TomGoodheart

Well, that was Colin Cooke / Neil Paisley's ID and it was a farthing, so ...

And while I'm on a roll, what do people think of this? 1741 George II Shilling EF 70. CGS 2nd Finest Known. EF? Personally (and remember I'm not a milled collector) I find the reverse a bit disappointing in that the wear seems a bit more than 'only evident on very close scrutiny' (Spink). Acceptable grade or not? (And yes, I did search for 'finest known' on ebay, just to see what came up!)

Roll up! Roll up! Finest nown evvah! OK, it's a perfectly good coin. But it's another example of someone getting carried away with slab grading. The fact is that the coin seems to have adjustment marks (or scrapes) and to my eyes isn't nearly as nice as the, albeit pricier, example sold by Stacks in 2008. 1688 Crown on ebay Bottom line is that population reports are pretty meaningless at this sort of level. If only a handful of coins have been graded and slabbed then 'finest known' means nothing. Be interesting to see if it sells given high BIN prices seem to be less succesful than letting a coin find it's own level, but that US buyers do seem to like the reassurance of a slabbed coin.

LOL I don't make the national average, so unless my salary almost doubles I don't need to worry too much about 40% I'm not sure an accountant could save me as much as I'd need to pay them!

Thanks GC. Good to see you here again!

I saw you wanted Chas 1st shillings.I noticed a few in an auction here in Australia in Sydney on Fri 21st Oct.Whether they are cheap or not you will have to decide.Lots 7948,9 & 7950 Elizabeth 1,lots 7955,6 & 7960 James 1,Lots 7967,8,9,70,71 Chas 1.You should find them at http://www.statusint.com Thanks! Not an auction house I'd heard of, so useful to have the link. I'd say the reserves are a little optomisitc, but then they might sell at that.

Oh, I accept what you say. But my feeling is that specially minted coins were meant to be admired as presentation pieces or kept as examples for archiving and study. While they can be spent as regular coinage, I don't believe that was what they were created for. Hence the distinction. Connecting them with modern tat was I guess just Cabernet Sauvignon driven hyperbole! Yeah, laik. Dem youff wot haz no jobs an is on benefits, Dey don pay no tax does em? (Sadly I haz no street cred an carn't keep up wit de chavese, elsin I'd be payin no taxis eeVah, no wot Ah mean?)

As Rob suggests, knowledge is power. When I bought my most expensive shilling the Spink price was £1250 in VF. But I knew that there were only four known examples and so the price hadn't been updated for who knows how long because none had appeared on the market. I also knew that none of the examples was much better than VF and so an example only marginally worse than the Brooker (Burstall, Lockett, Morrieson, Wheeler, Carlyon-Britton) coin was likely as good as I'd get, despite a grade of nVF. Presumably the published price put a few people off going too high (the estimate was £1800-£2200), but since so few examples are likely to come on the market I bid what I could afford. When I consider the price of Newark coins and how many there are of the darned things (not that number necessarily affects the value, but I think if it was just about scarcity they are way overpriced) and that I paid some £600 less than my bid, I reckon I bought cheap.

Old (or ancient by US standards!) coins are to me like antique furniture. While I want the essential detail I expect a bit of wear, a degree of patina from handling .. character in other words. To me MS70s are uninteresting. I'm sure it would be possible to strike as many as you want if you used special dies and care, but what's the point? To just stick it in a slab so it sparkles just like it did on day #1? That's not a coin to me. A coin is something that is intended to be used to buy things; to circulate in other words. All those other things, proofs, fine work pieces, perfect slabbed coins, they are little different from medallions or all those stupid commemorative things like 'London Mint' or 'Westminster Coins' you see on ebay. As Rob says, there's a problem with slabbing in that it does set a psychological minimum price, at least in the US. As a result I've seen the same coin doing the rounds from Goldbergs to Sacks back to Goldbergs and I suspect never actually owned by an individual, just passed from one auction to another in search of a buyer .. because it is just priced to high. I doubt that's the only one either. It would be interesting to see if any of these offerings end up slabbed, because in my experience American grading is rarely an accurate reflection of my assessment of a coin, being lower. Whether there are enough savvy American buyers to realise that a much better than average coin might only be graded VF-30 remains to be seen. But as for the demand for better hammered pieces, they are always much scarcer than the ordinary grades and those with a nice provenance will of necessity be very limited and desired. Time will tell whether the US market gets that or if grade continues to drive prices with anything less than EF being much less marketable, however rare.

"IN DISPLAYED ONLY, WONDERFUL CONDITION" is a new grade to me. Persumably that's what Americans would call XF-3 ?

One of these. A Charles I shilling, Sharp D2/2. While Spink list S2790 as D1-3/2 I'm not aware anyone has ever seen the second bust with that reverse even though examples exist with bust 1 (6) and 3(2) so odds on some coins were struck ...

Well, seeing as we all like looking at coins I see no reason you can't choose more than one Colin. Though I wouldn't bend them if I were you. They're a real pain to straighten again!

Very nice. And unusual, that size. Mine are all much smaller. Oh, and I just spotted one of my previous coins listed by a US auction house. Not sure if I'm more upset by the price they got for it, or the rather garish toning it seems to have developed!

I have a few spare pre-1947 silver coins. I'd accept £30/g for them to be melted.

Gosh, yes. I'd pay to slab a valuble coin too ...

£1882 (inc buyer's premium) nearly six years ago. And in case anyone thinks I'm in Rob's league, the next highest I've paid is less than a third of that. Which is probably the AVSSPCE shilling you beat me to. I haven't forgotten. *wonders where the shaking knees smiley might be* Actually it was for my G3/2; which I thought was quite a reasonable price until they started popping up everywhere (Eight at last count. Eight! There were thought to be only four when I bought it! ) As for which coin I've enjoyed .. that's difficult since many have their attractions. But I'm still oddly fond of this shilling that has most of the flaws of hammered coinage; it's weak in places due to uneven flan thickness, the dies are breaking up and there's double striking due to the coin moving between blows. However it is also pretty much as struck (the edges are almost sharp with minimal wear) on a decent weight round flan (so often not the case!) and attractively toned.

Welcome SC. If you'd like to start a thread to introduce yourself then here (Free for all) is as good as any. Just remember, if you want to add photos of your collection (which we always like to see!) there's a limit of 150k per post to what you can upload from your computer so quite a few people link to flikr or photobucket (or similar photohosting) sites.

Not an ebay coin I know (actually from Antony Wilson's site) but this penny portrait amused me. It looks as if the King is choking on a fishbone! Or maybe it's the dysentery the poor chap died from? Either way, not a happy fellow.

Th vast majority of my coins were under £200. It used to be you could get a respectable (common but VF) Charles I shilling for £50 but this has crept up over the last few years and I'd expect to pay around the £100+ mark. The least I've spent was £18 which was for a coin that's pretty knackered but a clear and unusual privy mark. Yes, as Rob says, there are always rarities in any series and they will be pricey. I've been lucky in making contacts and have managed to buy a few coins privately that would otherwise have been very difficult to find. But generally shillings were produced in huge numbers in Charles' reign, more are found regularly and so they are never going to be very expensive unless in exceptionally decent condition or from premium collections. I guess one of the things that makes me a collector (though I'm not sure about 'ordinary'!) /numismatist rather than investor or 'hobbyist' is that I'm fairly happy not buying coins. I get nearly as much pleasure searching the interwebz for examples and sales prices to compare against my coins and sharing views and the little knowledge I've picked up with others. Currently (as usual) I'm searching auction/ dealer sites for coins both new stock and archived information. It's free (apart from the cost of a broadband connection) and educational. Keeps me off the streets too.

Yeah, it's been machined out after it was put into circulation. People used to (and still do perhaps) do that to two coins, leaving a reverse and obverse; one also lathed to a smaller diameter so they fitted together to form a small box. I inherited the face side of a penny someone has done this to and believe the 'bottom' went missing sometime. Maybe yours was like that once? A curiosity but not valuble at all I'm afraid.

A 1092 penny for under £10? Now that's what I call a bargain. But seriously, that sounds like a nice selection. Can't remember if you said how you're storing them Hello? If you don't mind that thay aren't on display, I keep a stock of small (2" x 2") paper envelopes to pop coins into (particularly ones I pick out of change, but if I sell a coin I also send it in one). I bought mine from Colin Cooke. About £5 for 100 if I remember correctly. Just an idea.

£1882 (inc buyer's premium) nearly six years ago. And in case anyone thinks I'm in Rob's league, the next highest I've paid is less than a third of that.

Thanks Rob. The problem is that pretty much all my coins (apart from the ebay purchases) are from dealers or auction houses who didn't have or pass on details. Very few are particularly striking so unlikely to be the highlight of a major collection. The 'simplest' solution is when I recognise a coin in an earlier sale, but that depends on photos. It was quite time consuming for me to go through the catalogues, SNCs an dealers' lists I have to find a few, but for any others it'd be searching blind since for the most part I have no clues at all to go on. For example, this. Quite an acceptable coin with old tone that suggests it has been in collections for a few years but Goldberg's don't mention any previous owners. Likely the details were lost when it was PCGS graded. It came unslabbed from Neil Paisley. Unless I find a photo from an earlier catalogue or sale, I doubt I'd spot it from a description. Assuming there even was one, that is!

I know you're right. But I think it's important to distinguish between prestige and provenance. A coin from a prestigious sale such as Norweb or Bamford will carry a premium just for that alone, and the better the coin is, and the longer it can be linked to those sales, the better for its future. But, such sales also carry a proportion of relatively mediocre coins - break the link and suddenly those are cast adrift. However provenance is generally irrelevant to mediocre stuff, Oh, in price terms, that's quite likely the case. However I have coins owned by Shuttlewood, Osborne and more recently, Morris. None of these coins are spectacular (OK, one is interesting) but I would still be very interested to know where they bought them and who owned them before. These aren't Brookers or Locketts but they are still serious collectors of Charles I coins. For all I know one of my coins could have been a minor item that passed through the hands of a well known collector, but without very serious research I have no way of knowing. Osborne for example is a pig of a sale to unravel; quite a few multiple lots and very few photos. Provenance will make pretty much no difference to the eventual sale price of my coins. But I'd still rather like to know!

Yes. That is certainly amazing for an AU coin. Though personally I would grade it BS.