Chris Perkins

Vera Trinder in the Strand should hopefully have some promptly. Possibly Michael Coins in Notting Hill and you could even order it from Spink and eventually WHSmith, Borders and WG Foyles, but I think Vera Trinder should be quickest.

You like the look of that eh! Actually there will be a couple of little changes to the cover...main thing is that the coin images will be split so they don't overlap each other. I think the free coin is going to be an excellent sales incentive. In fact I'm already selling them as we speak! Bertrams just called and want to meet me at the Frankfurt Bookfair (because I told them that their main competitor is buying more than 2x the books they do, which is true). Another wholesaler ordered 200 copies today bringing total pre publication sales so far to 1050 books. And yes, it really won't be ready until October 10th, possibly a day or 2 earlier. I'm just finishing it this week before it goes to print the week after.

I expect 924 the cow is probably long been turned into T-Bone and Rump.

I've got a wonderful old Victorian book on glues and pastes! It lists all the receipes for making glues suitable for just about everything. Problem is, many of the ingredients are no longer easily available or have changed their names.

I've certainly seen coins of about that age that have been stuck together. Even back then, a double headed coin would have been handy to have if you wanted your team to bat first!

I wouldn't get too excited, in 99% of times they are cleverly engineered trick coins made from 2 halves, hollowed out around the beads so that the edge shows no join.

I knew her personally (the cow, not your wife!) I expect it might make £5 on its own with good pictures. It is a very very weak '8' and the rest of the digits are ok. Who knows with ebay though, it'll probably not do anything much! Go on then, I'll give you a fiver for it, and add it to my 'unusual' pile. Have you got any silver coins, or anything well above average. If so, I'd like to save your time on ebay and make you a fair offer for them.

Filled die, or a weak punch or a combination. You do sometimes see weak numbers (with a trace of the number there) but that one is very obvious and interesting as such.

Yes, I noticed some of the things on the list, like savings, soap and fruit that I thought were probably not all that common in many households in 1888.

Another notification that the image upload now works again. This means that you can now post images in messages and it also means you can add/change your avatars etc. A path relating to the server that 'predecimal.com' resided on previously was to blame. It was hidden away and I finally found it after some pointers from the Invision knowledgebase.

I've fixed the image upload problem! It should also mean that avatars can now be changed/added in the normal way! Here's proof...

Oh my god, I've just fixed the image upload problem!! Chris, you should now be able to upload the image yourself by using the 'File attachments' prompt under the area where you write the post.

Yes, scanning is fine for most things. I got a new camera the other day which seems to do the trick pretty well. Don't use a flash and always rest the camera on a mini tripod because it's not really possible to hold it perfectly still when taking such a close up image. I still have my old camera, which is great (and only 3.2 mega pixels) but has a broken battery door.

No I'd have bought it for £80 and sold it within about 10 minutes for £140!

Thanks for all the input so far, that's all great stuff. You can be as generalised or as specific as you like. I find it hard to monitor everything, so this kind of discussion is very helpful.

Yes I would have paid twice that without thinking twice either.

If you've got coins to sell, you just have to send them to me and you'll sell them all at once instead of fiddling with bad pictures all day!

This forum was only opened to pre-approved members, but now should work for everyone! Thanks for pointing that out Colin.

Unlikely, unless all the others get lost down sofas!

I just wondered if I could get some opinions from collectors of post 1797 coinage about what they think the market has been doing with their collecting area over the last year. What's gone up, what's stayed the same and what's still undervalued etc? I need to do the price update in CCGB2008. Thanks.

The 1981 Crown is a 5 shilling (25p) coin. In a case it's worth about £1. The 1990 proof set is worth around £10 assuming the coins have not toned at all. The 1986 £2 coin can be spent as £2 but will be worth £3 or even £4 if it's in absolutely perfect condition with no scratches or toning.

What a great find! You'd know about Civitas Cantor and all the others if you had an 'Englands Striking History' to hand!

I know that there is no way of adding images anywhere at the moment, including in the gallery or even as an avatar. I'll try and sort that out this week (was in Vienna last week). I tried already but it's a mystery.

No I wasn't talking about the customs forms, I meant the description of the item that some post offices will ask for. Some don't ask.

I've had problems with this in the past too. (from the UK). When people send me coins from the UK I often recommend that they describe them as antiques or collectables, so that if they go missing you get the proper money back. It's ridiculous that coins are't covered, that rule should apply to current money only. I don't know if it's the same for special delivery. In the mean time, lie through your teeth...if it goes missing then how are they ever going to know the package contained a coin?