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ozjohn

Accomplished Collector
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Everything posted by ozjohn

  1. ozjohn

    I Cleaned It

    Normally I would agree with you trouble is you could not see the coin underneath. One thing it has revealed is the coin's true grading. I have not shown the milling of the coin but it is crisp as the day it was minted and given the difficulty of grading KGV coins this is a very good guide.
  2. ozjohn

    I Cleaned It

    I think the finished result is better than the photos. However I think you maybe right about needing more cleaning.
  3. One of the coins I showed under another topic which had been slabbed someone remarked that it had been cleaned. Cleaning is something I would not embark upon myself but if it is done properly well ok. I don't know how the person knew it had been cleaned other than it was very bright with no toning at all. I had another look at the coin and there was no evidence of scratching so probably it had been dipped rather than physically cleaned and the process had been carefully done. The attached jpegs show a 1913 halfcrown with much toning. What do you do with it? Leave as is but you can hardly see the coin or dip it to reveal the coin under all that oxide? Comments please
  4. ozjohn

    Opinions

    I always look on the UK ebay.co.uk site and an increasing number of sellers are not shipping to Australia. The mail service between our two countries is good very little is lost while Paypal allows secure transfer of cash what's the problem?
  5. As far as I can see the recent move for Scottish independence started with the crazy idea of Blair's allowing governments for Wales, Scotland and N. Ireland but no government for England except the traditional Westminster UK government . This has lead to differences and distortions over the UK, such as prescription charges, university education charges etc. which have help foster the idea of breaking up the UK. When Australia federated all the potential states agreed to a common constitution that spelt out the responsibilities and powers of the State and Commonwealth governments. In fact this constitution was a bill of the house of commons. As a result the house of commons should have known better when trying to introduce a sort of federal system to the UK when it instituted aState/Local government for each part of the UK ie. England Scotland etc. and should have drawn up a constitution stating the rules of this federal system and how the components react with each other. In any case this wasn't done and the result we can see to day with a referendum for Scotland to leave the UK. Perhaps this was Blair's intention I don't know the best judgment being it wasn't thought out very carefully or at worst a sinister attempt to destabilize the UK. Again coming back to the Australian model the constitution can only be changed by a referendum where there is a majority of States that agree to the proposed change. Perhaps you can argue that the present setup in the UK isn't a federal system however the UK as it stood before the Blair changes was a country governed by a single parliament from which some responsibilities have been devolved to different states in a non consistent way causing a lot of unnecessary grief and uncertainty. In all a very bad idea which all the people in the UK will come to regret. For example if Scotland becomes independent it will probably lose its membership of the EU. Not a bad idea for the whole UK but for a small country like Scotland could be very bad and not at all certain if Spain opposes it and it seems likely they will. There would not be any reason for an open border between England and Scotland. Financial implications are also great. I could go on. The only positive could be a completely new issue of coinage for Scotland but according to many not based on the pound.
  6. ozjohn

    Should This Coin Be Cleaned

    I am sorry I re submitted this question as I could not find any record of it my appolgies
  7. Hi Garrett, No I'm a 10 pound pom now a confirmed Australian. I lived and raised my family in Sydney for about 30 years and moved to Brisbane when my wife retired. My only weakness is I like halfcrowns and my excuse is they use to circulate in Australia. Regards, John
  8. Went there today. There were some good coins there. A couple of gothic crowns and a holey dollar and dump. I also saw a penny black stamp for $80. Brought a 1829 halfcrown in GVG grade.
  9. ozjohn

    Tgp - Good And The Bad

    London Coins and CGS seem to share the same address. I guess they could be accused of being self slabbers.
  10. ozjohn

    Tgp - Good And The Bad

    I still need to be convinced about slabbing but I have managed to obtain some on the way. Possibly it's the way ahead as internet auction companies such as ebay do not recognize any coins other than professionaly graded coins although they do not seem to apply this at present. I think internet auctions are a powerful force in the coin market and will only grow in influence in future. I already think online auctions have already changed the dymanics of the coin market putting collectors into a more powerful position then they previously held. For example before the event of online auctions the price realized at auction houses was about half the retail price from a dealer this has now changed with sellers getting prices much closer to the retail price by using online auctions. I realize this is a generalization but I think there is a lot of truth in this. Attached are scans coins from 3 grading companies of fairly close grading of the same type of coin and I think the grading results for these examples is close to the mark. Of interest the National Numismatic Certification certified coin (img 178) seems to be well graded despite some posts on these forums which do not rate this company. However recently listed on ebay are some NNC graded coins which are very poorly graded for example an Edward VII halfcrown graded at VF-40 which I do not think would even make the grade of Fine. Hope this adds to the discussion.
  11. Finally obtained a 1911 halfcrown after years of waiting for something decent and at a reasonable price to turn up. I have seen many over the years which look to be UNC on the reverse but the obverse is poor maybe wear or perhaps poorly minted with the top of the ear and side of the head flattened. The florins of that era with the lions on the top shield of the reverse not fully struck are a problem as well. During that time I have managed to acquire too UNC proof halfcrowns of that year.
  12. PGC my abbreviation for a professionally graded coin. Perhaps I should have said slabbed.
  13. The Australian 20 cent. 10 cent and 5 cent coins which are still issued here follow the same size and weight of the imperial coins of England despite Australia changing to decimal currency in 1966. The Australian coins were .500 silver until this date. These coins correspond to the florin. shilling and sixpence respectively. A ,800 fine 50 cent coin was released in 1966 which was very close to the halfcrown in size and weight but was valued at 10/- or 50 cent and was later replaced by a Cu Ni coin. The 20 cent, 10 cent and 5 cent coins which correspond to the florin, shilling and sixpence still exist to this day. It also has to be said that the silver threepence was issued up to decimalization rather than the bronze issue that started in 1937 in the UK..Halfcrowns were never minted by the Royal Australian Mint but circulated in Australia as they were issued here prior to the issue of Australian coins in 1910 and circulated well into the 1920s and 1930s and perhaps later. An interesting series to collect and closely related to the coins of England.
  14. ozjohn

    Opinions

    Not sending a British coin to the UK seems strange to me if you are interested in selling the coin in the market that is likely to pay the best price. Also equally annoying when a UK seller does not mail to Australia. However an email sometimes irons out any problems of this type.
  15. PS I would rather had a non PGC but you cannot have everything and the price was ok.
  16. One of the posts in this topic asked for a picture.
  17. The open work shilling you show is part of the first series of Australian coins with Edward VII on the obverse and they were minted by the Royal Mint. I'm no expert on Australian issues but there are some interesting issues like the 1915 (I think) florin where some have an H mint mark for the Heaton mint and one of the 1940s florin has a S mint mark for San Fransisco . Of course gold sovereigns were minted at the Sydney, Melbourne & Perth branches of the Royal Mint. However these coins were not exclusively Australian coins but were part of the imperial mintage. These mints also distributed imperial coins for use in Australia prior to 1910.
  18. ozjohn

    My First Slab

    Re the 1920 halfcrown. I've had it for awhile now.
  19. ozjohn

    My First Slab

    I brought a slabbed 1920 halfcrown from Centles graded at MS-62. While I am in general agreement with the grading NNC may have arrived at it more by luck than judgement as this issue is very lightly struck and in addition it is the larger head low relief variety. I appoligize for the quality of the jpeg but it gives an idea of the coin.
  20. Not sure what Ashmores, coins are. Have seen many reproductions on ebay.co.uk and complained about them and they seem to disappear after that. As far as I can see they are probably illegal as they are an attempt to forge a coin and on ebay could be used to deceive a buyer. In the US they insist that reproduction coins have replica stamped on them perhaps this should be followed in the UK to remove this doubt..
  21. The attached jpegs are from the Royal Mint's Sydney Branch showing the coins released and withdrawn for the years 1904 and 1905. As you can see 3800 halfcrowns were released by the Sydney Mint in 1905 and probably included halfcrowns for that year. Little did they know how much these would be worth in a little over a hundred years. This photocopy was given to me by Sterling & Currency of Fremantle WA when I purchased an uncirculated 1904 halfcrown from them for more than I care to admit to.
  22. I recorded the distribution of listings on ebay for 1920s halfcrowns on 25/3 as follows: Date Number Listed Mintage 1920 110 17,983,077 1921 64 23,677,889 1922 51 16,396,744 1923 110 26,308,526 1924 27 5,866274 1925 86 1,413,461 1926 20 4,473,516 1927 43 6,852,872 Conventional wisdom would suggest that 1925 should have the lowest number of listings but in fact it was the second highest with 1923 tying with 1920 for that honor. The lowest numbers of listings fell to 1924 and 1926. I think 1920 has been skewed as it includes words like pre 1920 and 1926 contains ME listings. From this small sample it would seem that1924 and 1926 exist in smaller numbers than the favored 1925 halfcrown.. As the Royal Mint mintage figures only record the number of coins released not the number with a certain date it is impossible to say what the true mintages was for the various dates but I have to say I have tried this exercise in the past several times with similar results. Also the listings for 1927 include a couple of proofs from the new coinage set issued that year. Again there is only supposed to be 15000 of these but there is always a few listed on ebay at any one time with a price of about GBP 100 which is a remarkably low price for a coin with only 15000 examples from the sets issued that year. Another question is how many pre 1920 halfcrowns were waiting to be issued in the stocks held by the Royal Mint when the silver content was reduced from ,925 to .500 and were issued during the early 1920s or were they all melted and reminted food for thought?
  23. Thanks for your comments they are largely in line with what I thought and it's good to have them confirmed. I certainly think 1924 and 1926 are rarer than the mintage figures suggest and the chances of getting a well struck example of these dates even less so. I had a couple of 1924 halfcrowns that I acquired over the years which I thought were GF to VF but when I looked at the book on grading coins by Rotographics I realized they were of a higher grade but light strikes. It seems that the reverse is best place start grading these coins then turning to the obverse to judge its condition there. to grade the coin correctly.
  24. Neither. Halfcroens and other coins withdrawn would have been old worn and damaged coins as collected by banks etc. and returned to the Sydney branch of the royal Mint much as what happens today with old worn and damaged banknotes. New coins such as the number in the record would have been released to replace the withdrawn ones plus and increase in numbers based on an estimate in demand for these coins if required.. To get things in perspective it has to be remembered that in 1905 a halfcrown was a tidy sum of money.
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