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HeavyT

What should I expect to pay for coins in my wish-list?

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Hi,

Grateful for your thoughts on what would be the maximum amount that I should pay for the following coins that are on my wish-list. I'm no good at grading coins myself so I only collect slabbed coins so these would have to be at least NGC MS63 or CGS80. I know there are price guides like Spink and Rotographic but not sure how they correspond to MS63 or CGS80. Coins that I'm particularly after are:

1714 Farthing

1797 Cartwheel Twopence

1817 Full Sov (1st Year)

1840 One Rupee (British India)

1847 Gothic Crown

1849 Godless Florin

1862 One Rupee (British India)

1951 Penny

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1951 Penny c.g.s.

80 £60

82 £75.

Pete.

Second that, good price guide.

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Hi,

Grateful for your thoughts on what would be the maximum amount that I should pay for the following coins that are on my wish-list. I'm no good at grading coins myself so I only collect slabbed coins so these would have to be at least NGC MS63 or CGS80. I know there are price guides like Spink and Rotographic but not sure how they correspond to MS63 or CGS80. Coins that I'm particularly after are:

1714 Farthing

1797 Cartwheel Twopence

1817 Full Sov (1st Year)

1840 One Rupee (British India)

1847 Gothic Crown

1849 Godless Florin

1862 One Rupee (British India)

1951 Penny

If your looking at UNC grades which MS is and CGS80 then I hope you have about 10k spare.. The gothic crown alone would be 3-5k. This one was £3600 hammer, add 20% juice on top

http://www.londoncoins.co.uk/img.php?a=149&l=1896&f=o&s=l

Edited by azda

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I would agree, even without the Rupees and the 1951, you would be looking at £7k - £10k even without any auction fees, and assuming you could find them for sale in these grades (and slabbed)

Maybe

1714 £1000-£1500

1797 £700-£900

1817 £2k-£4k

1847 £4k - £6k

1849 £500-£700

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I would recommend you get up to speed on grading before buying and save yourself a couple grand. Even buying a load of coins and a grading book for a grand would still save you a second

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Rob is right, and that is what most of us collectors are trying to do. Knowledge is everything, and with it you will get much better value for money and find the occasional bargain.

Buying MS 63 and CGS 80 (which is supposedly equivalent to MS 64) graded coins will mean you will be paying the very top price for those coins, sometimes above the Spink valuation in UNC.

I have sold 2 coins in the last week for way above the Spink and TPG valuations, that I would have been lucky to sell for half as much had they not been slabbed.

Be careful not to mix collecting decision-making with investment decision-making - they should have different strategies :)

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What sort of collection are you going for HT? It's sounds like a sporadic list!

Just types of coins you like?

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Judging by your profile forum picture you already have a Gothic crown? Or is that just something you picked up and used?

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Was that auction or BIN, Paulus?

BIN or Best Offer

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Thanks everyone for your input. Sounds like I've got to start saving up big-time to get these!! The Gothic Crown and 1817 Sov will probably always remain out of reach unless I go for a much lower grade.

The thing about grading is that I'm so new to collecting that I think it would probably take me ages to get up to speed and be able to make a reasonable assessment. Also grading seems to be quite subjective, so something that might look MS might come back as AU if sent to PCGS or NGC. And then I also worry about if a coin has been improperly cleaned, which might not be obvious to me and if sent for grading it would affect the grade. It just makes life a bit easier if I buy ready slabbed. I'd expect to pay a bit more but it's probably worth it for peace of mind.

I'm still relatively new to coin-collecting, I only started getting into coins just after the Kew Gardens hype and most of my collection to date has been modern coins in original Royal Mint presentation cases / packs (e.g. Proof Sovs, 1992 EEC 50p, 2002 Commonwealth Set, London 2012 coins, etc). The coins that I currently have from the pre-decimal era are mainly Sovs (got the 7 branch mintmarks in NGC MS63 - 65).

I don't really have particular types of coins that I go for, it just tends to be things that are popular, likely to appreciate in value and would be easy to sell if I needed funds for something else.

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I would expect to pay around £1.50 and a bag of chips.. everyone else? what they said

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Thanks everyone for your input. Sounds like I've got to start saving up big-time to get these!! The Gothic Crown and 1817 Sov will probably always remain out of reach unless I go for a much lower grade.

The thing about grading is that I'm so new to collecting that I think it would probably take me ages to get up to speed and be able to make a reasonable assessment. Also grading seems to be quite subjective, so something that might look MS might come back as AU if sent to PCGS or NGC. And then I also worry about if a coin has been improperly cleaned, which might not be obvious to me and if sent for grading it would affect the grade. It just makes life a bit easier if I buy ready slabbed. I'd expect to pay a bit more but it's probably worth it for peace of mind.

I'm still relatively new to coin-collecting, I only started getting into coins just after the Kew Gardens hype and most of my collection to date has been modern coins in original Royal Mint presentation cases / packs (e.g. Proof Sovs, 1992 EEC 50p, 2002 Commonwealth Set, London 2012 coins, etc). The coins that I currently have from the pre-decimal era are mainly Sovs (got the 7 branch mintmarks in NGC MS63 - 65).

I don't really have particular types of coins that I go for, it just tends to be things that are popular, likely to appreciate in value and would be easy to sell if I needed funds for something else.

The popular but relatively expensive coins have a much higher price proportionally for low grade coins relative to those in higher grades. Therefore it makes sense to spend a little bit more as this may well equate to a fairly small percentage increase over the base cost for a low grade piece. A price range of less than an order of magnitude for say the Gothic Crown between Fine and Unc is dwarfed by that for a 1904 penny where the difference is between pence and £100.

Everyone has to start somewhere. Get a copy of Derek's book on grades and absorb it. Buy a loupe and get a range of cheaper 20th century coins and compare them. Try to grade them before you buy and then bite the bullet with a few purchases to see if you were right. The members of this forum can't teach you to grade as this only comes with experience and you need to see a full range of grades under magnification to appreciate the minute differences between UNC and gEF or EF which can mean several multiples in terms of price. You'll get things wrong, but are only going to gain competence by making mistakes and being self-critical. Buy the odd cleaned coin if only to see what they look like. If you are intent on having a coin graded, then a cleaned one will fail, though the cost of submission will still be charged. Never forget that a TPG grade is still a subjective opinion and nothing more, despite their claims to the contrary. See the many discussions in other threads regarding this.

Going for things that tend to be popular is not a sure-fire way to see something appreciate. Their popularity ensures that prices will be high when you buy them, but it doesn't follow that the price will automatically increase. Every dog has its day, and so things that are currently unpopular may well be tomorrow's star performers. If it is absolutely top-notch then it doesn't really matter what the denomination is - it should always be relatively easy to sell.

A good example of something bucking the trend of expectations is the last coin on your list. The 1951 penny was priced at £8 VF and £14 EF in the 1970 Seaby Standard Catalogue (an earlier version of today's Spink) which would suggest a price of around the £30 mark in UNC. Today the same values are £12 and £35 with Unc given as £60, though you could probably pick up one for £40-50 or lower on eBay if you are lucky. i.e the price has remained roughly constant for the past 40 years. The price of a postage stamp in the meantime has gone from 3p to 63p. Nothing is certain in terms of future pricing.

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I am new to this as well HeavyT but the advice have had on this forum has generally been great and a vast majority of the people here have been helpful and friendly.

As stated above by Rob get a book on grading, it helps massively. You get to learn the most likely wear points on different coins. Also as mentioned already buy some cheaper more available coins to get a feel for how wear effects them and you will start to see the differences between a VF and an EF coin. I am, no doubt, still making mistakes but as long as they are not costing me the earth I do not mind.

If you can go to one of the coin fairs, even if you do not plan to buy, as you get to see a huge amount of coins and if gives you a chance to practice your grading. You never know you may find something within budget that you want to buy.

Ultimately I am starting to save for a few more significant purchases at the highest grade I can stretch to (at least EF) but if I get chance I will run those past this forum before I go ahead with the purchase.

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I am new to this as well HeavyT but the advice have had on this forum has generally been great and a vast majority of the people here have been helpful and friendly.

As stated above by Rob get a book on grading, it helps massively. You get to learn the most likely wear points on different coins. Also as mentioned already buy some cheaper more available coins to get a feel for how wear effects them and you will start to see the differences between a VF and an EF coin. I am, no doubt, still making mistakes but as long as they are not costing me the earth I do not mind.

If you can go to one of the coin fairs, even if you do not plan to buy, as you get to see a huge amount of coins and if gives you a chance to practice your grading. You never know you may find something within budget that you want to buy.

Ultimately I am starting to save for a few more significant purchases at the highest grade I can stretch to (at least EF) but if I get chance I will run those past this forum before I go ahead with the purchase.

Wise words Nonmortuus, you are already learning. We all make mistakes, (apart from Rob :)) Buying upward of EF is another good choice, unless it's a rarity and only Low grades exist. As always, advice is always free, i still ask questions when unsure about something, so it's not just newbies, keep up the good work :)

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Wise words Nonmortuus, you are already learning. We all make mistakes, (apart from Rob :))

Nope, I make them too........................3 yesterday according to the missus

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