Chris Perkins

That's pretty damned dodgy isn't it.

Where is everyone lately, this place is relatively dead. Sylvester says hello by the way. He has a dodgy internet connection and lots of work to get on with.

No doubt Geoff will come along and call me wrong now! The Romans knew Scotland as Caledonia, so Scotia is probably a modern invention.

Hello Shelly, The first coin is a threepence, which will not be of any value unless in perfect, or very near perfect condition. The second coin is from Nova Scotia, which is a Canadian province. Literally Latin for 'New Scotland'. Those are pretty common too, so not of much worth unless well above average.

Thanks, It's not something that I would be able to oversee at the moment. I'll certainly remember your offer to help when considering future projects though.

I suppose it's down to me to make sure I'm as informed as I need to be. The main thing, as a coin dealer with a reputation to keep I really can't afford to get involved with areas I know little about. Or at least I shouldn't try to sell coins about which i know nothing about. For example, I once bought a large amount of coins from a woman who's dead dad used to be a coin dealer. I was pushed for time and I went through what she had quite briefly and paid her some money and left. I got the coins back home and among them was an ancient Greek coin, an expensive one at that if it were real, but I wasn't sure, so I didn't try to sell it, just locked it away in a box. On my next visit to the UK I thought i'd see if I could arrange to see here again, as there were things I remembered and probably could have looked at more thoroughly. I went back, bought mostly scrap silver and left overs. Among the left overs was an ancient Greek coin, exactly the same shape, weigh, die alignment, size etc as the one I got on the first visit! Impossible to get 2 absolutely identical ancient Greek coins....... Both fakes of course. So, in short, I simply don't sell what I don't know.

That bloke Robert Mathews is a strange fellow. He asked me if I wanted to cross-link, and we did for a short while. I saw his conterfeit newsletter thing and thought it was quite good. I asked if I could publish it on predecimal.com giving him full credit with lots of links etc. I knocked up a version of the newsletter on my webspace to show him how it would look (I also pointed out that the HTML coding was rubbish and too slow for dial-up). He went spare and asked me to remove it immediately, and basically said it was very underhand etc etc (?). So I removed it of course (even though no one would ever have seen it except him because I pointed him at it). I really don't think he understood that publishing it on predecimal would have generated loads of visitors for him. He removed my link right away and never spoke to me again (even though I asked a few months later about a coin I wanted him to look at....he ignored me). You have to work together if you have related websites...Andy Bruce and I know about that, and because of it, we both prosper. Strange. (I kept his link on my links page though, as he provides a service my visitors may find useful)

Yes, I've thought about that before. It would be a lot of work and would probably require me to list most of the items for sale before it took off. And it would require a lot of promotion, not to mention a lot of help from you regulars in offering things for sale to get people going. I like the idea of a coin auction site which is gauranteed free of crap listings. First things first though, i've got someone redesigning the shop area at the moment, and I hope to have buy now links on all coins too.

Well why don't you use mine: http://www.predecimal.com/dictionary.htm Give me lots of nice links and full credit and it's all yours.

That's interesting isn't it. I think someone should report that to eBay.

No, I wouldn't think they'd be too fussed. Why don't you make notes, learn the definitions yourself and then simply put them in your own words. No one can ever have a problem with that.

Yes, the slide boxes (like a match box) and normal style boxes with a lid. 2 different colours too. The boxes are always knackered. I've never seen a perfect box.

It's because they didn't worry at all about which way round the edge inscription was. I think the writing was added to the coin after it was struck, and it would have been impossible to make sure the coin was the same way round on each of the many examples struck. Or, if a retaining collar was used to put the lettering on the coin as it was struck (which is probably more likely) they probably didn't pay attention to which way round it was when changing the dies/collar. More interestingly, the writing on some of them is slightly smaller. And from what i've noticed, the smaller letter edge inscription is not common.

That's normal and the coin will be relatively worthless in average worn condition. Glad to be of help. As for hot and steamy, perhaps I could help with that too

Sometimes things just take my fancy. Usually I'm very lazy and disorganised in day to day life. When something takes my fancy/gets me interested or I really want to learn about or do something for financial gain or other reasons, I'm unstoppable....While I have the time.

Following on from my news on Paul Kruger, I bought a book about the man by Johanees Meintjes and have just started it. On page 41 it mentions Jacobus Nicolaas Boshoff, who was the President of the Orange Free State from 1855 - 1859. The name rang a bell as it turns out I have a customer called Peter Boshoff. I had spoken to Mr Boshoff on the phone before and recognised him as being South African from the accent. So I emailed to ask if he might be related to J.N Boshoff..... Turns out he is, in fact President Boshoff is none other than the son of Mr Boshoff's great great great grandfathers cousin (ok, so it's a little obscure, but there you go!). Both of the Boshoff's are related to the 1st Dutch Boshoff who it is believed emigrated to SA in about 1650. And Mr P Boshoff is fluent in Afrikaans, and has offered to translate my Kruger signed document when I get it (which should be any day). I also bought a picture of President Stephanus Johannes Paulus Krüger (Paul Kruger) which was cut from a book dated 1899. I will frame the picture with the document and hang it on the wall. Picture of the Boer Statesman is below.

Yes that stipid £1 increment bidder was doing so to gain points on some kind of reward scheme that gives you points when you bid on something on eBay! She knew that a sov would never sell for less than £50 ish, so bid in as many small increments as possible to earn points. I told her kindly to stop because it looked like someone was bidding up delibrately.

Because the obverse is so prooflike, and the reverse is weakly struck. I heard (and I know this to be the case for certain wreath crowns) that once the proof dies were used to create proof coins, they then sometimes got used to strike normal coins on unpolished blacks. I think the 1820 Shilling was struck with a proof obverse (and perhaps reverse too but not at proof pressure). I'm not turning American by making a song and dance about first strikes, merely observing what I see after seing many 1820 shillings along the way. (And why not play the Americans at their own game to a certain degree!) If Americans and others want to pay big money for first strikes and slabbed coins, then i'll see if I can find a few for them! The 1826 Half Crown is going ok isn't it.

The ads are annoying. It's best to stick at one thing JMD, when you've decided. Because when search engines get used to your page names and setup, if you change it, they'll have to find you again, and it won't help your rankings at all.

No, not unless it's in extremely good condition (which it probably isn't if it's been circulating as 1p). Interesting to find predecimal currency in change though, especially a farthing, which has not been legal tender for 45 years.

Done that. Gave you a mention on the bottom of the home page too, as the last link I had there hasn't been available for sometime.

Alright, 1s 8d sounds fine, I have loads of farthings laying around GV - EII

That all looks chavtastic to me Dave, well done. Are we ready to cross link now?

Yes, but when you're talking about mad things in general you can't include Americans in the equation because as they have recently demonstated on the world stage, and I think Axel Rose once put it perfectly when he sang (referring obviously to the rest of his countrymen): 'You're F*!£ing crazy'. (Points for song and album by the way, and no googling)

I know who that is. I saw one of the older editions go for £111 the other week.