that isn't too practical out in the cultural void I inhabit! (OK - we do have a gallery and a few other nice things but no museum with coins..)
  14. TomGoodheart

    Grading

    And on hammered coins, you just gotta go by the detail!
  15. TomGoodheart

    How do you handle your coins?

    I used to be paranoid and only carefully handle coins by the edges. I never used tweezers, I'd worry I'd drop the coin! Now most of my stuff is 360 years old and I think it seems a shame not to handle a piece of history like that. I obviously would'nt stick my fingers all over the thing or pick it up while eating jam sandwiches. I'm getting one of those Nichols cabinets soon so I'll probably play with my coins more once they are out of the coinholders they currently reside in. Course, my Ed VII matt proof will stay protected!
  16. TomGoodheart

    Edward VIII

    I heard that Richard Lobel (the Coincraft guy) bought a whole set some time back. I have never heard that they came onto the market but I did ask him once how much he wanted for the shilling and he just quoted the Coincraft Catalogue price. You could always phone and ask him!
  17. TomGoodheart

    What is your best buy?

    Mine would have to be 1) a Charles II merk. Sold to me by a dealer who said 'here, this is the same as a shilling' I paid £40 but two years later saw some in Spink's Numismatic Circular with unusual obverse/reverse die axes. A quick check and it's upped in my records to more like £250. 2) A Charles I shilling I didn't buy! I was outbid on eBay but was later contacted by the buyer. A few chats later I was offered several coins, one of which had passed through the hands of three well(ish) known 20th century collectors.
  18. TomGoodheart

    How can i tell?

    OK - this may or may not work. I have found sometimes that slightlywetting a coin (just use tapwater, though on a coin that worn it probably doesn't matter) allows you to read the details a bit better.
  19. TomGoodheart

    Fake!

    Thank you all for that. I actually did fork out good money for a coin that I reckon is a fake. I have yet to establish if it is a contemporary coin however or a later 'issue'. I am quite happy to do so as I feel it's part of coin history. After all, people collect tokens, most of which were never legal tender. There was allowance for later ones in that the Sheffield and Birmingham workhouse tokens were declared legal. I don't know about the 1700s. I think they were just considered a convenience. What I have is a bit of metal that looks much like a Charles I shilling. If it was made by someone in the 1630's I'd be happy. If not, I guess I have to chalk it up to experience!
  20. Has anyone (I'm looking at Chris and Geoff here ) any ideas about pricing of counterfeit coins? I'm talking contemporary counterfeits here, that form a part of numismatic (or should that be paranumismatic) history, not modern repros that someone has filed the identifying marks off. Would YOU fork out good money for a counterfeit for your collection? If so, did you pay a lot less than for the 'real' thing?
  21. TomGoodheart

    Why...

    I collect because I'm an obsessive nerd and I find it fun to tick off the varieties I have accumulated. Mostly it's fun but when I get beaten for something on eBay it aint! If I win and I think I have got a bargain however..... (not that money has anything to do with it!!!!)
  22. I must stop doing that. I think I'm replying to a topic and miss the fact that there's another page.......... sorry.
  23. Gerard. If you got a scanner when you bought your computer, that can be used to get a picture. Scanned pictures can be cropped in something like Paint (ie edited to show mainly the coin itself) If your coin is 25 mm across, its a sixpence (1/40th of £1), if 20mm, a threepence. You can obviously read the date, but that gives us little idea of the grade of coin (ie how clear or battered/worn it is). Is the portrait clear? On the side that has no date you should see a head and shoulders and a blob. If the head has clearly got a crown and the blob looks like a Tudor rose it may be worth a few quid (to £30). If you can see the pattern on the dress (for it is Queen Elizabeth I) and details of her hair, could be up to £100. If neither, it's a nice souvenir!
  24. OK - enough! Enough! I have decided to come to the support of the Churchill Crown! .........Sorry 'bout the pause, I thought I could hear the coin police on the stairs... It may not be a wonderful coin but it IS interesting. Unusually, it has a head on each side but no value shown. And (at the time) it was an attempt to put some more modern are onto our coinage. Perhaps not succesful, but what about the 1977 crown? The Queen looks like she's wearing a tea towel not a hat and the horse is a disgrace compared to those of Charles I that presumably provided the idea. If you want a portrait to complain about, what about the Victorian Jubilee - she looks like a penguin with a currant bun on her head. I think we should take all the Churchill crowns, countermark them with the bust of Margaret Thatcher and sell them to the Americans....
  25. TomGoodheart

    Early Milled Coinage

    Nice research guys, I'm impressed. Two bits of useless info I didn't spot- A "Journey" of silver was the amount (I think in hammered days, but possibly early milled) of silver made into coin in a day which was 60lb Troy and made 3960 shillings. The article I read this in also gave numbers of some other coins but (sorry ) I was only interested in the shilling bit! Haymarking is just that. Handfulls of hay were thrown into the molten silver. I believe it helped to burn off or deposit impurities. Some bubbles or burnt bits presumably remained, leaving the marks. I don't think it had anything to do with the dies so you could get an 'as struck' coin still with marks.
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