oldcopper

Sounds like Michael Sharp. I never spoke to him but that was what he looked like! He died several years ago.

23rd year in farthings, and it's dated 1988, so that means John Minshull started in 1965. I remember buying a VGVF from him once. Never seen that grade again!

Wow, I've just checked out your website for the Edward VIII's - fantastic. The coin is No. 1, provenance unknown. Hopefully Spink will give more details when the catalogue is published.

No, my apologies, I'm not known as paranoid Pete for nothing! Anyway, it doesn't look like Mark Rasmussen's (he's monopolising these rare pennies!) from his List 9 (£35,000)

I mean it's the only specific coin type that's an Ed VIII penny. Whereas even I have got some George VI pennies (yes, more than one!).

I got the catalogue yesterday, Spink are always sending me catalogues that are nothing to do with my area. Still, a nice looking catalogue, well put together. It's a shame there's no biographical info about the vendor (hello Isla?!) which there usually is for single vendor catalogues. Mostly bought 2005-2008 so not that old a collection. Interesting historical details given for many coins and the contemporary background, makes the catalogue much more interesting to peruse. Only the odd blunder (eg …. the mint "was cited at the Tower of London", I think they meant "sited"!

But it's a unique type coin......

You're right, that crossed my mind after I wrote. Thinking about it, FS lists in my time were possibly every 6-9 months...ish I dimly recall??, so list 57 must have only been a few years later. Maybe he did smaller and more frequent lists early on. Colin Cooke told me he used to supply FS with coins in his early days before he became a dealer in his own right.

He was never one to underplay his wares! Thanks for posting those - they must be early 90's if it's 23 years from 1969 (if that is what he means). I never got round to asking Colin Cooke if he had some - too late now.

Sounds right to me, though I was more interested in the price of curly-wurlies then! Have you got any more of those lists?

Thanks Rob, you've got a real collector's item there! I think it's 1975, reading the small print. Inflation 20-30% and John Minshull trying to book a holiday for 1975 in 1974. A couple of years before my time. I think my first one was 77 or possibly 76. Pale blue unfolded A4 with a spine binder (unlike later ones, all after that were just stapled until I stopped getting them in 82-83). I also remember he was very pleased with his new typewriter which could do all these new fonts. Mr MInshull (I was only a boy then!) always liked to big up a special coin on the front cover (like the Cromwell farthing here), one time he had a 1685 Charles II farthing and he really went to town on the description of that one!

People say John Minshull is somewhere in the US these days if he's still alive. I would love to see an old Farthing Specialist catalogue from the late 70's/early 80's. That would be a trip down memory lane, always an exciting event every 6 months or so when a new one turned up.

80K +premium =£100K. Mark Rasmussen had it in his list 9 (circa 2005 I'm guessing) for £37,500 (before he tried to sell it this time), so a near 200% rise in asking price over 15 years is pretty good going, well above inflation. I don't know what it fetched at its original Baldwin's sale of 1997, but would have been less than 37K (at a guess 25K hammer) I would presume. Anyway, I came to this site via Predecimal Foreplay - that's for the not so sprightly of us......

I was talking about this coin when I commented elsewhere and as I observed, the Internet live bid site said "current bid 80K" and "bid £85K." Which must have confused everyone as no-one had bid 80K. So I suppose someone would have picked it up for 80K afterwards. The coin looks lacquered to me but this hasn't been mentioned. Still, difficult to get a better one!

I don't know if anyone else noticed but I think St James internet bidding site was playing up or being incorrectly used by the auctioneers: eg if the opening ask was 80K, bid button should have said 80K; instead it said 85K, the next up, and the 80K "ask" was described as "80K opening bid". The absence of any bid was then confirmed when the coin end up "passed". So it wasn't the opening bid, it was the opening ask. No-one's going to bid 85K online when the coin is really available at 80K (but there was no button for that!) I think this happened quiet a few times.