declanwmagee

Peck on eBay

yours is better than theirs though, Mike!

Good choice, hello17. Not too many dates, some common, some trickier and lots of low grade examples around. High grades are not easy, so you won't complete it too quick.

Nor me - we did have two half sovereigns but sold them 18 months ago to put a floor in our bus. We didn't think it could go over $850/oz....

Quite agree Dave. I've just managed to fill my last George V gap which has been yawning at me for years: 1917 sixpence. It only cost me a tenner, and I'd have paid double that just because it's the first one I've come across since I got serious. It's only a VF, but I don't care, even though I usually consider myself to be a grade fascist.

ah but aren't they lovely holes...feel the quality

well that's a pretty good start - you can go a long way with them 3. Your life will never be the same again. Every bill you get from some nonsense like the gas board, you'll be thinking "ooh the coins I could buy with that".

Good luck Boomstick! It never stops you know, once you get the bug

Blimey. Don't we all live in different worlds!

ah yes, Richparfishing, used to be called. He bought it for £50 odd not long ago... http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rt=nc&nma=true&item=200534014259 either he can't take photos for toffee or he's done something to it. Be interesting to see what it goes for. Watch list!

did you get it Scott? bloody well spotted...

I have taken thousands of coin photographs with a Cannon 400D and Sigma DG Macro lens in conjunction with a stand/tripod, mostly in natural sunlight but I still have problems in a few areas; 1) Worn copper/bronze where the combination of tone/contour 'confuses' the camera and the results can frequently be disappointing. George V heads are a nightmare! 2) Any coin with mottled toning. 3) Highly polished proof coins where the reflection dazzles the camera. I have had some moderate success by using sunlight but shielding the coin with my hand. I doubt the experts do it this way though! This isn't cheap equipment, but I made the mistake of telling my son (who considers himself an expert) what I wanted and sending him out to get it without enquiring as to the likely cost. I dare say you could get equally good results with a cheaper camera, but I'm hoping this will last me out. Does take very good images of overdates though. thanks all - choosing the camera I anticipated to be the easy bit - so I have taken John & Huss's recommendation and ordered one. The fun starts when it gets here. As most of you know, we live in a bus, and this means that I can't have a permanent setup with tripods and the like. It also means direct sunlight is a bit of a scarce resource. I may even have to invest in an anglepoise lamp. Probably a useful thing to have anyway! At the moment, even in the daytime, I tend to use an LED headtorch when examining coins, but it's a very white light to be taking photographs with. I shall experiment, and I shall enjoy experimenting, and I shall let you know how it goes!

fantastic, John! That's just the calibre of information I was after - you are a star. My ebay listings are now taken on a cheap as chips Canon Powershot A480 Declan. I bought it after a plug from Hus and find it okay. Lighting and focal distance don't seem to be a problem at all. It does have a tendancy to only partially focus on the coin for some strange reason, which sometimes leaves (usually the bottom) a small portion slightly fuzzy. I bought it from Argos online and it was only about £55 I think.

Chaps The time has come when I must seriously think about equipping myself to take proper photos of coins. I see too many coins that aren't as good as mine, going for more than I could get - and it's down to the scans. Even a better coin looks lifeless, flat, on a scanner - particularly high grade silver. I know diddley-squat about photography, so don't start talking f-stops please, but I'd be very interested to know what models of digital camera you've had success with. Then, once I've bought one, I'll be back to ask about lighting, angles and all that. thanks in advance Declan

I was once! My Dad used to say if you're not a communist by the time you're 18, you've got no heart; if you're still a communist by the time you're 30, you've got no head. Now I'm just a good old fashioned conspiracy loon.

I'm not sure it was that the game was played badly by whoever was in Nos 10/11 at the time, more that the game is rigged and you can't win it, whether you're a Nation, a company, or an individual. You only win it if you're a lender. If 99.9% of all money is introduced by the creation of new debt, then where is the interest supposed to come from? You can't just go out and earn it - it's not there! Simple fix: you can't lend what you don't have. Banks threatening armageddon if they don't get bailed out doesn't wash with me. The average per capita income, globally, is £200. "Ooh I couldn't live on that". Course you could, and you would, it wouldn't mean you'd be poorer, just that your pounds would be bigger. Inflation isn't things getting more expensive, it's the currency getting smaller. Exactly who gains from the progressive shrinking of the currency anyway? These bubbles; housing, dot com, etc, are man-made phenomena, they aren't the weather, they are a strategy. Suck money up the pyramid by convincing ordinary people that there's money to be made in something, then when you've pushed your luck as much as you dare, dump it all and clear the table. Who is to say that precious metals won't be next? Hoard it, inflate the price, then cash in. So of course it's the little people that lose out - that's the whole idea! He who pays the piper calls the tune, and Osborne is just doing what he's told. If you're really running the show, you ain't on the telly. Sorry about the rant - I'm afraid once you see the game, you see it everywhere.

Blimey. Say what you like about the seller formerly known as "gg..something or other", but he does get 'em in. £411 with 4 days to go... Superb isn't it. I forecast near £2k. Tell you what, if I had the cash, I'd be in there saying, "come to Daddy" £1,561.11 with 3 days to go... Presumably the higher up the coinie pyramid you go, the less people are there, and the more chance there is that you lot will know who's likely to be bidding?

Spam egg and chips for the Pwincess and I tonight! We live like kings...

With the mess we've made of the economy, it's hard to see any bullion price returning to those levels in our lifetime. On the subject of the economic mess, I was reading that a million $ packed really tightly into a brick of $100 notes would rise approximately four and a half inches off the table in front of you. Want to guess how high the repayment we and our children have to make would rise off the table in front of you ? I'll tell you. 71 miles. Bearing in mind that that money doesn't exist, anywhere, and never has, we and our children are going to have a bit of a job on our hands. I know, let's print some more, worked for Weimar...invest in potatoes I say.

Blimey. Say what you like about the seller formerly known as "gg..something or other", but he does get 'em in.

Yes you need to keep an eye out for fakes and over-grading but showing a high grade coin then sending a dud is just plain fraud in my opinion. I also hate stock photos, it's just lazyness. I expect to receive what is in the picture because that is what I have used to appraise the condition and used as the basis to make the decision on what I'm willing to pay. Gary D dead right. Even for E-II cupronickel.

As far as I'm aware Centsles is a dealer in the States that slabs his own. The grading tends to be overly optimistic but I'm not aware of any of his coin being of questionable origins. Gary D he slabs his own??? what a brilliant idea. Lets all do that this time next year we'll be miwwionaires

My sister has always been an Appleophile. Some years ago, I earned my living as a PC technician. She bought a new Mac, and proudly showed it to me, and I said (not knowing the blasphemy I was just about to commit..) "ooh great, lets get the back off then and see what it's got in it". Standard practice when I got a new PC home back then. she had to go and have a lie down.

My sister has always been an Appleophile. Some years ago, I earned my living as a PC technician. She bought a new Mac, and proudly showed it to me, and I said (not knowing the blasphemy I was just about to commit..) "ooh great, lets get the back off then and see what it's got in it". Standard practice when I got a new PC home back then. she had to go and have a lie down.

I rate the desirability (and value) of 1967 coins ... 1. Florin (normal mintage, superseded by the 10 pence in 1968, circulated until 1992) 2. Halfcrown (minted 1967, 68, demonetised in 69 but always a popular denom) 3. Halfpenny 1968 (wide rim - not really scarce but probably only a quarter of 1967 mintage? Only minted 1968, demonetised 69) 4. Sixpence (minted until ?1970, planned to be phased out,reprieved and circulated until 1980) 5. Threepence (minted for 3 or 4 years - very very common but somehow popular; demonetised 1971) 6. Halfpenny 1967 (minted only one year, demonetised 69) 7. Penny (the turkey of the group - vies with 1971 1p as the commonest UK coin ever; not very popular, exists BU in huge quantities. Avoid!!) that ties in nicely. Out of 74 sales of 1967 coins in the last 2 years, these are the UNC prices I've been able to achieve: 1. Wide rim ha'penny: £2.52 2. Florin: £2.50 3. Halfcrown: £2.04 4. Sixpence: £1.21 5. Normal ha'penny: £1.19 6. Penny: £1.19 7. Threepence: 67p interesting that I've found it easier to sell pennies than threepences...and the Wide rims have all been recent, perhaps a trickledown effect of the new interest in varieties. Mr Groom can take some credit for that, I expect!