TomGoodheart

Are they not different companies? Baldwins are part of the Stanley Gibbons Empire, which includes SG, Noble, Baldwins, Dreweatts, Bloomsbury, etc. Spink are just Spink. Albeit international. What I don't understand is that with all their money they seem to have trusted their IT to an amateur ... Edit: And just for amusement I tried a simple search just now. After a minute of waiting it told me to log in. So I attempted ... Nothing. I disabled Active X filtering ... Still nothing. I put in my details, clicked "Login" and .. FA Been like that.. what, two years now? I did email a few times complaining but can't be arsed now. Pointless them having a website as far as I can see. .

.

I suspect Rob might be able to come up with a few suggestions there ...

Quite some time ago I came across Timothy D. Cook's englishhammered site. There he posted a list he was given entitled "The Fifty Most Important Auctions of English Coins" Obviously there can be some debate as to what makes a collection 'great' but this seems a good start. Please note that it does focus on hammered coins. .

And below I list my own small collection of auction sales I have found most useful relating to the Tower shillings of Charles I: Glendining 24 Mar 1920 Catalogue of a Choice Collection of English Coins from Edward VI to Present Day, formed by Mr Grant R. Francis Grant Francis worked on a system for classifying the silver coins issued at the Tower mint during the reign of Charles I. His papers were published over several volumes of the BNJ and when his collection was sold more coins than usual were illustrated due to collector interest. Glendining 25 April 1955 Deceased Lady Collector (Helen Farquhar collection) Glendining 11-17 Oct 1956 Richard Cyril Lockett (Part IV (English Part II)) This part of the huge Lockett collection (sold over 13 auctions) This sale holds the largest number of shillings subsequently bought by John Brooker for his collection. Glendining 15-16 May 1968 Collection of English hammered Silver Coins formed by the late Dr E Burstal Glendining 23 April 1991 Collection of English Coins formed by the late Bernard Roy Osborne Roy Osborne made a detailed (dare I say obsessive!?) study of the Tower shillings, coming up with his own classification system. Another set of papers of interest and a useful (though sparsely illustrated) sale. Glendining 7 June 1974 English & Scottish Coins from the R C Lockett Collection (Clonterbrook Trust) Spink 139 16 Nov 1999 The Martin Hughes Collection of English Coins Some great quality pieces and well illustrated. Spink 145 12-14 July 2000 Ancient, English and Foreign (The J M Ashby Collection of English Coins) Similar to Hughes, a good selection of photographed coins. DNW 26 Sept 2007 The 2007 COINEX Auction including Silver Coins of Charles I from a Private Collection DNW 24-30 Sept 2008 The 2008 COINEX Auction including Silver Coins of Charles I from a Private Collection (Part II) Excellent collection of coins from an unidentified source that had probably not seen daylight since before WWI. Also well worth a mention: North, J. J. & Preston-Morley, P. J. Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles 33. The John G Brooker Collection. Coins of Charles I (1625-1649). Brooker's collection was large and focused ... and fortunately photographed and recorded almost in entirety. If you want one book about the coins of Charles I this should be it. Spink Numismatic Circular April 2001, Vol CIX No 2 for the Roger Shuttlewood Tudor and Stuart shillings. Why Spink chose to sell these via the Circular I have no idea. But it provides an excellent record for the series. .

All of us will have no doubt benefitted from a few books about coins whether it's just a price guide like CCGB or Coins of England to something more in-depth like Peck. A few members have also commented that old auction sales catalogues can be an interesting and useful resource. So I thought it might be helpful to have a thread where people can make recommendations of anything literature related they feel others might find of interest. .

Happy Birthdays Guys!

A (belated) Happy Birthday from me too!

Is anyone going to the "Informal CGS Forum Meeting" next Saturday (6th December 2014)? I got an email but I'm working and it's only of passing interest to me. Might be a good place to air any views on how long it takes to process submissions and the apparent conflict between 'paying customers' and when they have to slab auction material for London? Bill Pugsley is the contact. .

And within hours of Christmas hundreds of copies of the Decimal volume will be on eBay ...!

I did wonder about that. Spink announced it as two volumes, but I've yet to see whether it's possible to buy either individually. Or at what price the one most people would want might be on its own. I did see it advertised at £25 on one site ... not sure about when you add post to Germany. Worth shopping around though. .

Me too. Not your Mother of course Peter! My family members. However my Sis-in-Law likes to buy an actual gift (I got her to drop into Baldwins last year to pick up a catalogue) and so I try to suggest something she can wrap and hand over on the day. Otherwise I'll get something I don't really want! If it's not coin related it'll have to be some cologne from a place near Jermyn Street and I've still some left from last year! .

I noticed that Peter Nichols now do medal cabinets and I thought "If I replace two of my current trays (because medal trays are the depth of two coin ones) with what is effectively a drawer, that will sort where to put envelopes and other paperwork that doesn't fit in the coin recesses!" Just under £10 + post for something made to order - stained and with the knobs aligned to match my existing trays - doesn't seem too bad at all! Now I'm going to get back to looking for auctions that have a reasonable number of Charles I shillings illustrated in the catalogue. So if anyone has suggestions for sale catalogues I might not have, do please let me know! I should say I'm only interested in Tower issues. So it will probably be a sale from the last 40 years. They weren't considered rare enough to spend the money on illustrating much before the 1970s, unless it was a well-known specialist collection. Anyone else got any coin-related requests on their list this year?

Perhaps an abbreviation of shiny bright? Something like ... SHIGHT would do, no? .

201225154593 ex Lockdales. But sadly at 4.8g, probably also ex a workshop in Lancashire like these: http://www.forgerynetwork.com/asset.aspx?id=h/nbQ~x~5QgFs= .

I believe you can submit via a dealer in London? http://www.ngccoin.com/services/dealer-listing.aspx?services=assists-collectors-with-submissions And I presume you know about these guys? http://www.coingradingservices.co.uk/ You might find they will recognise varieties better than a US TPGS. .

Depends on the token. Some were used as coins when the official issues weren't sufficient to provide people with small change and otherwise business would have suffered. Others were used to advertise services and presumably handed out with change. Others .. maybe just souvenirs? Advertising token: US 'Civil War' Token which I think were used as change: Money of necessity (struck during Spanish Civil war to provide local currency) .

Nice one Tomo. And I'm glad your finding the forum useful. I know I certainly do! And well done Garrett. Looks like Scott has some homework to do! .

I guess the problem is mintages don't tell you much about survival. And obviously there was the further re-coinage in 1816. I don't know whether there might be anything else in the BJN ... I've not done a proper search. Either way, their archive is a useful asset. Here ... Rob seems to be the man with all the esoteric facts to hand. Not sure if he can add anything but you could pm him? .

Not my area I'm afraid Arthur. But you might find something in "Some notes on the great recoinage of William III, 1695-1699 " in the British Numismatic Journal? Eleventh article down, by Philip Nelson: http://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital%20BNJ/1906.shtml .

There are quite a few variations amongst Victorian coinage, some are particularly rare. I presume the London one was a rare variety, however it's not my area I'm afraid. Hopefully someone with knowledge in that area will chip in in due course! .

As far as I can tell coins with die numbers are rare trial pieces that entered circulation. The number would be below the date. But I can't see any sign of one in your photo I'm afraid. I'll leave it for someone else to give a grade and confirm what I've said. In the meantime, welcome! .

Everyone is different but I will say that when I first started I bought lots of coins to fill gaps. However with time I have come to realise a lot of them were pretty poor. More importantly I just don't get any thrill when I look at the things. Whereas the better examples I still enjoy. Coins are little bits of art. A good deal of time and effort was put into their design and execution and for the most part you only get an appreciation for that when a coin is over a certain grade. To my mind a bargain is only a bargain if you're happy with your purchase a year or so down the line. If you feel (as I occasionally do) you'd really rather have the money you spent back, to buy something now with your greater knowledge and understanding then it perhaps wasn't such a bargain? Just my view of course. .

Basically, unless a coin is so rare there's no price because no examples exist in that grade, the lack of a price means it's of little commercial value. That doesn't mean it has no collector value (just look at things selling on eBay!) nor that a dealer won't give it a price (they have to cover overheads, postage and other costs so unless it's in a pick-it-yourself bin for 10p you might still have to pay £1!) I believe most guides have a minimum of £1 below which it's considered pointless taking time to guess a price! The general guide is buy the best you can. If no value is given for VF then there are probably enough decent examples for you to aim for UNC. Of course, if you like a coin and it gives you pleasure to own, who cares what grade it is? Just don't spend too much on it! .