Chris Perkins

That is very funny! As if they cared about blind people back then, and as if a bind person was ever likely to hold such a high denomination. I once saw a George III Guinea being advertised as a Gold Roman coin with an emperor on the front. It was worn almost beyond recognition, but certainly wasn't Roman. My mate Richard at www.coinsforsale.co.uk was out on a buying trip yesterday and encountered 3 Churchill crowns prices a very fair £8.50 each! I will be so rick with the 500 I have! Chris

I have a detector, but the laws are very strict here and until I'm registered as being here I won't go digging anything up, apart from the Garden. I found a Deutche Mark and 2 Aluminium GDR Pfennigs! I'll email you. Chris

I think there is a case for collecting perfect coins, but there certainly is also a case for collecting coins with advertising slogans on them or anything else contemporary. They are different spheres, both interesting, and both have a place. I like my PEARS SOAP 1855 10 Franc coin! Chris

Fellas, It looks very bright, so i imagine that was a result of the soil type and not the cold water. It looks nice enough to me. Chris

Oh yes I know where Feltham is. Used to visit a few schools there when I was in IT. I spend most of my time in Germany, especially over the winter because normally I can't actually leave (snow). I won't be over until next year, so please do email me (cp@predecimal.com) and we'll arrange something. Look forward to hearing from you. Chris

Dear Jay, I've seen your site. The EF Napoleon coin is no where near an EF! Apart from that, good to see the things you have found. Where abouts are you, I'd love to come detecting with you and purchase that coin next time i'm in the UK. I could send a cheque deposit to secure. Chris

Nice coin, looks like it's had a clean, but being buried in dirt I suppose there wasn't much you could do with it. I'd give you £600.00 for it if i could verify it's authenticity. What do you rekon Sylvester? Chris www.predecimal.com

Dame Judi Dench is a fox!

And I tell you, that Justin Hawkins (the singer), can get bloody high with his vocals. But they are well controlled and not out of place. I may be up in Manchester next year Sylvester shall I knock for you? Chris

Ok, i'll skip the paper talk! I was born in Sidcup, which although officially part of the county of Kent in SE England is also right on the edge of the London Borough of Bexley. So when London is cool, i'm a Londoner through and through, and when it's very bad, i'm from Kent! I grew up both in London and Kent. I used to work for a London IT company providing extremely hi tech and specialised stuff to schools and colleges: www.bromcom.com. It was super there because I really got to travel around the UK and Ireland and get paid for it! From Dublin to Dover, where there are schools, I went. Then I met a charming young German Fraulein. She wouldn't live in England, and the traffic was bad, so I moved to a village on the outskirts of Chemnitz in Saxony, Germany. The traffic is much better now and I really have time to concentrate on my numismatic empire! It's quite different here, but with budget flights and the common market Blighty is never too far away. I do miss the sea though. Seems strange always being 800 miles from a sea, stuck with a bunch of land lovers. I still keep strong links with England and pop over from time to time to buy coins, see family, mates etc. I'm also into Classic cars and Rock music and I have very long hair Chris

Yes, it certianly does. It's like a differnet style, completely new Queen with twisted lyrics!

Yes it certainly is, and I won't go into why I think that is. Although I imagine it's probably for the same reason that most world leaders and top business executives are not female......Females are busy with much more important things! In saying that though it's good to see Eliza here and I do have a few regulars that are of the female gender. And they are so nice to their husbands and sons! Chris

I live in an isolted mountainous region between Saxony and Bohemia, and I don't get out much at the moment. What is RCC? Chris

Talk about things NOT coin related!

Well it's about time a refreshingly different band came along to break the dross of one second wonders. Who likes The Darkness?

Well it's fine by me because while personal purchases are down. I'm having a right blindin' run of accessory sales for mainly husbands and sons! Chris

Absolutly right, might as well call it slagging, because it's just coin prostitution! Making money out of packing a coin into a plastic thingy, those huge differences in price between grades are laughable and manufactured by the industry. To a degree they take the actual learning and knowledge of grading aspect away from the coin collector for profit. It should be about how much you are willing to pay for a coin based on how much you want it and how much other people have paid for it on the open market. Creating miniscule varities of Uncirculated inflates prices beyond real worth. It is about feeding the needs of the people that are perhaps unsure and need 'official' aknowledgement of what they have. Preying on uncertainty. Take a coin to any dealer and he (she) will usually grade it well and for free! Learn about your coins, study the differences between types, strikes etc. Appreciate the history, the designs, the building a collection. Organise and love your coins and they will always have a much higher value than being sealed in a plastic thing! All my coins are graded CP and that's the way they will stay. Have you ever tried to get one of the coins out of those slags? I got a George V Half Crown from my good friend the late Mark Rosner once, graded by one of them as AU......It was scraping a GVF! It took so much smashing carefully with heavy items to crack and completely remove the coin to be properly graded, it was untrue! Chris

Yes, she has but picked a coin that wasn't mine! I also got the impression she didn't want to spend to much until Christmas was out of the way That right Eliza? Chris

They base their prices quoted on what they and other dealers are selling those coins for. The demand for any particular coins, auction results past and present, inflation etc. In short, they are based on what is available now, nothing to do with how many were minted. I suppose the quanitity of a particular coin available now is in most cases relative to the numbers produced I have noticed that American price catalogues religiously show mintage numbers for everything. Spink have never done that, apart from recently they have started to show issue numbers for certain proof coins. Sometimes I think that it would be a good idea if Spink did likewise but perhaps this would lead to frenzy like up and downs in prices that US coin collecting seems to see often. Chris

Hmmmm, Sometimes I think the Isle of Man exists only for the TT race and to produce ridiculous Cat, Harry Potter, TT race coins and an uncollectable amount of 'commemorative' tosh. I hope I am never forced to sell new issues!!! Chris

I expect they make minor modifications to the alloys used with different years??? Chris

No, the 73 hands was a million times better than a runner with no body! Like I always say, just a money making ploy. It won't be long until we start seeing celebritys on coins, holograms and more sickly colourisation. Chris

What a stupid 50p! Perhaps you should also pop that image in the debate section so the voters can see it. Chris

When you make a normal post it should say: 'You may attach a file to this message. Maximum file size (in bytes): 51200000' Browse your Hard drive and select any .jpg or .gif you want to display with your post. Not too huge! Chris

I've always maintained there are for too many commomorative coins these days and they are all about making money for the mint. I cringe when someone contacts me saying they have a lot of Westminster collection coins to sell. It's over priced, and sells very slowly when it isn't new in my experience. People that religiously buy every new issue are being mugged, and their coins will probably be worth less than they paid for them for the next 70 years at least. I too would like to see pictures of htese new issues. Chris