declanwmagee

If you have a scanner, Mike, that does a quicka nd dirty job well enough. Proper coinies scoff at scanning coins, but it would give us a good idea how good your 1844 is.

there you go! It's got to be a good idea to keep an eye on the dealers who aren't eBay based. Unless you have your finger on the furious pulse of eBay, you couldn't possibly keep up with what's going for what, no matter how long you'd been in the trade. I must make an effort this year to try and break away from the bay a bit.

oh dear, that would be me then! Me too - there aren't many coins from the 1950s (1959 halfpenny, 1953 brass 3d and 6d, 1959 sixpence.. perhaps) that you can get that cheap. Pretty much all my proper purchases for the collection over the last few years have been funded by the fact that people hadn't woken up to the tricky '50s yet, so I could still snap up bargains and mark 'em up silly. I'm finding I can't do that now, so I'm having to bite the bullet on a few dates to get them their final upgrade. I just paid more than £8 for a BU 1958 sixpence off Lucido: I'd been waiting for a bargain on that one for about 4 years. Not going to happen now!

oh dear, that would be me then!

I know, you should buy the coin you like, but I have such a rigid scientific approach to the hobby, that I physically can't buy a coin that is worse than my own example. So, which is the better coin? His is certainly circulated - a bit. A little under EF, perhaps. Mine, I don't think has been, but I gave it a kind of EF+ because of the horrendous weak strike. Mine has good lustre. I don't think his does. I ummed and ahh'd about it, but decided not to. I had £12-£14 ready to spend on it, just couldn't convince myself his was better. Decided to hang on, keep the high grade and upgrade on the basis od strike strength later. what are your thoughts, chaps?

must have been happy then!

First years of the reign probably benefited from hoarding of the new coinage, so they didn't get spent as quick, and maybe new dies? Second year of the coinage tend to be more difficult: 1888, 1903, 1912, 1938, 1954

D'you reckon this is one of them? Doesn't look quite right... 1904 halfcrown on eBay currently

Ooh very nice! Here's mine - cost me £2.69 from fiona.freeserve, but at least I've got one. It was a big ugly gap for years.

Late Victoria... interpret at will - gathering data is the easy bit - it's up to you lot to turn it into knowledge!

...and 1 in 4 1902 pennies is a Low Tide. 1902 Low Tide ha'penny is a different story, but we knew that.

Edward VII: so much for 1904 halfcrowns - you'd be better off hoarding sixpences

Stand by for E7 and late Victoria. A survey by grade would be much more interesting, of course, if anyone has the inclination!

George V: I did wade through the 1912, 1918, 1919 and 1926 pennies to extract the Birmingham mints and the ME, but I didn't for any of the other 1926 denominations. Observations: Same trends as the later survey: 1925/1930 halfcrowns, Birmingham mint pennies. 1928 and 1930 threepences buck that trend truly scarcer: Halfpennies, early and late farthings, early 20s small silver, early 30s small silver. Look at the over abundance of big pre-1920 silver!

Right, here's a quick survey of George VI and Elizabeth II, on eBay. eBay being what it is, and the limitations of the eBay search criteria, mean that the following cannot be taken into account: - varieties - multiples of a coin in groups or sets - listings in the wrong category - English/Scottish shillings - brass/silver 3d I have excluded keyrings, cufflinks, all that nonsense, and I have excluded dear Mr Argurios who sells exclusively polished momentos of every date/denomination. Observations: "Key dates" are heavily over represented. Compare 1952 sixpences with 1950/51. The same can be said for the 46/49 threepences, 1950/51 pennies, 1959 halfcrowns and so on. The real scarcities out there are in the tricky '50s 3d and 2/-, 1938 silver, later G6 halfpennies. Perhaps the value of an exercise like this is identifying the coins to stock up on now, while you still can. Have a look at early 60s florins! I'll do G5 next, becuase this is right up my street!

This is exactly the sort of project that would appeal to the autistic in me! But, as Rob quite rightly pointed out, it's the repeating that's the problem. The coins in my eBay shop stay there pretty much till they're sold, so you'd get 12 results for one coin by repeating monthly. Even if you did it once a year, you'd still find a lot of my coins still going round, but being sold by other people! Maybe survey the coinies, not the coins? Ask everyone on this forum, as a sample, have you got, say, an 1875H, and in what grade? Truly scarce coins will be tucked away safely in people's collections, not on eBay. By definition, eBay is a place full of coins that people don't want!

ooh it's so difficult! Compare and contrast these two. Same coin, photo with a 6400K daylight bulb to try and replicate the real thing, and then there's the scan. I know which one I'd buy if I was shopping. My current thing is trying to strike the balance between overexposing and getting rid of dark patches. Neither capture that lovely crispness you can see with the eye. Some people's photos can get it though - check out some of juliesutton's.

Yes - the camera is great: same one as yours but the camera is the easy bit: now I am playing with lighting, white balance, exposure, ISO and all that. Just changing one variable at a time for now to see what each one does. Already I can tell which were my early shots though. Bit short of genuine daylight where we are - in a bus under a railway viaduct in a deep valley. So I've bought a selection of different bulbs to try...that edge shot was with an angle poise over my shoulder and a headtorch on!

here's mine... definitely not a star of David...

I've bought quite a lot of stuff off him. I like him. I always knock half a grade or so off his, but to be honest, that's a lot less than I knock off some bigger players than him. His photos are different to most peoples - he tends to stand his coins up and photograph them vertically, which is probably how he has overcome camera shake. Getting the colour right, especially under artificial lighting is an absolute minefield as I'm discovering with my new camera, so I'd be a bit forgiving on that one. As always, look at the coin and ignore the grade given.

I like Peck for all the little footnotes and factlets he puts in. I wouldn't have known about the 1918KN Bird's foot flaw without my Peck, and that knowledge has made me a good £30 in the last couple of months. A lot of those go unnoticed on fleabay. In fact, a good next book we could do with would be if someone could collate all the facts and footnotes together. CoinCraft used to put loads in their catalogue, as I recall. Combine that with information from the Royal Mint Annual reports and I'm sure there are more primary sources out there too, and I'd buy it.

Is that a fact John? I only have one 1845 Crown, but I thought it was star stops, but then I've never seen a cinquefoil. Anyone fancy doing some edge photos? I'll have a go in the daylight tomorrow...

Scanner does the trick quick and easy Gareth, and you can do a batch at a time...

I remember that message very well David. lol Ah, The Acorn Archimedes, that was a very good computer, advanced for it's time I always thought. It was way out of my (Or should I say my Parents) price range. I was very happy with my second hand Commodore 64. lol 100mb was an incredible amount for it's day. Oh how quickly times change. lol My 286 had a 32Mb C: drive. Imagine my delight when I typed D: at the DOS prompt instead of C: one day, and found I had another partition of 8 whole Mb, and it was actually a Seagate 40Mb drive!

...or the old banking families buying the US in 1913. Google "Jekyll Island" for details...