TomGoodheart

It's OK. Wifey cooked. Quorn in lemon sauce with Chinese noodles.

I think that's it!!! I started drawing this: You can see the similarity between the cross. And the double striking accounts for the hand becoming diagonals on a shield. Well done Andy!

Crikey, TG!!! Having said that, now you've said German, is that an eagle rotated on the right-hand image? I believe it's a shield with diagonal bars. The other side looks like a cross within a shield. The problem is that many city states across Europe produced similar small coins. If you recognise the Arms of the shield, it makes it quicker. Sadly I don't! So it's a matter of thumbing through some auction catalogues in the hope of finding a match or something close enough to then google further!

Maybe mediaeval German states pfennig. Lemme do a bit of research ..

Up now: http://www.downies.com/aca/pages/catalogue.asp

Hmmm .. you would pick a tricky date, wouldn't you! Michael Coins has a decent selection, but no 1837s I'm afraid.

I am kind of fond of the 1893 Sovereign. Not crazy about the others, thou I know that a star doesn't say "This coin is amazing. You MUST like this coin" It's no different from the grade on the slab. I can take it or, if I disagree, I can ignore it. It's just it still feels as if NGC are trying to impose their aesthetic opinions on everyone. I guess I shouldn't let such things irritate me. But they do!

Yes. In this case the left hand image is the shield of arms for Bury St Edmunds, so I'd call that the obverse. I believe the reverse signifies that it is payable at P Decks Post Office (which is what it should say on the edge) As a rule of thumb I'd say the side that changes least (issuer, town etc) would be obv, then the merchant where the thing can be redeemed the reverse. If a merchant issued several different designs though probably the side that identifies the merchant should be obv. If that makes sense?

And where's the 'flogging a dead horse' smiley when you need it???

So now NGC have decided to expand their Star grading to World coins: http://www.ngccoin.com/news/viewarticle.aspx?IDArticle=3798&Star-designation Shame they chose some shit ugly coins to advertise the fact then, no?

Hi and welcome Rich! My two pieces of advice are, to collect what you like and to buy a few books before you spend too much money! The ones Paulus suggested would do and if you're a bit [more] of a techie [than I am] the first ones are available for ereaders or Apple thingies too. Though I still like physical pages when I read! There are more specialist publications that cover types or dates of coins but I'd leave those until you get a feel for what you like. There are no hard and fast rules. If you want to pick up a few pieces of silver, some bronze and a contemporary counterfeit made from brass, why not? However after ... well, lets just say a few years, I am starting to realise that the coins I still like (and don't regret buying!) are the better examples. So I'd suggest aiming high in terms of grade and eye appeal. Remember, if you want to check if others agree on the details in an ebay listing or a dealer's grading then you can always ask here. As to storage, though I use a cabinet, all my coins are toned. No BU copper for me! If I did collect such a thing I'd be more careful. Flips are a good compromise as you can see the coin (though acid-free envelopes are cheaper!) but there are also plastic flips, capsules etc. Chris (site owner) has a typical selection under the Accessories section if you use the Predecimal.com link at the top left of the page.

Interesting question. I don't have any Fine Work coins (which I have seen referred to in some older catalogues as 'proofs') But I have a couple of oddities, a Briot hammered coin and a Sharp G3. The former seem to fit best in with the other 'Briot' bust Tower issue coins, aesthetically and historically. The second, although it really most resembles the bust design of early Group H, I have followed Sharp and put it at the end of the Parliamentary issue Group G tray. I suspect if I had any Fine Work coins, for me it would come down to numbers. If I had one or two, then fitting them in with coins struck at the same time would seem neatest. But if I had 8 or 9 of the things I might well put them in their own tray. I see merits to both systems. .. which I guess is no help to you at all Steve!

LOL I've asked Chris whether it might be possible to add a new subforum, where the various threads can be merged. It might help people to join in, or ignore the topic, more easily!

My concern is that the focus might (or probably has in some quarters) shift from the coin to the grade. So instead of people looking for a nicer coin, they seek a higher number. This to me is the inherent problem with all TPGS. Whether one is better or not is to me, a moot point. Protection of coins, conservation, authentication? I have no problems with any of those. But fuelling the 'number chasing' craze? They are all bad in that respect to my eyes and as Rob alludes, people need to learn to make up their own minds about a coin, instead of relying on someone else. IMHO. .

It does appear that some HMRC charges can be paid in advance. However the US is not one of the countries that is listed on the HMRC site as having a Memorandum of Understanding to permit this. It may be that eBay has some means of using its Channel Islands operation to do this. http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageTravel_ShowContent&id=HMCE_CL_000014&propertyType=document#P166_14865 But that still begs the question as to whether they are levying the correct charges and what you can do if you think they aren't ... .. the problem being, you'd have to be a braver man than I Gunga Din to bid on a coin in the hope that when it came to checkout somehow eBay would correctly calculate the right duty/vat. .

Quite. Wifey wanted a clock. For not much more than the price of something fancy from John Lewis she got one from the late 1800s. Took a bit of tweaking, but it keeps good time now. And no batteries to run out! But I guess everyone is different and some like old, some ultra-modern. If the RM products encourage a few people to collect coins seriously (of whatever denomination and dates of production) it's a good thing. But I still have no idea what a gold 50p would go for. On the day it could be bullion value or thousands over. Neither would really surprise me. Though, assuming she got one too, I do hope the family of nine-year-old Florence Jackson never part with theirs! http://www.royalmint.com/shop/london_2012_50p_sports_collection_athletics

Ebay say this helps buyers buy from the US more smoothly. I guess not having to worry about additional charges on receipt is helpful. But there's a problem here. The problem being that as far as I could find, under UK requirements, there is no duty payable on antique items over 100 years old. Or 'Coins of Numismatic Interest'. So it's just VAT. And that's charged at the reduced rate of 5%. Bringing the total of charges due to a whopping .. £24.82 .. as opposed to the $179.98 (£109.64) eBay want to charge. Um.

I was looking at some listings from a seller in the US and noticed that as well as postage charges, ebay mention Import Charges. Now these charges aren't cheap. I make them around 22% of the cost of the coin!

Is it just me or does this listing suggest there's a wee bit of wishful thinking going on? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/charles-11-1673-halfpenny-/221356782655?pt=UK_Coins_BritishMilled_RL&hash=item3389e4743f

For me, the problem is that if we're talking about grading, then really the "best job" should surely be which company is most accurate in their assessment. But since the majority of UK dealers still use the F/VF/EF system while US companies use Sheldon and CGS their own, I just don't know how to answer. Potentially I could answer, if someone could provide definitive comparative table of the various grading systems, but there isn't one. OK, there are tables of grade equivalents published by the TPGs themselves. But let's look at CGS grading. There seem to be 5 points (50-55) where the US grade (AU55) doesn't change at all. Then between 70 and 75 the US grades go from 60-61 to 62-63 and then between CGS 90-95 the US grades jump from MS66 to MS 68-69 which would be a decent price differential. And those are GCS' opinions. Presumably if you asked PCGS they might come up with something else (though I seem to remember that the US PCGS are all quite careful to avoid suggesting that the grades they assign to a coin might differ from someone else's!) Sorry Exbrit, I should probably stay out of such discussions, particularly since I suspect I'd be incapable of telling an MS65 from an MS69. I guess I'm just in a pernickety mood!

To be honest I don't pay enough attention to them to say. For example there are a few late hammered coins recently up on ebay that have been slabbed by NGC. I have no idea quite what to make of the grades, so just ignore them! But then I don't really give much heed to dealers' grading either. A coin either looks good to me or it doesn't. I'm assuming that they should make a better job of grading more modern stuff as it's more directly comparable to US coinage. But I still don't know quite how to compare across grading systems. I see now that, for US coins, you can get a + (which means a coin is at the high end of its grade) or a * (for eye appeal, which seems to mean how closely the toning resembles a part-sucked M&M). But I just don't see the point [sic] of a 70 point scale where really only a small part of the scale is used. And particularly if they're trying to subdivide that even further! Which I guess is my way of saying that it's not so much TPGS I have a problem with. It's the fact that I just don't see enough of a correspondence between what US and UK dealers and collectors want from a coin or how they rate them. So if even if a TPGS were spot on with their assessment of a coin by US standards, I don't know how helpful that is to a UK buyer. By that logic, despite CGS having the most experience with British coinage, their use of a completely different 100 point grading scale makes them as unhelpful as anyone else to me. Sorry. [/rant] Edit: If I wanted to slab a coin to sell in the US it would be PCGS, on the basis that my impression is that they are better regarded. To my surprise ANACS does not appear to be top dog, despite their history. If that helps!

Indeed. I've had four emails in the last day. Three about stamps. Did I tick the 'Stamps' box when I specified my interests? No, I did not. Nor did I specify coins of Hong Kong and China. Irritating. And I tried to search the archives again today and found it as frustrating as when I emailed them about it a year ago. They seriously need to sort themselves out.

Yes, I know nobody is likely to be home from York yet. But I'll be interested in any impressions when you are. Prices? What's doing well and what's not? Well attended? New stock, or the same doing the rounds?

I think we're all, even those who are prepared to spend these sorts of sums, wondering that Vicky! At the beginning of last year I thought I had an idea of what I would be prepared/need to spend to buy a decent coin. Now, I'm not so sure. OK, I don't buy many coins a year as it is. But for the most part that has been down to availability. It would be more than frustrating to finally see coins I want, but find I can no longer afford them! I can't be alone in wondering how to continue my collection if prices continue to rise. Yes, I could diversify. But I like collecting what I do and have no wish to change ...