Chris Perkins

These 2 Arabic coins would involve more patience than I have to identify them. They certainly don't appear to be the usual Ottoman/Egyptian easy ones, so I'll offer a reward of £2 (£1 per coin) via paypal - I'll cover the fees - to the first person that can identify them for me; providing the country/ruler, mint and date details. The first one is this one, it's silver, 22.85mm in diameter and weighs 5.67g with a plain edge.

The first thing I thought when I heard the winners were Scottish and then saw them, was how many battered mars bars £161m would buy! Argentumandcoins, I hate the way I collect and pay 7% (it's only 7% on coins here, zero on gold) VAT for every sale I make, but that I cannot claim 7% back when I buy coins, so in effect I don't pay VAT on the profit, I pay VAT on the whole amount of sale. 20% makes my 7% look like a drop on a hot stone, but do you know how I can claim back on purchases from private individuals? I think I heard there are some VAT rules which are harmonised EU wide. Incidentally the collecting accessories have 19% VAT, which is the standard German rate. Books also attrace 7% VAT, but I get around that by having all books printed outside Germany and stored/dispatched from the UK, where book VAT is 0.

Nowhere near finished! I have completed a wall and a door/frame too high standard and other bits and pieces, but not even a complete room to report, yet!

I've not been around much lately. Not deliberate, simply so much going on, mostly involving old cars that I've wasted money on! And an even older house that takes up a lot of time. Apart from the recent topic that was brought to my attention (and locked) what's news?

I've just removed a whole load of posts relating to a certain seller of coins. I hate censoring things, but can we keep this under our hats for the moment? If it comes out as 100% true and proven, then I will flick the switch and make visible all the posts that I have just rendered invisible! Behave yourselves!

I believe it was actually the Royal Mint that coined the term 'BU'....without really meaning to. In the 80s their annual sets of coins in folders were suddenly marketed as 'Brilliant Uncirculated' and that caught on to mean an UNC coin with full lutre.

coinsforsale.co.uk My mate Richard in SE London. Mostly hammered English, Roman, Greek and some 18th century tokens. A good man. I share a table with him at the tri-annual London Coin fair.

Did I reply to you? I don't remember gold sets recently. I must admit that I don't get too excited when I hear about modern gold (oh, and even though proofs are rarer...so what, melt the buggers down, they will always exist in larger numbers than there are serious collectors of them) as gold is bloody expensive, ties a lot of cash up and the profit margin is small in the short term. With gold you can't keep the money turning over (for a decent return) like with collectable coins where it is possible to regularly make 20 - 40% profit, rather than 5-10% with gold. Anyway, looks like you've sold them! Lucky the price of gold shot up. And welcome to the forum.

Other countries have used a double headed eagle too. I can't find an example that looks just like the reverse.

It's a German made brass Jeton isn't it? I don't quite know the significance of the double headed eagle (apart from the obvious fact that Victoria was related to most other European Royal familes).

I don't think that's VF Azda! Looks around fine - a £20 coin really. Better, cropped pictures would of course assist.

In average used condition they are worth much less than £1. Yours is really only a couple of pence for the scrap copper content (the copper that hasn't completely corroded away!). But, interesting that it was found on the Mersey and not on the Indus!

More like GVF really, some would say NEF. For EF on those you'd expect perhaps the last remnants of lustre (if you're lucky) and much better sharper squared off edges with less marks as well and just a little more detail. The thick rims protect the designs to some degree, which is why they often look very good. Cartwheels are hard to grade, I've always found that! And the price drops quickly down the grades, as you've probably noticed. No reason to beleive it isn't genuine though.

Ah yes, I should have spotted that as I've sold a couple of Baroda, Indore and Outdore (sorry) coins on ebay recently!

Of course you can Rose, as long as it's your factual opinion and not too nasty/libelous towards the seller....unless the seller's identity is well hidden, in which case you can probably be as frank as you like!

Yes, I was pretty sure the medalet was the cheaper one, especially at the grade isn't too amazing. Cooke's estimated P680 (which I think I saw on their website)? Did it sell? I suppose I better offer the seller £200 for the p680. I'll probably leave the medalet as he'd paid way too high for it. Thanks.

Looks like some kind of Thai language to me....certainly that area of asia. Blimey it could even be hebrew or god knows what! Size and style though would imply that it's probably 19th century or even 20th century.

Yup, I need price data for each denomination based on recent sales, dealer lists and a lot of instinct! I personally think you'd be pretty well qualified for the job Peck.

Do any of you farthing boys know the (rough) realistic retail prices for: a ) A William III 1698 pattern fathing in silver, Peck 680 (grades EF). B ) William and Mary pattern farthing/medalet in silver. Small busts, King on one side, Queen on the other. Legend GULIELMUS . III . DEI . GRA. Similar to the uncertain pieces listed in Peck at the end of Wm and Mary section, but it has no specific number (grades around F). Thanks.

I don't see much sense naming and shaming ebay ID's, not because of legalities but simply because there will always be more 'shady' characters that we can possibly list and any that we do list can of course set up a new account with a different name in a matter of minutes. I'm sure some hardcore fraudsters do that as a matter of course. There are some bad eggs but generally I find coin buyers are a very reliable bunch. Much more so that car buyers (I've dabbled).

Don't know why Amazon would offer a refund....it's coming, eventually! Kind of help: basically the helpers will need to feel confident updating the prices for their chosen denomination. Not just a few, but all of them. This can be as simple as penciling small prices in an existing book or can be as technical as an excel file with Freeman/ESC etc numbers, grades, values. As long I can understand it and incorporate the data into the book! Gold is taken care of already. Crowns are pretty easy as there are relatively few of them. Peck down for Half Crowns and pennies? Going back further is also a good idea. And I think i can now probably remove post 1970 as Check Your Change covers all those.

I know it really belongs in the foreign section but New Zealand does share our Queen and in this case also our designer, who has been mentioned elsewhere recently. From the collection of the late William Gardner (he did the EII shillings, portcullis 3d, 1982-2008 20p and many other commonwealth coins by the way) comes this large electrotype NZ Dollar. This design was used on the first NZ dollar for decimalisation in 1967. Size: 18cm Weight: 362g Any thoughts on exactly what this is? In the first image it is shown next to an actual 1967 Dollar.

For centuries to come! It's a bloody piss take really isn't it. The monster coins will trade around the bullion value for centuries to come. Maybe one day the intrinsic value might actually be more than what they are charging for them. I'll create another thread for my shield back NZ dollar and perhaps the members can speculate on why it was made etc. It could just be a keep sake for the designer.

A kilo coin will give the RM plenty of space to show off another cheap and nasty loosly Olympic related design to go with the other 84! I can hardly wait. I also have (also originating from William Gardner) a trial design NZ Dollar electrotype shield back reverse....that is 18.5cm in diameter. The design was actually used but I don't know exactly at which stage or for what purpose this plate sized 'coin' was used. Pleased you like the 20p!

I'm still behind. Feb is probably unrealistic now I'm afraid. I will be asking for help (perhaps putting a different member on each denomination so that all I have to do is change the book, rather than search, collate etc) in the 2012 edition.