Chris Perkins

My book, my books, buy my books. Seriously though, the Standard Guide to Grading British Coins and Collectors' Coins GB 2014 (Pre-decimal) will be a very good start. Both are also available in eBook form, on Amazon Kindle etc (which is currently fairly unusual for coin books).

Friend of mine has a VIP 1949 set, inc proof 1949 Threepence.

She went to the great knackers yard (or wherever old cows go) in the sky. I changed the pic to something coin related as I'm the boss of what is now by far the biggest UK coin forum, and I thought having a comical cow hardly gave the impression of authority and coiny knowledge. The new image is "Collectors' Coins - Decimal Issues of the United Kingdom" (formerly "Check Your Change") and will go to print this month. I've also added more links in my sig, to gain more exposure for the other books.

I had trouble listing a Persian rug on German eBay! In the end I hyphenated the (Indian) town of origin and it was allowed. Have had trouble with Iranian coins in the past too. And of course in Germany anything that even looks a little bit Nazi is dis-allowed, except coins for some bonkers reason.

A couple of coins I meant, in case that wasn't clear.

Amounts? Anything from a couple to many kg.

I buy coppers for the copper content and sixpences can just about be paid in to a bank account if you're lucky, it's your own bank and you know the cashier! I'm able to get face value for post 1947 non silver 'silver'. The face value is more than the scrap value.

We ultimately sell them to contacts in the jewellery trade, or sell them as coins by weight to private investors. Pre 20 sterling is more useful as it's already sterling so can be make into jewellery as it is. I suppose some coins may end up polished to within an inch of their lives and in those fancy-birth-year sets in plastic folders or sold to tourists, but to actually get good money for bog standard pre 47 silver you have to have an awful lot of patience! I move it on quickly after a small cut and then hope that some actual collectable coins will come along! I must have handled tons and tons of pre 47 over the years.

It's brass. If it's not brass, I'll eat it.

At over £500 there were 8 different bidders. A lot of it is speculation. I'm pretty sure this one has gone to a collector, but I bet an awful lot of the Kew gdns sales were to people that jumped on them quick with the hope of selling on for a quick profit. Same as for the dateless 20p, except with the Kew coin it literally fell flat after about 48 hrs....scarcely enough time to receive the coins before selling them on, so no doubt lots of people were disappointed.

Aha, that was you was it! Then I suppose I do technically owe you one. Luckily the new decimal book took so long that I would have found out before I sold them on, but still, it could have been a disaster couldn't it! Ok, I'll send you a signed "Collector's Coins - Decimal Issues of the United Kingdom". The least I can do.

Thanks everyone. I suppose it must be a decimal record (for base metal)! There was such a huge amount of interest in it in terms of watcher numbers, bidders and questions asked. Did you bring it to my attention Danz? I can't remember how and when exactly I found out about it. I couldn't have asked for better timing with all that Kew Gdns 50p stuff kicking off mid way through. I hate lotteries, but perhaps I should buy a ticket this week. £900 is now the value that will go into the book.

Thanks Gary. I've incorporated those numbers into Collectors' Coins - Decimal Issues of the United Kingdom, which should go to print next month.

I bought a 2014 proof set because I had to (to provide commemorative coin images) but sent it back because the coins were simply pushed in to a piece of rubber which could be shaken to move freely inside the Perspex, and on a couple of the coins were sticky residues around the rims (on the inside of the Perspex). Not good for future toning prospects. Also, the 50p fitment into the rubber was uneven. My opinion: The RM are just after a quick profit and will use the cheapest materials/packaging that they can get away with. They want your money now and they don't care what the coins will look like in a few years time - not their problem. The older sets often have bad toning, but in the main were of better quality than the one I bought recently.

Where'd you get those numbers Gary? I haven't previously been able to find the annual numbers that are packaged into the BU singles etc.

Yes, possibly. Over 1200 people have seen it.

144 watchers on the withdrawn 50p. Quite an increase since the silliness with the Kew coin. The 50p category is obviously livelier that normal, which is good for me. It's up to £220.00 currently.

Well there you go then. That was a flash in the pan. This one just went for £53: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kew-gardens-50p-fifty-pence-rare-1759-2009-/331134767765?pt=UK_Coins_BritishDecimal_RL&hash=item4d192b9295&autorefresh=true I imagine £20 - £30 is post hype realistic. That is, once the people that are now stuck with them have got shot of theirs at a loss and the market isn't so saturated. I wonder how much of the deceleration is due to this forum.

I had webspace restraints/extra costs with the old hosts. They were taken over and eventually became utterly incompetent in July 2012. Now it's hosted by a bloke in Gravesend and there are less restrictions and more space etc, as well as an excellent service and lots of features for me to play with.

I know that you all have all of my books and know every page by heart, but just for the newbies yet to discover the fabulousness of Predecimal/Rotographic, here is my £2.50 coin as featured in the last Check Your Change. It really bugs me how this mutant ever came to exist. The inner part is of a £2 coin (2006 Brunel), but slightly larger. The outer ring is part of a 50p (2006 VC hero), but is round and has a milled edge. It is the most unique and extreme mint error that I've ever seen.

Experiment by saving a whole page of the forum (this page for example). If there are save options, chose the one that looks to imply that it saves everything and not just the basic html - which should also result in it saving a wee folder full of sundries such as images and the like. To make sure that it's saved everything: Unplug your internet connection and open the html file of the page and see if there's anything missing or weird looking. That's what I'd do. I have no experience of doing it in Firefox though and only distant memories of trying it years ago with IE.

Members are now able to store 1000 messages and also are able to send attachments in PMs. Re saving in HTML and keeping the structure so that there are no externally hosted links, images etc: I think there is a way to save an absolute copy of the page locally, but I don't think it's the default in IE. In fact, as the forum uses php (and cleverly displays itself instantly as html) with a database behind it, I'm not entirely sure if saving a hard copy of such a page is possible!

I think even if the DM put something online today bringing people back down to earth about the likely future values, they will still keep on selling for silly prices for a few weeks. Once people get an idea in their head about something being valuable, they hate to let that idea go, despite instinct, facts and logic telling them the exact opposite.

I bet this was all started deliberately (not mentioning any names of course). The 1983 NEW PENCE 2p (in it's BU year set) is worth £500 - £700. And that's proper rare! Assuming there are max 200 of the Aquatics 2011 error 50p, that makes mine 1000x rarer than the 2009 Kew 50p, so should I look forward to at least £200,000 end price?! I've written to the DM just now.

Scarce compared to the many millions of the other dates in circulation, but not rare. The 210,000 is plenty to cover the number of people that want one to keep.