damian1986

I'm banning myself from this thread anyway

He added WRL to the description now. Not the words "replica" though. Didn't realise but you can see the feedback they give to others. He leaves negatives prior to contacting the seller to sort out the problem if he's not happy. Would pretty much always seek resolution and leave a positive if handled properly.

No Henry III pennies As of 2012 they had 32,000 left from the Brussels hoard. Some decent coppers in amongst some not so brilliant ones but I haven't seen that much pre George III copper available so it's tempting.

I believe Damian also sells on ebay, some on this forum know who the arseholes of ebay are and usually are referenced somehow, if we or the some that you are quoting have picked up on something you've sold then let us know otherwise we're not talking about you and should stop being paranoid. We pick up the general f**ktards on ebay who seem to think a washer is rare or a Fine graded coin is UNC etc etc etc or those who shill bid everytime they list something. Except for Flash. I am being unduly harsh I know. I sell some on there so I can see the other side of the coin. I'm sure you could pick holes in those listings. On price or grade or whatever. It's more just my own grumpiness coming to the fore in this case - it's not an especially great place to be hunting down coins right now is all. That's how I feel. I wouldn't make sweeping generalisations if I didn't think that the members here could handle them. There are tonnes of dealers on eBay that I buy from and respect.

With eBay, just subtract a grade and Bob's your uncle. The penny was overgraded 'virtually UNC' I know. Who spends 2 grand on a coin based on the assigned rather than actual grade though? I bought a lot of coins based purely on the assigned grade rather than the coin itself 12 months ago but it mattered less then as I spent less. It makes me wonder though if this is one of the motivators for grading as UNC - if it says it's UNC well it must be. I'd rather always buy from independent dealers if they have what I want. I probably only buy from a handful and it's mainly about trust. If I've ever gone with a cheaper option I've usually been disappointed. With eBay the mentality is different. Buy in what's available, notch it up a grade or two and then add a bit on to cover best offers. Really the whole ecosystem is f@cked. The ones who get a lot of repeat custom on eBay must have customers who don't go anywhere else. The same way that MacKenzie Crook, for some insane reason, only seems to buy from Coincraft. Yeah it's a lovely 1905 florin that.

And with the lowest mintage of any Victoria shilling at 470,071, it is a classic case of why you have to be very careful using copy and paste. Funny, but when I collected shillings as a denomination, I never thought of looking for one of these. This aside what's the problem with the coin jac? Serious question as I wonder am I missing something? On grading. I spent the morning looking through mainly George II shillings and halfcrowns on eBay. I need a LIMA halfcrown in a nice EF if anyone wants to help. Anyway, UNC - some wear, some scratches but a reasonable coin in hand EF - a coin that is only actually gVF but was struck in high relief, or any later milled piece that couldn't conceivably be called UNC by the above definition VF - a high relief coin in Fine condition F - the lowest grade a coin can be given X+ - an arbitrary suffix applied to bring the BIN price in line with book, or the mark of a TPG grader who can't make do with a 70-point grading system

I got an offer of 30% list price on a lovely coin earlier. I can't even be arsed going to the trouble of walking to the post office to post it at those prices. Anyway yes so naturally I'm overjoyed seeing ze market get carried away over this. Just gonna pop into the shed and get the Dremel engraver onto some Sovereign-sized brass buttons.

Just saw the edit. I never really understood how quantitative easing was going to play out. £375bn. My understanding is that most of this would only really boost spending if those who benefited (the rich) are encouraged to spend. But there are never any guarantees that those with extra money will actually spend. I always felt the same about lower taxes for businesses. Yes in theory they could take risks and spend money and bring on new staff and grow, etc. But in practice it'd be very easy to sit on the extra cash and then the directors take a bigger payout at the end of the year.

Good point. I'm looking at mortgages based not so much on what current monthly repayments are but what they might be. Hopefully it'll all work out. One advantage of committing to a mortgage this year is that there is the option to fix interest rates. They can't get any lower (unless you're Swiss).. As to safety margins well I don't think a lot of people are being sensible about this. Purchasing at the higher end of the housing market means monthly repayments could quite easily double or triple within the next 5 years. Which is a big problem if people only factor in current repayments against income. The argument seems to be house prices haven't even got back to their 2008 levels. So what. They were too high then. As if prices are somehow preordained by the Property Gods. Back to coins I feel the safest approach as a collector is to spend an amount that doesn't have to show a return in the short to medium term. But with the more expensive ones especially, it'd be nice to know that they will at least retain a good chunk of their value. Prices seem a bit too high for this to hold right now.

If interest rates get back to what they were in the 90s, a base rate of about 6%, a monthly mortgage repayment of £600 right now will shoot up to about £1,000. This is huge. The average take home wage is about £1600 per month, makes a big difference to what's left over. About 30% of homeowners don't have a clue about what may happen with interest rates according to a 'financial attitude' survey undertaken by FT. Then 35% don't expect rates to rise at all over the next year. Heads buried in the sand? I wonder if ( a ) house prices are going to have to fall as people won't be able to borrow as much, so reducing demand, ( b ) people will be forced to cash in on their investments, including coins, ( c ) people will start putting their money back into ISAs and things. By all accounts the rise in rates will have to be gradual though. So maybe only things will level out for the foreseeable future. It all makes me nervous about spending large amounts on coins either way. It's a shit time to be making any sort of financial commitment. Nothing's clear and too much uncertainty.

Cheers both, always worth asking in case. The pen over pencil shows some care i do like that.

Does anyone recognise these tickets as having come from a particular dealer or collector? Also the back reads "Ex EHW | 10 | 1969". Presumably this is E.H.W. & Co, London list number 10, but the lists were undated. Any ideas?

I bought an Aethelred long cross type in DNW last month, it's probably going on eBay soon, mainly because I wasn't over the moon about it but this did cross my mind. Saying that if none of these coins are going to appear on the market for donkey's years then will it really do that much to bring prices down?

I don't sleep enough hence the rant. But when they say it will be catalogued by the conservator, to what extent do they catalogue everything? What sort of research would required getting hands on with the coins as opposed to any descriptions / photos taken? I just wonder if a couple of dozen auction catalogues and dealer's lists would act as better reference points than the lot being locked away for the next 40 years. On the other hand, and hopefully the hoard is researched in full and presented in the journals, once the initial research has been completed, is there any point the coins being locked away or should they be released onto the market then? I see the odd coin with provenance 'Ex British Museum Spares' but this doesn't happen anymore apparently - surely it'd be in their interests financially to absolve themselves of a few duplicates If they do get their hands on this lot for 1 million, that's about £180 a coin - I see a healthy profit at those prices

From an early BNJ: I think "full access to the objects" should mean unfettered and universal access. And not only to "serious" students whatever that means. It's all good and well locking them away in the British Museum but then what guarantees are there that the hoard will be researched in its entirety any time soon!!?? Actually breaking the hoard up and distributing it to the market is an effective way of doing the research en masse. Numismatic crowdsourcing.

Neither is the obverse. Over-doing it on the light washes out the surfaces. Also conveniently hiding any surface marks. These are going for what, £200 to £300 in auction in the higher grades. He's a dickhead. So he knows it's a replica but is still asking £600. I guess that's the point of having reams of white space to cover his arse if someone complains that it wasn't as described.

That has so much going on I also like French coins pre 1792....there you go I've come out....Sols Ecu's give them to me.There is art in their coins and Jettons. It's no surprise that we nicked a few of the French engravers at various times. Probably the French coinage of the 19th and 20th century was superior in design to anything minted anywhere. Contentious. I know. There was a half-decent engraver of Italian origin that I may have mentioned having a liking of though, I think he trumps the lot The early Thalers are exceptional. There is a guy who collects mainly Austrian Thalers here: http://www.taleruniverse.com/the-taler-universe-collection/

Meant to say was Brandon who told me about the high light sources and Jansjo lamps. He shared this link with me which is very interesting: http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=6588288

Hey Peckris just PM'd you. Hey Mark well, the phone is an LG G3. Everything set to 'auto' as it's limited in settings. I think there are better phone cameras out there but what it does do well is take pictures when close up. The main thing, especially with this phone and its non-existent white balance adjustment, is having a desk lamp with a white bulb. Being close up comes with its disadvantages though. The light glare on coins for example and not being able to light the coin in full. The way to get around this seems to be having the camera and light sources way above the coins (10"+), directly pointing down, and potentially even put some paper in front of the lamps to diffuse the light a bit. But I've not had any success here as being so far away both the smartphone camera and my cheaper point and click don't capture the detail of the coin. A few have mentioned axial lighting and I can see how that would make sense, especially for reflective and proofs but again would need a camera that's capable of shooting at distance and that's where I think the phone cameras fall on their arses. Would love a camera with a nice macro lens and a fairly low minimum focusing distance but not cheap.

Thought you'd like that one Peckris as a precursor to the cartwheel tuppence

Nice, really good eye appeal. Smitten. If you ever decide to re-invest this coin into an early milled then give me a nudge

Where did it sell for 130 Nixie? Also what is happening here (image below)?

'Tis a gem that one isn't it. Here's another good one. Lancashire DH57 in proof. I suspect it was bronzed but the bronzing has gone now and it's toned dark. It's one of the earliest examples with all detail present. Later examples (DH58), probably struck from different dies, lost some detail due to die polishing (no dot after COMMERCE and some ship detail). It could have been that the master die was polished as there are thought to be at least 3 reverse dies for DH58. One of the earliest examples of the raised edge!, struck by Boulton at the Soho mint.

The Watchmaker's Arms token. Essex DH35, Maldon. Edge: Payable at W. Drapers Watchmaker Maldon Essex. Really a beaut this one. Just using the phone on my camera and getting decent photos, probably need a second lamp to light from the left but pretty good considering it's a phone camera.

I want them. Really I just don't see the point in a whole sackful of coins being locked away in a cupboard for the next 100 years. If the British Museum take an example of each that they don't already have then fair enough - potentially that would be only a small number actually - and the rest, let the market have them. Give them all to me. Cheers.