pokal02

I remember the old penny falls and looking to see if there were any old ones ready to fall. I remember spotting an 1895 (when I was trying to complete a date set 1860-1967) and spending about 2/- before it finally fell. It's the only coin from my very early phase of collecting (I was about seven years old) that I still have. Also trying for an 1883 a couple of years later, running out of money, and getting it by putting a lolly stick into the slot. (Hope the statute of limitations has expired on that!)

Just two pre-47s in the 80s for me - 1940 & 1946 shillings, both in surprisingly good nick suggesting that they hadn't circulated for all that time. Remember getting G V silver in abundance in the late 60's/early 70s, only ever got one pre-1920 (Edw VII 6d, date unreadable).

Got the 1646 Oxford groat at DNW today (a considerably worse coin than I'd have liked, but I'm at the 'beggars can't be choosers' stage now). Still on the lookout for the Edward IV...

Rarity holds its value too - look at the recent price for the Ashby groat which wasn't even Fine - I guess quality is just a different sort of rarity (to me, paying £29k or so for a 1726 Crown is madness but if it's one of only 2 or 3 in that grade, I can see why some would go for it).

Yes, a few prices seemed 'over the top' to me - I'm glad I virtually completed this series some years ago, as there are a few I could never afford now.

I'm also running out of space - I might have a closer look at a cabinet - for now I've moved half my collection to a secure facility elsewhere (this also spreads the risk - I'd rather have a 1% chance of losing half the collection due to fire/burglary etc than a 0.5% chance of losing all of it).

ebay's gone a bit haywire recently. Some joker wants £85,000 for a St Peter penny and another wants over £39,000 for an 1839 crown. I don't care how rare they are or how much 'eye appeal ' they've got, this is just silly.

Was outbid on both that I went for, £3k was more than enough for the halfpound, £1.3k fairly reasonable for the Ceolwulf I 1d - less than it sold for last time - (didn't want to go too much over book for such a moderate specimen). Prices generally weren't quite as high as I would have guessed.

I'd also say the top end of GVF, would expect 50% of collectors (and 99% of dealers ) to grade it NEF or AEF though.

I won't be there so would be grateful if you could have a look, many thanks Rob

Hi all, Having given up on getting an Ashby groat, I'm down to two to complete 'one of each reign, mint & date' - but perhaps not the two I would have expected. Edward IV 2nd reign groat of York mint - fairly inexpensive per ESC but I've only ever seen one (in the Motcomb sale - I was the underbidder) - I know they weren't minted for very long. Oxford mint 1646 - again not dreadfully expensive but seems difficult - I think there was one in the Brady sale. If anyone can help, I'd be most grateful (ideally somewhere between F & VF - small scratches or very minor edge loss considered, but not holes or bent/badly creased coins).

The Ashby groat was too hot for me, going for 10 times estimate. This was the one strand of my collection that I had hopes of completing (crowns being barred by 1674, shillings by Henry VII and pennies by Beorthric among others) - but no longer, especially as that was the worse of the two known specimens. I'll just have to start collecting double-florins...

It's the way things are going nowadays - if I had £12k to spare (alas, I don't) I'd rather have 20 different early milled in, say, GF than one in EF but know I'm in the minority. Having said that, the estimate looks very low (assuming it's a proper EF - DNW are a tad lenient I think).

I've bought a few times from him and am always satisfied. He seems to turn up more rare/unusual hammered stuff than most.

DNW was a bit strange altogether yesterday - I was watching the Tudor hammered silver, which was mostly fair to middling grade-wise - some was going well under estimate and some well over - got the lot I wanted though.