secret santa

Just to the left, Pete. Bernie's now sent me a pic which I'll post if Prax doesn't beat me to it.

It was good to meet Prax in person at the auction - he showed me a very nice 1934 penny with missing waves which was new to me - any chance of a pic Prax ?

Lots of hopefully helpful advice here. My inclination would be to sell them through London Coins - they take the lowest seller's commission (10% all inclusive) and will do everything for you. They will not rip you off and you need not worry about your own lack of knowledge of the collection. It sounds as if it is a serious collection, given your mention of John Welsh and the level of documentation that your father-in-law maintained. Putting them on Ebay will require you to take good photographs, enter everything individually over the internet and then pay 10% to Ebay plus Paypal fees which makes it potentially more expensive and a lot more labour-intensive than going through an auction house. You will almost certainly get a better price via auction house than selling to a dealer who will be looking to maximise his profit. These are my personal views only.

I hoped a forum member might get that lot and share the research info (please)

£1300 + 17%

Look for me in pink !!!

Just to correct a statement above - there's no VAT on the buyer's premium - 17% is the uplift, pure & simple. I too have won lots below my maximum bid so I think they're pretty fair.

yep, this is one of the BP1860P to V range. I believe it to be BP1860V with re-entered colon dots, one of the later stages of modification because there is almost no rim beyond the teeth - something I have found to be the case on the final stages of the range. Take a look at my pics on the website below. Although Gouby thought that the colon dots were re-entered, I have my doubts about this as there are so many variations in the size and distance apart of the "re-entered" colon dots. I haven't developed an alternative theory yet though, so I'll still refer to them as re-entered.

I've always been dubious about Ka and Kb being 2 different varieties and now your posts have convinced me that they're one and the same. I think that the extra marks on Michael's Ka pic may be a red herring (although I'm only going on the photos whereas presumably Michael has seen both coins in hand ?)

I haven't yet found any of the 2015 commemoratives (Magna carta, 1st WW or Britannia) in my change - have they all been released ?

Excitement over - back to the drawing board for Sunday !

I suspect that the overdate is actually a scratch or a small flaw as it's further left than usual - but you never know...........................

Matt - Absolutely - I always have to go back to the books to be sure.

Matt - reverse r (N) also has the "colouring" on the shield but the shield is FLAT - this IS reverse r - believe me.

This is definitely reverse r with around 50 more teeth than reverse p on both F111 and F114 so if it's a genuine overdate it's really exciting. As you say, it's probably obverse R but it's vital that we know - it could be an unrecorded mule with an overdate !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is interesting - it appears to be reverse r (Freeman N), i.e. F115 not F111, but with 2 over 1 which has not been recorded ! I can't see the obverse to determine its variety.

Good question - the 1882 (no H) penny in the next LCA begs that question - it's nastily corroded and edge-knocked but its detail is quite good.

Yep

I think they're getting more accurate with time as they gradually progress in size and importance towards the "senior" auction houses. It wasn't so long ago they their catalogues were just just printed lists but now they rival the biggies and their photographs now surpass Spink. If they would only join the internet bidding world they could even become the best, and their fees are without doubt the best.

Taking care not to open myself up to libel claims, I must stress that this is only my personal opinion but I found that up to about 10 years ago Spink were always quite conservative in their grading, rarely describing anything as "uncirculated" and more or less anything I bought that they described as EF I would have accepted as Unc. Now, I didn't examine the recent Andy Scott collection coins in person and I know that the catalogue and website pictures were awful, but there were a lot of coins described as "uncirculated" that in the past might possibly have been graded a little lower in my opinion. Steve Hill moved from Spink to Baldwins a few years ago and I have faith in his grading of copper coins. Mark Rasmussen (dealer) has always been very accurate in my experience. There are definitely some well-known dealers who grade a little ambitiously but I'm not going to name anyone here.

I see that the owner of the Elstree Collection has been revealed as David Reissner - I should have guessed as he and I met several times at Croydon & London auctions and battled over the same coins many times ! Very nice chap.

I've found out this afternoon that the recent winner of the lottery that finally came forward to claim his £32 million recently is a guy who who I used to play cricket with for years. I shall be sending him a Friend Request shortly and I'm sure he'll buy the entire Elstree Collection for an old friend..................................

Ah yes, thanks Matt I'll remember that for next time.

Great piece of work, Ian. I tried to print it off with no success - is that deliberate ?

I've been working up to buying a digital microscope and also working up to upgrading my desktop from 8.1 to 10 and now you've all scared me off both !!!!!