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As it's been reported as quiet on here, over the next few days I'll post some of my favourite acquisitions from the last year, apologies for any I have posted before. First up, very happy with this 1750 crown Bt Mark Rasmussen March 2023 Ex. J.E. collection

A bit quiet on this forum at the moment - I fear some of our regulars have been put off by some rather aggressive comments. Pity. I got tempted into buying some gold - 1872 Sovereign and 1887 Half Sovereign at a little under melt:

Two very nice examples there Paddy, I occasionally buy a sovereign to put away for a 'rainy day' but don't actively collect them. My latest addition is a proof silver half penny token so apologies for posting in coin acquisition of the week!

Time's flying, as nearly another year has passed since the last post. There's been thin pickings of late with prices going silly at auction to the extent that only just over two dozen coins were added in the past 12 months including modern ****. Still, I managed to add a few decent things worthy of note including this Edward the Confessor Trefoil Quadrilateral penny of Winchcombe, which ticked a missing rare mint box with a type I didn't have. It is believed to be unique. Ex Jon Mann collection.

Picked up this rather nice one last week. The 15 leaf variety.

Bargain of the year had to be this Edward III 3rd coinage penny of Reading which I bought at DNW for the same price it sold for in the Circular 40 years ago! Obviously it crept under the radar, as instead of the usual legend ending in HYB (S1555), it has the much rarer ANG (S1555A), which speaking to a person who specialises in these things, increased his recorded corpus to three examples. The legend variety wasn't noted in the 1982 listing, resulting in North announcing a new type 10 years later, so I guess others might come to light. I was quite pleased to get a full mint reading as most Reading pennies seen have a weakness somewhere and although not a thing of great beauty, it might be the best available. The North coin went to Stewartby and sold for more than twice what I paid, but is missing a section of legend on the reverse, whilst the other one is lower grade. Another mint off the list. Happy days.

Indeed. You pay for the gold and the history is free. Those coins can make decent pendants (but hopefully they won't end up that way).

Nothing. Coin collectors like the circular bits of metal. These other people like a square piece of plastic with an arbitrary number printed on it. Two completely different sets of people. Perhaps some enterprising individual could separate the two camps fully by just issuing bits of plastic without anything in them!! 😉

WOW! That’s gorgeous, what artistry! The way that tone looks like clouds…prettier now than the day it was made!

It's always a wonderful deal to secure shield sovereigns below spot price 👍

I have a pile of new stuff @Paddy, various things, just not had time to take any pictures as yet!

Bought this one at Lockdales as an upgrade to my sixpence date run: Very happy with it.

Never the Twain shall meet, thank goodness! We should celebrate and enjoy our differences because, unfortunately/fortunately, they can never have that party!

Nice! Bring ‘em on, Paulus! You still focused on tokens? Noticed the C1 HCs could potentially be taking over? Great to be fluid…builds knowledge

Definitely quiet, Paddy…there was a time you could barely keep up with the posts on here, tragic! It now feels rather decrepit tbh. Anyway, I too have recently been scouring the gold, but not seen anything yet that I like…at least not at a price I’d like to pay I did eventually buy the Marsh (Hill revision) book, though…a really nice thing I have to say!

You simply made a statement concerning the reality of things. As Diogenes said, “Of what use is a philosopher who doesn't hurt anybody's feelings?” 😉

Most guesses of surviving numbers are underestimated, relying to a large extent on personal experience, which is a bit hit and miss as you can't pick up everything. There is no central database of coins, so you will almost always revise numbers upwards. The only exception to this is likely to be for cases of mis-identification where one type will reduce and another increase. Patterns and proofs are a bit more quantifiable. Additional examples from known dies can appear at any time, just as new die pairs appear on a regular basis. We only have a fraction of the story.

Yes, but they tend to get upset when you tell them. When I pointed out to someone on CoinTalk that 'I collect coins, while you collect opinions', he got a bit miffed. Diplomacy has never been my strong point, so if someone could enlighten me on how to call a spade a spade without offending, I would like to know.

By the way, this is the 1887 double florin that I got for free from Spink. I see that I graded it VF as a 15 year old: was I a little harsh?

I won these two double florins at the London Coins Auction this month. The last time I acquired a double florin (the 1887 arabic 1) was in June 1978, and my handwritten note from the time reads "Patrick Finn, Spink & Son, price: £0.00"! This generosity was probably thanks to my late father, who did some of the photography for Dowle & Finn's Guidebook to the Coinage of Ireland (Spink, 1969). My father and I used to do the rounds of Spinks and Seaby's whenever we visited London, and I guess Patrick wanted to encourage a budding collector (I was 15 at the time). Very kind of him! By way of explanation, we lived in Northern Ireland at the time. My father was a founding member of the Numismatic Society of Ireland (Northern Branch) as well as being a keen amateur photographer, and some of the legendary figures in Irish numismatics such as Bill Seaby (director of the Ulster Museum) and Michael Dolley used to visit our home.

1700 William III with small round Os in date! This one’s tricky because, whilst I saw it and loved it, he’s not quite fitting in with the collection. Fabulous tone, though, and surely EF and maybe even better? iPhone images unfortunately!

The top pop trend Is insane. There are 70 points on the NGC scale, each one of which is worth 1.43% - a very small amount when one considers the extent to which subjectivity, inconsistency and carelessness must go into each grading. To pay thousands extra for a top pop is crazy, considering a) that it can be beaten, or b) that the grader may be having an off day/his colleagues are stricter/softer than him, has to be the height of stupidity, unless you are literally the initial seller about to make a killing from someone prepared to pay. The only true winners are those ex graded items from the first seller, who knows, that for a short time at least, he has the lead item. Comparison with the coins just under top pop would probably reveal examples that were superior to the current top pop.

Not sure if anyone is watching the coin cabinet auction, but some lunatic has just won an MS67 1967 sovereign for a hammer of £13,000... 😯