Generic Lad

For some of the really horrid pre 1920 I take it to a man on the local market who gives me cash there and then @55p/g.No postal worries and cash.He will pro rata 50% silver and USA 80%. If the coins are reasonable say NF+...eBAY. Keep in mind that US silver coins are 90% (not 80%) before 1965 (1964 being the last year for circulation 90% silver coins) but Kennedy half dollars dated 1965-1970 are 40% silver. US "War Nickels" (1942-1945 with a large P, D or S mintmark over the Monticello on the reverse) are 35% silver. If you guys have any scrap US/Canadian coins http://coinflation.com/ has a good chart on the intrinsic values. Also, if you are willing to sell coins abroad (via eBay or a similar means) coins that in British coin collecting is only worth scrap, American collectors will pay several times the intrinsic value, even for coins that (in British numismatics) have a high mintage. Even common date silver dollars will also sell for a modest premium over intrinsic value to a US collector with most Carson City silver dollars (CC mintmark on the reverse) selling for well in the three figures even when well worn. Personally, I have a coin dealer/precious metal dealer/jeweler that buys and sells fairly close to spot and has been very fair dealing with me with coins and scrap jewellery, last I checked they paid ~22-23x face for US scrap grade coins (intrinsic value at about 25x face) and sold at 26x or 27x face depending on the amount of inventory they had. But really, if you have any silver US coins even if they are worn down to nothing, check eBay, its silly what some American coin collectors will pay for worn specimens. For example, look at this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1872-SEATED-LIBERTY-HALF-DIME-RARE-OLD-COIN-/170777254093?pt=Coins_US_Individual&hash=item27c31e18cd Not a low mintage (712,600), not in good condition and a coin the size of a threepence, yet its still selling for $17+. When it has an intrinsic value of ~$1 and honestly isn't that old.

On Maundy sets, do you know of a good resource to look up the mintages for each individual piece for the older issues such as Victoria, Edward VII, and George V? I can find a few places that show what the mintage for each set is worth, but a lot of (American) dealers only sell them piece by piece and it would be nice to know if for a certain year the groat was lower minted than the penny or vice versa.

Exactly. I keep my bullion and collector coins separate. I've got a decent sized (well, not really decent sized, but decent enough as a student anyways ) collection of bullion which is strictly for investment. Sadly I missed out on the big spike in silver prices last year as I was still up at college (of course it had to be during final exams...) and so there was really no way for me to get back to my bank to sell them. Though I have to say I've compromised with lower-grade Standing Liberty quarters, I'd say I have a collection of them but I really paid not much more than I would for an ugly Washington silver quarter. You might have a similar coin or group of coins that are readily available in lower-grade condition and have little to no premiums over silver content. Sadly over here in the US there really aren't any coin shops (or eBay sellers) that do that and because the coin says 18XX or 17XX it goes for quite a bit more than it should considering its nearly all the way worn down... (and insured shipping makes it not profitable to buy directly from the UK) Personally, I'd go for low premium coins, Victorian Crowns in all but the lowest grade conditions have a large premium over silver content if you just want it for bullion. I've got a nice Excel spreadsheet where I calculate the intrinsic value of coins with a given price of silver, I'd attach it but it doesn't want to let me... Britannias have an absurd premium if you are looking at them from an investment standpoint. Right now silver is at ~$33.50 per troy ounce, based on recent eBay auctions any Britannia is going to set you back $48-50 for a common one. With $70-80 common for some of the older dates. Eagles have a reasonable premium that in the US you can usually get back when you sell it (dealers sell them for about $1-2 over spot and buy it for $1-2 over what they'd buy for a silver bar), Maple leafs also have a low premium. A fun coin that sells for bullion is the Maria Theresa Thaler, though the date says 1780 they are nearly all re-strikes that continue to this day at the Austrian mint, but it has everything that an interesting coin should have, raised edge lettering like the old head crowns, large size and an interesting history. And, since it is a modern coin you can get it in BU/AU without having to pay much of a premium at all over silver content. But really, its up to you. None of us know what the market is going to be like, for all we know today we will see silver trading at $5-10 an ounce again or it might shoot up to $80 per ounce. But do keep collector coins and bullion coins separate, though, there's nothing wrong with having a few bullion coins of nicer designs.

Don't pay for those eBay books on DVD, just type the book into Google Books and you'll get the book for free. Since its all public domain anyways.

I can't say my collection has much of a theme to it. If I find a coin I like for a price I can afford (or a coin that is obviously underpriced) I'll buy it. Some of my favorite coins have been coins I've bought on a whim like my 1821 Farthing. There are a few "key" coins that I want to acquire including a Gothic Crown and a high grade Gothic Florin, but at the moment they are a bit out of my price range.

Depends really. I'm a student, so I really don't have that much disposable income to spend, but I do patrol eBay daily. Really I haven't bought anything significant in about a month, my last purchase was a bag of various world coins for 15 cents a piece (along with an Indian Head Penny I sniped in there ) along with a dollar face value of (worn) Standing Liberty Quarters (I don't know why, but every trip to the coin store has me buying a few). I mostly buy like a headless chicken, if I find something that looks shiny, I generally buy it. I really haven't established my collecting pattern yet, currently just getting a small type set together of denomination/monarch but I've been dabbling a bit in ancient coins along with a few ventures in love tokens and other interesting things. But I get a lot of my coins quantity wise from coin roll hunting and sell off the silver I find to fund my British coin habit.

Depends on which coin. I've got a decent amount of low grade stuff that it isn't going to harm them if I touch them, in fact, I've got a low grade holed 1758 sixpence in my pocket right now (in a plastic flip) that I use as a conversation piece and use it for coin flips. Not going to damage it since I got it for about 3 pounds 10 pence off of eBay as a test of PayPal's currency conversion system and how well Royal Mail delivers to the US (quite quickly actually! And it was during the Christmas season). Then there are coins that I don't handle at all, my EF/AU 1821 Farthing I haven't touched and its still in the dealer's 2x2 coin flip, though I'm seriously debating sending it in to a TPGer despite my distaste of slabbed coins. For most of my semi-collectable coins I either have them in paper envelopes (hammered mostly) or in cardboard 2x2s with inert plastic so you can see both sides. For my US coins only worth scrap I have them in plastic tubes, and have a shoebox full of low-grade common wheat pennies (40s/50s) and tubes for my earlier wheats and Indian Heads.

So, why are the Peck books selling for quite a bit of money? Who owns the copyright to it? Surely they'd want to re-release it, after all, if someone is willing to spend ~$200 for a 40 year old book they'd be willing to spend $75 on a brand new reprinting of it!

I was looking at engraved coins and found this one on eBay too 1877 Potty Half Dollar!

Snowed over the weekend here (Missouri, USA), most of it is melting though its creating some nasty fog today.

OMG. Straight from a nightmare! Wow, I thought I'd never find a coin as ugly as the Susan B. Anthony dollar, I guess I was wrong!

Personally I've had good experiences with Forum Ancient coins (stylized as Forvm) And they seem to have some uncleaned coins here Forum Ancient Coins of course they are US based so if you live in the UK or Europe you'd be better off finding a more local dealer. But honestly I'm not sure if I'd even buy uncleaned Roman coins. After all, you'd be getting most likely nothing but late roman bronzes, dug coins are an absolute pain to properly clean I'd just buy some mid-grade cheap Roman bronzes, they'd be about the same price and you get to see the coin and pick out one that fits what you like.

I've got a few love tokens myself, my favorite has to be on a Seated Liberty Quarter (I think it is 1853) which is fairly ornate. I've got a few more that are on half-dimes (paid a quarter for one and I think $10 for the other). I've always wanted to get some on British coins but don't have any in my collection yet. I view them more or less as interesting curiosities (and chunks of silver) rather than serious numismatic coins. I'd rather have a well engraved common date coin than a rarer date that with mediocre engraving. Over here you usually find them engraved on small denomination silver, I don't think I've seen any on any coin bigger than a quarter, the dime and half-dime seem to be the most popular based on the numbers I've seen at coin shops.

Well, no delivery to the US, I guess that means I will miss out on the fun of owning a numismatic treasure...

I think they ought to be ok for US coinage, but their knowledge of world coins has many gaps with the id frequently incorrectly attributed. It stands to reason that if they can't identify something properly, how the hell can they say what grade the effectively unknown coin is? Grading accurately is based on a knowledge of what something looks like in a state of perfect preservation and varying states of wear. Yes, most third party graders are terrible when it comes to non-US coins. And I have a problem with the prevailing attitude towards slabbing and grading by TPGC (and then having to certify the TPGers) in the US which is one of the reasons why I switched my focus away from US coins. But it still remains that in US numismatics if you are to get high quality coins, they are going to be graded and most dealers sell their high-end coins in slabs (and if you ever want to sell your coins at auction, they usually need to be slabbed too) and the technical grade I've found to be pretty consistent when it comes to TPGers although subjective things like eye appeal certainly differs (there are many coins where I've found a high AU grade to be much more attractive to the eye than a coin designated as lower mint state). I wouldn't trust NGC or PCGS with world coins unless I had a very high end example that was being sold to bidders in the US where it is customary to have everything slabbed before auction. I /certainly/ wouldn't trust them with ancient coins. I have one slabbed (NGC) ancient coin I bought for far too much a while back before I really researched ancient coins and realized how affordable they were. It was a double-denarius of Gordian III that they graded it as XF with I believe 3/5 for surface 4/5 for strike with a disclaimer about corrosion and old collection inking on the reverse. I'm ashamed to admit I ended up paying $100 for it thinking WOW! What a high end ancient coin! When in reality I can pick up coins that are much better (same denomination and time frame) for under $40 from a dealer online. If that coin was a modern coin, there is no way the coin would have even received a certification, aside from a "genuine" guarantee and certainly not a grade. But alas, I didn't know much better back then (should have though!), now I know to disregard any ancient coin that is slabbed But when the topic is high end US coins, for better or for worse slabs and third party grading is king.

Since I don't live in the UK I can't really help you find sellers, but when it comes to buying from US sellers, the high quality coins (MS-64+) are usually slabbed and graded (NGC/PCGS are the two most reputable graders in the US) and (despite the fact I don't really like slabs) if you buy them you can usually get high resolution photos of the coin if you put the certification number in PCGS/NGC's websites. Their grading is fairly consistent and so it wouldn't be too bad if you were buying high-end coins to import them from the US except for high shipping/import fees. Aside from Standing Liberty quarters (which are high even in XF), most can be found for fairly cheap in mint state if you are looking for a type set (rather than a full date/mintmark run). If you stick with the 2 big names and understand their grading policies and check the certification numbers online, you should have no problem with not knowing what you get. Beware of self-slabbers though.

Yep, if you collect 20p varieties or post-decimal coins it might be worth looking into, but if you are hoping for it to be an investment... It won't be in our lifetimes. Coins that will increase in value are expensive now and will continue to be expensive. There are very few modern coins that will stand the test of time and really increase in value. Aside from people receiving errors and die varieties in their pocket change (1955 US doubled-die wheat penny, 1943 copper US cent) that immediately went for high prices and kept their momentum, no one in modern terms have managed to really buy low and sell high when it comes to coins, rather, you buy high and sell higher. People looking to make investments in modern coins often fail. The coins that will perform well tomorrow are already performing well today. Mintage only tells half the story, demand tells the other half. Look at the 1916-D Mercury dime, even in the US "almost good" and lower end "good" grades, the coin sells for well over $500. The coin has a mintage of 264,000 but due to its high demand, it sells more than coins with lower mintages. For example, the 1914 George V Maundy set has a mintage of only 982 sets, but it only has a book value of ~£155.00 in uncirculated because of lower demand for Maundy coins when compared to the US 1916-D dime.

Look in the local sellers' inventories if you want to buy non-US pieces. First of all the quality is likely to be better than on home turf and the quantities are also going to be greater. Very few items are found worldwide on auction sites, though the US is better served than most in this respect being the melting pot that it is. The lower grade material inevitably gravitates to ebay because most people don't have things that are worth considering for conventional auctions. At least in the US you are able to get mint state or thereabouts British coins with several sales coming up in the next week containing a good amount of qualtiy material. Greek and Roman are similarly widely traded, but beyond this you will need to look in the countries of origin. The US being geared towards slabbed coin sales means that only the higher grade pieces pass through the saleroom there. European countries have a reasonably diverse selection of material and you could do worse than explore this avenue. For most dealers, foreign coins tend to be a by-product of their own national currency which is what pays the bills. There are a few dealers in the US specialising in British material such as Allan Davisson in MN, but he tends to specialise in upmarket pieces which may be beyond your pocket. There are plenty of people on this site who would be able to offer British material if you were interested. Yes, I've been looking at several British sites, however I'm waiting for my current statement from my bank to make sure that there aren't any hidden fees with currency conversion, then I will buy higher grade pieces. The worst part is shipping, especially to fill my Bun Penny album, I'm going to completion at the moment for date and major varieties and less for uncirculated quality. The biggest issue with the auctions is the price which has kept me away. Unless I know I'm going to get a good deal, am buying a bullion piece or a piece I really, really want for my collection, I'm not going to spend more than $100 on a coin (at least at this time). However, once I graduate and start making some money, I'll move on to the nice auction pieces.

I've just settled to coins that I like. I'm sure that eventually I'll come up with something that I wish to pursue a complete set, but at the moment I'm just picking up examples of interesting coins at affordable prices. At the moment I've been trying to build up a good collection of bullion at face value (just yesterday I managed to pick up 25 40% silver Kennedy Half Dollars at 50 cents a piece, each with a melt value of ~$4 or so) but I can't say that I really collect American coins. If I can find a dealer that stocks them, I'd like to fill folder with bun (half)pennies or something but I haven't found a US dealer that keeps them in stock beyond a curiosity. I also want to get more into Greek and Roman issues and eventually buy a drachm similar to this one from Lucania: Though that is a distant goal and most likely will not be accomplished this year. I've also wanted to get better at reading medieval coins (I really need to get a better loupe!) I can make out what my Edward I penny says, but my Henry III penny is still mostly a mystery to me.

You mean, the hole isn't really there? If you look at it in the distance and squint really hard you don't see it

It looks a bit like it to me, but like others have said, it needs to be under higher magnification to be 100% sure.

Got an Edward I penny, Henry III Penny (long cross, both in Fine condition), Maria Theresa Thaler for Christmas. Used my Christmas money to get a 1996 25th Anniversary of Decimalization Silver Proof Set, picked up a Morgan dollar and a better condition Standing Liberty Quarter (still not even close to extra fine, I can't ever seem to find them in high grades..., at least the rim of the shield is 90% complete). Ended up paying $140 for all those together (along with a few handfuls of junk foreign coins). Also bought an awful condition 1758 Sixpence off of eBay for 3.80 Pounds with shipping. Less for the coin and more to try to become more familiar with currency conversion and international shipping so I can feel more comfortable buying better grade specimens from British dealers. Since my only camera is my cameraphone, I've only got seller's pics for the sixpence. To be honest, the coin looks much better in hand than the pics make it out to be. And overall, not a bad purchase, everything went smoothly, shipping wasn't too long (auction ended at Sunday my time, and was here on Saturday). I'm now debating whether to keep it, or to put it on a necklace or something and sell/give it away as a jewelry piece.

I use eBay for most of my British stuff and buy from a wide range of sellers, some are good, some are bad, its all the luck of the draw, sometimes I open up the package to be pleasantly surprised other times I open it up to find a rim-dinged coin (can't fault it though, got the crown for slightly more than bullion pricing anyways). But for my ancient coins (and I think there are some British coins occasionally) I use Forum (Spelled Forvm on logos and the like) Ancient Coins and they've been pretty fair with me.

For me it started about 2 years ago, at first I was an investor, trying to get silver bars/rounds. Then I realized something, the US minted 90% silver coins for circulation, I started with the low premium ones then moved into getting older coins, Walking Liberty dollars, Mercury Dimes, and Standing Liberty quarters. As time went on I started becoming more comfortable with paying higher premiums over intrinsic value for the coins, but realized that US coins came with a big price tag as the dates went older even culls went for $$$. On the other hand, most European coins allowed you to get older coins for not much more over intrinsic value if you wanted lower grades and only a few bucks in decent grades. Because of this, I switched my focus away from US coins, since I like British history and since the coins are easily readable/findable. I've also gotten a few ancient coins, but don't really collect them as the ones I want are $$$$ and being a student I don't have that high of a budget. Lately though I've been trying to find older US coins in circulation (as the silver intrinsic value is about 22x face value) and found quite a few silver ones and plenty of older coppers which has helped me build my collection up some, although when silver gets higher I'll sell some off and get some collector coins.

Honestly they look Arabic or Indian to me. I'm no expert in those areas though so I can't really help you date/attribute them.