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JLS

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Posts posted by JLS


  1. 1 hour ago, Rob said:

    Nothing to do with individuals' viewpoints, but I'm not sure what useful function easylive provides in the case of '3'. Why would anybody place a commission bid through them with their fee on top compared to sending a list of commission bids directly to the auction house. When you employ a dealer or whoever to bid on your behalf who then charges a commission for any lots purchased, you can at least say that the lots have been viewed in advance by the dealer, who has acted on his reasoned opinion. Easylive are not providing this service.

    I think the facility is more useful to e.g. general antique dealers who don't want the hassle of having to register to bid on various sales independently if they're only planning to bid on one or two low value items. 


  2. Maundy coins are still legal tender, having been redenominated to their value in decimal pence by the Coinage Act 1971 s. 2(2). 

    It's not really clear to me what the earliest legal tender maundy money is though; can we go back to the undated Charles II milled issues, or can only "modern" Maundy money post-1822 be spent ? 


  3. 3 minutes ago, secret santa said:

    I believe they were struck from sand-blasted dies for photographic purposes but that's only hearsay. The photos were taken through a slab but, as Freeman states, "the obverse is in extremely low relief".

    Interesting. I don't own any similar British pieces but I have a French matt pattern, presumably for photographic purposes, from the turn of the last century and the quality of the strike is superlative.


  4. With the 1953 farthings various die combinations have been ascribed as VIP proofs...I've seen 2+B coins (same as regular sets), as well as 2+A coins (very rare), and 1 +A coins (excessively rare). Presumably the latter are truly VIP proofs, the 2+A pieces are just an error, and the 2+B coins are most likely just nice examples of the ordinary strike (cf. the example in the London Coins archive ex-Norweb which despite some fingerprints looks better than most of the supposed "VIP" pieces in my opinion). 


  5. 12 hours ago, Rob said:

    Not if it is shilled. I've lost count of the number of second offers I have had on pricier (and cheaper) items. The number of people who it is claimed haven't paid when I have come second seems far in excess of the percentage of buyers who haven't paid me for items won.

    True, that hadn't occurred to me. 

     


  6. 32 minutes ago, Rob said:

    Could also have been withdrawn to relist them under a £1 listing fee offer. A 10% fee on anything listed for hundreds, suddenly becomes quite significant. £1 is not the end of the world.

    But AFAIK he's going to have to pay 10% of the current bids as a final value fee ? The cost of withdrawing a listing with a £600 bid on it like the W&M halfpenny he had listed is substantial. 

    I'm not sure what sort of aspirations he had for those pieces, because they seemed to have generated a lot of interest - if he wants the sort of prices a top auction house could generate he should be prepared to pay more than an effective ~12.5% fee !


  7. 33 minutes ago, secret santa said:

    I emailed Semra a week or two ago saying I assumed it would be a commission-only auction and she confirmed that it would. Also, the hard copy catalogue makes no mention of the Grange Hotel.

    If I were a consignor I wouldn't be happy, I imagine prices will be somewhat depressed. 

    Also the paucity of photographs is going to be an issue for a lot of the larger lots etc.

    • Like 1

  8. 1 hour ago, Colin88 said:

    I'm not shclepping all the way to London with my coins if they haven't answered their phones for weeks and the Head Office in the US haven't either....if I ran my business like that and like your bank...I would be out of business very quickly

    When were you calling them ? I organized a return shipping of a submission a month or two back and they always answered the phone - try between 9:30 and 12 pm or 2 to 4 pm in my experience. 


  9. On 4/28/2020 at 11:08 PM, Rob said:

    In the days before collars were used, milled coinage was typically of slightly varying diameter and not necessarily regular. Excess force applied in the strike or a softer blank than usual could lead to a spread flan.

    e.g. here's a G3 halfpenny with a lot wrong. The diameter is 31.0-31.5mm as opposed to the quoted 28.5 - 30mm. The obverse legend has OR over O. Only the weight at 9.43g is within the right ballpark.

    c740 1773 halfpenny spread flan - Copy.jpg

    The more I look at this coin the more seems wrong with it ! What's up the with the apparently raised marks to the right of Britannia (and the S shaped mark after BRITAN) - die damage ? 

    • Like 1

  10. 11 hours ago, VickySilver said:

    - the apparent abrasions in around hair, neck, brow, cheekbone which used to bother me with these later silver larger denominations florin, HC, and crown are actually in many instances planchet defects that were not fully struck out (planchets/flans are usually only very crudely finished and replete with many marks, abrasions, gouges, etc.) . There was an excellent recent writeup of this, but sadly I can not remember where it was & then I got to thinking and appreciate the veracity of it.

    Definitely for the currency issues, and the Wreath crowns, but I've never seen this problem with 1927 proof issues, weren't they struck from polished planchets ? 

    It would seem pretty odd for the mint to polish the dies to death but use any old planchets !


  11. 22 minutes ago, bagerap said:

    Mike, this is a rarity but too rich for me. I thought that you may want to keep the images.

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1931-Paris-Exposition-Coloniale-Souvenir-medal-T110/293581960715?hash=item445ad9360b:g:cksAAOSwuMVetqzq

     

    The seller Paul is a nice chap, bought two rare unofficial farthing style pieces off him recently, fair price and no problems. 

    These issues are pretty rare. There were a variety of dies used for the outside rings, have a look at this one for comparison: 

    https://www.cgbfr.com/5-centimes-lindauer-petit-module-souvenir-de-lexposition-coloniale-1930-paris-f-122-13-var-ttb,fmd_492430,a.html

    I'm sure CGB will have even more in their backstock if you ask them. 


  12. 2 hours ago, Bronze & Copper Collector said:

    The issue in instances as this, would be more with the TPG than with the seller. Especially when the seller says to buy the coin and not the slab.

    I would NOT put it in Ebays Worst.

    I believe it was PROPERLY placed in the TPG section by the original poster.

    Just my tuppence worth....

    Yes, agreed. 

    The price is pretty high, but it's eBay. Assuming the seller would take 60-70% of the listing price as a best offer, it seems pretty reasonable supposing the coin was a super-choice 1927 proof florin. 

    The seller's based in the USA, and won't have had the opportunity to handle that many of these issues compared to a UK dealer or even experienced collector. 

    Plus. the best 1927 coins I've seen have been in the original set, not sold individually. Sets tend to get broken up for profit when they are unsaleable due to problems with individual coins...

    Grading is all relative. There are 20th century Austrian coins I can think of where that level of hairlines etc. would still result in a really choice coin due to poor production and typical cleaning etc. I agree that it's been hairlined by cleaning, but this is often market acceptable with proof coins as long as the eye appeal is OK. The problem is that the PCGS grader seems to be totally unfamiliar with the issue, and how commonplace coins in this sort of grade are.

     


  13. 7 hours ago, ozjohn said:

    Noticed this one on Ebay and thought of pointing it out on Ebay's Worst. Although the price is over the top the problem with this coin is  the grading by PCGS. The coin is graded at PR 66 which is generous but the real issue is the cleaning that is apparent on the obverse

    .https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1927-GREAT-BRITAIN-FLORIN-PROOF-PCGS-PR66-GEORGE-V-BRITISH-SILVER-SUPERB/324172643210?hash=item4b7a31fb8a:g:kIcAAOSwLlleXiHH

     

     

     

    There's even a nick on George's ear !

    I'm not sure if the hairlines are bad enough to warrant a details grade but no way is this a PR66 coin...


  14. 40 minutes ago, Rob said:

    The down side is the difficulty in getting stock at prices which leave you a margin because online auctions are booming in the current climate, so sometime soon we need to move onto some form of mobility.

    This is my problem right now - my eBay sales are doing just fine, but it's hard to buy any decent material at wholesale prices right now.

    Luckily my dealing is a hobby to fund the collection rather than something I depend on for income, but it's frustrating when you put a lot of bids you feel are sensible on an auction and come away with no lots, or just one or two. 

    • Like 1

  15. 10 minutes ago, Sword said:

    Very occasionally, the washer can rotates within the CGS slab.

    Those are not fibres but marks on the coin surface. The coin was struck on an existing coin and I think the marks were made in the minting process.

    This is a photo of the coin before it was encapsulated showing that at least some of the marks are raised. 

    img.php?a=149&l=1984&f=o&s=l

    Lot 1984 in Auction 149, sold at £300 + premium back in 2015. Alright coin (EF cleaned or rubbed...) but hardly worth the AU grade or a £1k+ price.


  16. 4 hours ago, VickySilver said:

    IMO that verdigris has attacked well into the coin & if successful removal were somehow managed that there would be a lunar sized divot on coin service.

    Yeah, I'm a bit cautious to remove any more verdigris, especially using chemical methods, because I'd rather not have a patch of pitted, unpatinated bronze, where it used to be. 

    Having said that, so far, except in the centre of the verdigris rings, all the metal revealed has retained the patina so it's possible that good results could be achieved with more aggresive techniques...


  17. 5 minutes ago, blakeyboy said:

    Take a short piece of the brown or blue from a length of twin and earth flat grey cable.

    Bare the end a bit, and file the tip to a chisel.

    It's soft annealed copper, so won't scratch the bronze at all.

    Works a treat!

    This is an interesting suggestion and I'll try it out ! I might see if I've got a corroded common bun penny in my junk box to practice with first, not keen to damage the F21 at all given the number of specimens around. 

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