TomGoodheart

What everyone else said! Like possibly most here, I have odds and ends. Various Euro coins and British collected from change. A few left over half-crowns and shillings etc from my Dad's accumulations of change. A handful of shilling-sized coins from around the globe. Counterfeit £1 coins (but only one for each date - if I find a duplicate I decide which is the worst counterfeit and keep that!) And a few £1 coins from the Channel Islands etc. Then there's the collection of shillings from Charles I's reign. These aren't things you can pick up from car boot sales and junk bins, so I have to look online and buy from auction. I've also bought from dealers' catalogues, but only ones with good illustrations, because the differences between a coin I have and one I don't are small and not everyone will recognise them. I share what I know with others that are interested. And I've bought coins from contacts too, since that's sometimes the only way to track down the scarcer examples.

Not recently afaik. There were the restrikes of Cromwell (Simon puncheons) and Bolton/Soho coins from 'missing' dies. And of course there are the modern £1 and 50p dies made by .. ahem, hobbyists. Did you have something specific in mind?

Ah, well, the good thing about picking coins out of change is that you can always just spend them if you have to. Which reminds me I still owe my wife some money for the last purchase. Perhaps I should actually count up all those different date/design £2 coins the Mint keep churning out and see if they add up to enough to pay my bill!

Hi Garry and welcome. Sounds like you have caught 'the bug'! As others say, keep cheap until you've built up some knowledge! My main interest is hammered coins (ie old enough to have been made individually by taking a disk of metal (silver) popping it between two dies and impressing the design by bashing the coin 'sandwich' with a big hammer!) however I'm glad Wifey doesn't know how many ££s of nice coins I've picked up from my change and keep in a drawer! And as for the fake £1 coins ..! We're all enthusiasts here, albeit with differing interests and budgets. Sounds like you'll fit right in!

So I sold an item on ebay and looking on teh interwebs found a local courier company that I could book DHL through to collect it. I paid via PayPal, thinking, that's safe. Then I phoned the company to see if I could get a better idea of what time of day DHL might arrive. Service disconnected. I contacted DHL, no collection booked. I checked Companies House. The company and several others associated with the director have been dissolved. So I raised a dispute with PayPal to get my moneyback for 'non-delivery' of what I paid for. Since the company doesn't exist any more I thought I'd ask to escalate it earlier than normal. "Oh, no" says PayPal Blokey "Don't do that because if you escalate it and PayPal investigates they will decide for the seller because we don't cover that under PayPal Purchase Protection" So now I wait to see if I get anything back. If the 'seller' asks for his money which is frozen then they can see if he has had similar complaints but not before! Stuff that. Be warned my friends, of the tricksyness that is PayPal.

Ah, well, touchpieces were different. They were officially pierced (as far as I know through the Goldsmiths Company) by punching out a small circle of metal. This metal (mostly gold from Angels) was the fee or commission to the jeweller for the work of piercing the piece. Hence the holes are always very round and almost always in the same place on the coin. Things like Newark siege coins have much coarser and less consistent holes since they were pierced as souvenirs, presumably by their owner and strictly speaking aren't touchpieces. More a type of medalet I guess.

What Rob said! I guess that piercing allowed the authorities a bit of flexibility since even more new coin would have been needed if every old one was melted down. Why throw away decent coin that was fit to circulate a bit longer if you don't have to? It's rarely 100% certain that pierced coins are recoinage pieces however those that are tend to be round with a very central and normally neat piercing. And while usually a hole takes a fair chunk off the collectability/price of a coin, recoinage pieces are quite scarce and historically interesting so retain some appeal. A pierced half crown from Lloyd's site: When you consider the recoinages of 1696 and then 1816, the mangling by making into 'love tokens', use for jewellery etc, then it's quite amazing that any coins more than 250 years old are still about that weren't hoarded or lost!

Hi unc. Interesting piece as I've not seen an officially pierced 12/- before. But you need to remember that these machine made coins were generally struck to a good standard, certainly compared to the hammered issues. As always, you need to know what a near perfect example looks like before you can generally grade a coin! As for other Chas I coins, as Rob says, it's possible to get nice portraits with the hammered coins too, particularly the 'Briot' style busts with the triangle or triangle-in-circle marks. Here's one from the AMR site that was going for £120 (gone now I believe) that shows you can pick up decent pieces for not such huge amounts. Though had it been rounder and fuller in the flan it would have been more expensive I think!

As we're on the subject of shillings and fakes (not that I'm thread jacking at all!) someone might be interested in this trio of modern replica Charles I shillings for sale on eBay. I've reported them as fake too, but don't expect anything to happen ... Three replica shillings

See, when I applied for Uni - albeit 10 years ago (really?! I'm getting old ) I was advised that there was no point applying for Oxbridge AND Durham/Nottingham/London/Bristol as these others will reject you out of hand on the premise that you'll be going to Oxbridge if your accepted... I don't know if there is any truth to this, however there were several people in my year who DID apply for combinations of these and got at least one unexpected rejection... Personally, I went to Exeter (University of... - not ...College Oxford!) and loved every minute! LOL I graduated in 1979! It's possible there was a tendency for other universities to be less than keen on Oxbridge applicants, but it doesn't seem to be the case now. Daughter has offers from Nottingham, Sheffield and Southampton, and Bristol have written to say they will decide when all applications are in in January so haven't actually rejected her! So far Oxford is .. mixed! The first interview was fine (though she forgot she'd been to Brussels and claimed she had never gone anywhere where she could spend time speaking French!) but the second she was in tears apparently over the English to Spanish translation. On the other hand she's hooked up with a handful of other applicants who like similar music and seems to be having fun socialising. She has to stay until tomorrow morning (in case anyone else wants to interview her) and so we'll be picking her up sometime in the afternoon when no doubt we'll hear all about it in detail!

What do you think about Durham? The Sunday Times league table ranks it at #3 and catching up quick to Oxbridge! Durham's a very good university. We briefly considered it but it's a long way to travel to an open day for a look around and in the end daughter chose ones closer to home. I'd imagine that many Durham students also applied to Oxbridge, which is a small indicator of the ability of students applying. Oddly, it's not in the '1994 Group' which is a collection of research-intensive universities, but that may just be a commercial decision, since Durham too does a lot of research! It may seem a bit odd to worry about research when you're looking to study languages, but many places the lecturers are just teachers. At the unis daughter has applied to, all of the people teaching her have spent time in and have written books about the country whose language they teach.

Mmmm .. the BBC said only 100 copies are thought to exist and none as in good condition as this one (which possibly was owned by Nicholas Cage). I think it's the same for coins really. The rarest and best conditions will command a premium. Plus, like some coins (gothic / wreath crowns, Newark siege coins, that St Gaudens double eagle) there's an appeal to sentiment that boosts value above actual scarcity. Superman is an iconic figure for Americans (and comic collectors world wide) so I can see something like this going for much more than another comic of which 100 copies exist. First edition 1941 Captain America? $125,000. A lot, but nowhere near £1.4M. Though with the publicity for this edition of Action Comics #1 .. maybe rather more now! Oh, and if anyone wants some rare copies of Eerie and Vampirella, I'm charging much less than $1M. Just pm me!

Probably the Oxbridge thing is dependant on career choice. Daughter may well end up working for Lonely Planet or some trekking company in Central America, in which case I'm not sure it will make much odds so long as she's a good grasp of the language! But as I said, I liked the Oxford atmosphere and for me the experience is at last as important as the qualification she comes out with. Well, people think competition is fierce but I'm not sure it's actually fiercer than other decent unis. I suspect quite a few people are put off applying at all because of what they think it will be like. The course daughter has applied for there seem to be about four interviwees to each offered place. For economics, it's 13:1, so I think it very much depends on what course. Most unis will tell you how many applicants are going for how many places for a particular course and it's worth looking at (and possibly choosing a slightly different combination of subjects in some cases!) What I would recommend Gary is if your son's keen on university, apply early. The closing date for Oxbridge, and medical/ vetinary schools is October, while other courses January. On the basis that daughter has received three offers already (and some of her friends are still waiting to submit applications), what's to be lost? Those offers she's received presumably reduce those available later on. Plus she can plan a bit earlier what she wants to do. The only problem might be getting tutors to write references early - some of daughter's friends are still waiting though they got in early so you might need to push a bit! Yes, Oxford is just a bus ride from La Nouvelle Ville de Middletone Keynes! I like the idea she could pop home at weekends if she wanted .. Nottingham, Bristol, Southampton or Sheffield are just a bit further afield. But not as far as Harvard, I guess ..

Well, she needs to get an offer and meet the A Level requirements, but yeah, I really liked the atmosphere when I visited. She's her sights on Wadham, but as you know, other colleges might interview her as well so who knows .. I went to London and my college was in Regent's Park. Sadly it was sold by the University to raise funds in the 1980s and is now privately owned. I still have fond memories of picnics by the lake, wandering down Baker Street to Selfridges and playing tennis working very hard in the library for my Third.

More of a fun read than a 'must have' is James May's The Splendid Shilling A nice history of the coin which your library might have, or I think copies can be picked up on Amazon or ebay for around £6. Oh, and welcome!

Applicants can pick five universities to apply to. I think each of her choices has a good reputation and offers positives. Oxford has the advantage of being known worldwide, handy as she's doing languages and wants to travel. Plus accomodation is cheap(er)! Personally, I liked Nottingham as they seem to have thought more about how to arrange the year abroad and charge less for it. But in the end it has to be somewhere she feels comfortable, I guess and the few days spent at interview will give her a chance to find out a bit more from current students.

Yes. I'm mostly proud of the fact that she has confidence in her abilities. She has offers from other universities so I'm sure will end up somewhere decent, but one from Oxford would be nice! How did you guess?

.. my daughter has an interview for Oxford Uni. Yeah, it's not such a big deal because they tend to interview almost everyone that remembers to fill in the form correctly and pick a course that they actually offer. And competition is still fierce and even if she were lucky enough to get an offer she'd still need to get the required exam grades, but .. hey, it's three nights accomodation and board for free! We're (Wifey and I) very proud (and kinda scared too!) That's all. Carry on.

My understanding is that coins over 100 years old may be imported free of customs duty and excise duty. If they are not considered to be part of a collection or "collectors' pieces" they may be liable ot vat, but at a reduced rate of 5%. HMG antiques import rules "collectors' pieces of numismatic interest" Proof or a certificate as to the age of the item may be needed. And of course, if charges are levied it depends on you to challenge it.

Hi John! Hope everyone is now well. No broadband for 3 weeks, eh? Tsk, you young uns have it easy. I had no broadband for the first 45 years of my life!

Cool. It'd be interesting to see what you come up with!

Not a laugh, just a warning. A little rogue's gallery of modern copies of a Henry VIII groat currently circulating that was sent to me by a contact. Quality: Quite convincing Value: nothing.

Interesting. I was walking near the local shops the other day and I noticed the Estate Agents had a sign saying 'No savings? No deposit? No problem! 100% mortgages available' and I thought 'Whaaa?' Actually what I thought had more fs and ks in it but ... how on earth, having just had the entire world economy pulled down by sub-prime mortgage probalems and dodgy investments, can they offer such a thing? How do they dare, even? Because the problem as I see it is living within our means. Now I don't inherently have a problem with money. It's very handy. More so to me than a garage full of baked beans anyway! And I can talk from the luxurious position of a late baby boomer. I inherited my parent's house which I sold and so now have savings. But before that I invested wisely, always payed off my credit card bills and had the smallest mortgage I needed. And I didn't rush out and buy loads of stuff I didn't need. Consequently, even if it weren't for the savings, I have no debts (OK, there's the deferred payment for some kitchen units but I have the money ready to pay that when the interest free 9 months is up) Wifey and I have mediocre paying jobs (teaching assistant and care worker) but we live within our means. If we can't afford it, we go without. But there seems to be a generation who never 'got' this. Who just buy what they want and worry about paying later. And now the crunch has come and times are tough, they have no reserves to fall back on, only debt. Seems to me people need to learn not to spend what they don't have. And if they don't have much, to save what they do by buying wisely. But many seem unable (or unwilling) to do so. They feel they have to have holidays and large TVs and the latest phone, even if it puts them further in debt. I think declan and scott are right. We (and those around us) need to act differently. Spend differently. Start looking at 'necessities' and what makes someone rich differently. Because the banks and so on aren't going to do it for us.

To be honest, no. I am sure I've seen a picture a bit similar to the one in your window but can't seem to track it down. It's not in the book I thought it was! I assumed that they perhaps used a screw clamp to hold the planchets neatly. I don't know if Dave Greenhalgh (Dave the Moneyer) might have some more information? He makes coins and might know more. Maybe give him a call? Ah, yes. The Civil War pieces were of very varying quality from the excellent (machine made) York coins to the 'blacksmith' pieces. As for siege pieces, as Peter says, they were often cut from silver plates using a pair of shears and simply stamped. The Newark(e) coins are a good example, some even still bearing traces of the decoration or gilding of the item they were cut from. Some Scarborough pieces were just cut any old how and then had the value stamped on them depending on what they weighed. Generally the larger the coin the more trouble seems to have been taken. But I think some of the late Tower issues (between about 1640-45, particularly the (P) and R privy marks when quality seemed to go out the window) compete quite well with the provincial mints for the 'poor quality' title. This for example: Just about central strike but with a very crude portrait and mishapen (though decent weight) flan. Difficult to imagine the moneyer was bothered about anything other than finishing the job and getting off to the ale house!

I've seen a similar picture. The blanks from which the coins are struck are stacked together into a sort of 'sausage', clamped at the ends. Then the sausage is hammered into a round cylinder/rod, thus making the blanks (planchets) mostly circular. You can see the result sometimes in that the edges of unclipped coins are a bit thicker and edge on you can see they have been hammered. Like this one: If you think about it, it's quite clever. The blamks were cut from silver plate, often quite crudely. Hammering the edges of the planchets individually would have been fiddly, more time consuming and likely bent the planchet. Doing several together would have been more efficient. One thing I'm not sure about is whether the technique was used for all coin denominations. I can imagine that it was most convenient for larger coins such as crowns/Thalers. There might have been a size below which it was too fiddly. You also find that the roundness of coins varies considerably, proably depending on how much the coyners could be bothered to do a good job. Late coins of Charles I (1640s) for example are often mis-shapen and poorly executed.