TomGoodheart

Well, when I searched for "what is pvc green on coins?" several entries claimed that eventually pvc residue will damage a coin. Not knowing much about the chemistry of the whole process of 'pvc sweating' I don't know if that's true, but even so, it doesn't seem like a particularly good thing to find on a coin! And given the other thread about CGS and their standards, I too share Stuart's .. surprise. Was it a yellow label?

You do sometimes get green on hammered silver. I presume it's because the silver is mixed with copper to the correct fineness and sometimes you get a bit that's not so well mixed in and that's where the copper salts develop...

You can say that again Gary!

Indeed. I personally have nothing against slabs, I can see the value of protecting a coin and reassurance that it is what the label says it is, ... just they aren't for me. But then I collect hammered coins. They aren't going to suffer if I pick them up to look at them like copper or proofs and they won't deteriorate like tin. OK, it's not ideal to drop them and you can't give a 'raw' coin to someone to admire without a little trepidation. But nobody has (yet) bitten one to test if it's silver! Plus I like to weigh my coins, re-examine them for little details I later notice on others, creep downstairs at night and admire them all sleeping on their little felt beds in the cabinet while mumering 'My precioussssss' .. Oops. Did I say that out loud? LOL I don't honestly pay much attention to the grade someone gives a coin and so, while I get the point about the accuracy of grading (one I'm currently following was 'nearly very fine' when it sold through one auction house three years ago, now it's 'good very fine' with a different auctioneer), I always look at the coin, compare it to those I have seen in the past and make my own decision as to whether it's good enough, how much I'm prepared to pay and how much I want it. Obviously, I'm of the opinion that this is the ideal way to do things. If people come to rely on TPGCs and don't learn to assess coins themselves I think something is lost from the hobby. You could say it becomes more of an investment than a journey of discovery if you like. Which is why I'm concerned with the idea that simply slabbing a coin makes it worth more. That suggests to me that, as I suspect happens a lot in the US, people are starting to buy the slabs, not the coins. The fact that someone is prepared to pay a ridiculous price for an undated 20p, while not surprising (more has passed hands on ebay for a supposedly lesser example) is not, I feel, something to celebrate. Yes, I accept it's not the TPG's fault if people are prepared to offer unseen on slabbed coins (jokily or not). But I worry that in a few years we will get disappointed collectors who insist 'but it's CGS encapsulated' as if that somehow makes their 1967 penny different. It will be interesting to see how it all goes. And whether we will still be discussing the merits or otherwise of slabs in 10 years time! In the meantime Bill ... how about showing us some photos of your coins, eh?! After all, much as we all like 'chatting' we're only really here for our daily fix of porn coin pics!!

My guess is that the mark is a coronet, 1567-70, but I can only make out the 156 .... Coinery's your man. Maybe he can tell from the shape of the lettering or something!

Well ... maybe. But personally I'd have thought (that in the UK/Europe at least) a coin will find it's value dependant on what it is and the condition. I'd be surprised if many (any?) members here would pay any more just because a coin is slabbed. Things are of course probably different in the US, given the market is quite different there too.

As I've said before, I kinda feel that the problem with hammered is that a strict grade related to how much wear a coin has suffered over the years isn't always a very good indicator of whether the coin has 'eye appeal' (ie, whether someone would consider it an asset to their collection) or not. That's not to say there couldn't be benefits to slabbing (in addition to protecting the coin from damage) if a variety was correctly identified, but the main one of the buyer being confident about the reliability of the grading of the coin doesn't attract me much because I don't buy coins dependent on their grade. Plus there's that little niggle that, with a slab, you have the problem of if a coin came with old collectors' tickets, what do you do with them? AFAIK (from the one, previously PCGS slabbed, coin I own) US TPGS bin them. I've not bought a CGS slabbed coin, let alone one with tickets and provenance, so don't know how they would deal with it. Unslabbed coins, the tickets are just included in the envelope or 2"x2" and can then sit under the coin in your cabinet. I guess it would be possible to design a slab that could also hold coin tickets for us er .., traditionalists. If there was a market for such things. But as for coin envelopes (Norweb anyone?) ... Oh, and welcome Bill! Thanks for joining us - most enlightening!

Thanks for your help. It was picked up as I say by a sailor on his travels in the early 1900s so I think mine might be an older replica than 1930s but obviously probably not 1600s! But I am guessing they did not have brass then! Mine looks like a brass type material. When did they invent brass?? It is possible this was a gift or purchase by the sailor at the time. Perhaps mine is larger as it came from a temple or such like? It is possible it got into the collection later than 1900s though... Interesting though Thanks Russ Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc and has been around thousands of years, but the proportions of the metals can be varied, so maybe yours is just a different mix. As to the value ... difficult to say. In the same auction I linked to above there was another example that went for several hundred $$, so I guess it's down to what someone would pay on the day. Might be worth contacting an auction house with Chinese connections (most of the larger ones do) if you're interested in selling. As you say .. interesting item!

Possibly one of these, made in the 1930s. However the size quoted (103mm) is smaller than yours, so difficult to be certain I'm afraid. Plus the details are slightly different, so I'm wondering if yours is a more modern replica?

Aw, c'mon. It's not like sitting on the phone so you can tell people how to stick prefectly good coins into a little plastic coffin is going to be anyone's dream job is it? Poor chap probably didn't have enough A Levels to get a proper 'Do you want fries with that?' job ...

I believe this is a charm, souvenir or lucky 'feng shui' coin. The inscription (legend) on this charm is zheng de tong bao (正德通宝). Zheng De was the title of the Ming emperor Wu Zong ,although it is not believed any actual coins were made using the title. The words are considered auspicious and so popular for charms. When it was made ... no idea, though my guess would be it's modern. More modern than the 1600s (Ming dynasty) anyway! Hope that helps.

Reading this it's not too clear what is accepted as natural and what isn't. Gosh. Some shit ugly coins there! Yes, and reading it they blame the toning on Coins sitting in Sacks and Sulphur being the culprit. Yet the author of the page has coins for sale which states Darth Verde" 1885 $1 NGC MS65 $2,450 "Wild Endroller Twin Pair from the Same Roll" 1884-O $1 NGC MS64* STARS $3,000 (pair) So if these toned Coins came from a ROLL and were'nt sitting in a Sack individually how is it the possible for them to tone in a roll? During that time, the coins closest to the canvas of the bag or near the top of the bag were constantly bombarded by a minute concentration of sulfur..... Ironically 'Monster' is a very apt description for the things to my mind. And what I got from the article is that they are all artificially toned, since he makes a clear distinction between this toning and oxidation, it's just the old ones from bags were toned accidentally and AT coins are done deliberately over a shorter period of time. I just think the whole thing is a result of the fact that in a market where you have a limited number of different coins, out of which a huge number are in top grade condition, you need to invent another means of giving some coins added desirability or else people will get bored and stop buying. Quite what makes some of the examples shown desirable, I'm not sure. But then I don't get why kids want to keep the holographic stickers on their baseball caps when they wear them either...

Reading this it's not too clear what is accepted as natural and what isn't. Gosh. Some shit ugly coins there!

My feeling is there's a bit less wear on the ebay coin, though that's trusting the photos. Compare the pearls on the bodice with Jaggy's for example. It's a shame about the cleaning, but I suspect in time with toning that will be less apparent. Of course, having a preference for toned over bright I suspect in the hand Jaggy's has more eye appeal. But strictly grade wise, nEF (ebay) gVF (Jaggy) for me. Both nice coins.

Try this VS When you are in your photobucket pics, if you put your cursor over the pic you want a little cog should appear in the top right corner (1) Click on the cog and a drop down menu appears (2) You want "Share" click in the "IMG codes" area and your computer should pick those up (3) then go to your post here and right click your mouse and click 'paste' and the code should be dropped into the post and appear as a photo when we read it.

It's interesting because when I started on ebay, you could see bidders and buyers IDs. This proved very helpful indeed, firstly because you could contact other ebay members with similar collecting interests (I have two contacts I made this way and from whom I have learned and benefitted immensely). Secondly because a few minutes checks and you could see where a seller's prices were repeatedly pushed up by the same underbidders all the time. Ebay stopped all this by the introduction of anonymity for bidders. They explained that this was to stamp out this exact second chance scam, but in doing so changed how ebay worked as a community and made it harder to spot shill bidding. Hence I'd be curious if in the end it hasn't helped. Clearly it could be that the seller's account (or yours) have somehow been compromised, allowing the scammers to get the necessary info. But if it was because the information came from ebay (or paypal) it's even more worrying. Not that you'll get any admission that they are at fault of course ... I suggest you change your ebay and paypal details if you haven't already.

Yes, I'm assuming someone with a military connection brought it back from India. We Brits were the people that put the Princes in power, so presumably had a fair amount of contact. Although it's not terribly clear, the coin even says XXV (25) CAH (in blundered script) on it so the English could see what it is.

As far as I can tell, your 'lion' is a sardula; a mythical lion like beast. The coin is a 25 Cash of the Indian Princely state of Mysore, made out of copper and dating from between 1799 and 1810. http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php?topic=9360.0 It was issued under one of the Wodeyar Rajas, but which one I'm not entirely sure. Hopefully that's enough info for you to search further if you like.

Same here really. Of course, my collecting aims have changed with time. When I first started out I was keen to pick up all the rarities both to fill gaps and those that nobody else seemed to know about. But with time I've come to realise that that mysterious 'eye appeal' that's often mentioned here is key for me. I just don't any longer get the pleasure from this sort of thing: Rare? Yes, I only know of two other examples. But satisfying to have such a coin in my collection? Not so much! So I too am now on a journey to track down the better examples of what, to most people, are just 'ordinary' coins, since poor examples can be found without any difficulty at all. Now in some cases the coin I want belongs to someone else. I guess I'll just have to wait until I find something they want more or they decide to sell! In others I'm still looking for an example that 'does it' for me. Is that a satisfying way to collect? Not entirely! But for me I can live with it far better than in the early days when I was all in a rush to fill any gap at any cost. Discernment and patience are still things I'm learning. But the fact that I am learning them makes my collecting focus different these days and I just have to accept that gaps (temporary or permanent) in the collection is one price I have to pay for feeling happier when I look at my treasures!

I make it H M The cross bar of the H has been artistically made up of two strokes. The reverse says the same, but the right hand part of the lettering was either not completed or has worn.

Ah, one of the Humbrol restrikes then?

I'm on a tight budget so nine times out of ten, I try to sell on straight away as I'll need the cash for further purchases.

Sorry to threadjack, but ... is this just an regular coin that someone has messed about with .. or .? Just curious.

I'm fairly sure I'd heard that if you made an offer on ebay and it was turned down you couldn't then go back and make another (higher) one? So maybe people didn't want to put themselves out of the running by offering too little? I know the few times I've listed with an offer option I've not received any ... which is disappointing really! Having said that, one of the coins I bought recently I got on an offer. However the seller had also listed the coin on his website, so as soon as I saw he'd lowered the eBay listing price I contacted him through there. It was only £20 difference, which would have been absorbed by ebay fees, but I felt I was getting a better deal and we were both happy. I still check ebay regularly as good deals can be had, even now. But to be honest, I'd much rather buy at a set price from a dealer I know and trust these days ... I heard ebay are trying to head towards more fixed price BIN listings (perhaps they feel the competition from sites like Amazon) but how long it will take for people to accept the idea over 'auction' style, I'm not sure. A couple of people I know have complained they've had no success recently selling on ebay. Maybe a sign of the times - everyone wants an (unrealistic) bargain! Or maybe what we're trying to sell is too specialised? *shrug*

Yeah. Never mind buying coins to slab and sell in the US ... we should be building a time machine, going back and buying up everything at 1960's prices!