declanwmagee

Do your normal search... Then select Advanced search (just to the right of the Search button, at the top of the page). Scroll down almost to the bottom, and you'll see a section marked "Sellers". Check the box labelled "only show items from", and choose the "Specific Sellers" radio button. Choose "Exclude" from the drop-down, and paste your blacklist into the box immediately after it. It looks like it won't all fit, but it will. Commas to separate, no spaces. Then choose your Sort Order and your Results per Page, hit search, and marvel at the amount of crap it's filtered out. Before you move on, save the search by choosing "Save this search and alert me later", at the top of the page on the same line as the number of results returned. You'll get a little pop-up - name the search, take the email notification off, and away you go. Access the saved search in the future from My Ebay, down the left hand side, look for Saved Searches - it'll be in there under the name you gave it in the previous step. Hope that's helpful

Did you get that list I sent to, Mr Leviathan? I fired it off to the yahoo address in your profile...

When I'm rich and famous I think I'll spend sovereigns at their face value. I've always wanted to do that. Before the Great Cupro-nickel Shrinkage of '92 I frequently slipped pre-47 silver into circulation when I'd kicked it out of my collection - no point in trying to sell it to a dealer in them days, of course. Pre-ebay too. Never tried to spend a crown though. What about a piedfort? That'd be a laugh.

We've bought from nyame too, and we were happy. One of Richparfishing's favourite coin sources, by the way.

Worth a punt? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230472060827

No. Not allowed. Sometimes I'm a bit embarrased by markup, but then I'm not altering the coins, I'm hunting for bargains, and that is allowed.

It was about two years ago, maybe a bit more, that they brought in the "Bidder 1" business on the UK site. Before that, you always knew who you were up against, and who sniped you at the last minute, which was rather fun in a small hobby like ours - almost felt a bit community-like.

More than welcome to it! Of course, it's based on excluding sellers that are of no interest TO ME - they may have stuff you want, but if it would save you some time shopping, I'll PM it to you. I'd better not do it in public - there are 61 sellers on it, and that's 61 real people, some of whom might be here (but I doubt it!). My text-string exclude list can't possibly offend, so here it is - again, this is just the stuff I personally don't collect - change it if you need to. oh, and if you don't know where to copy and paste all this to, in eBay, let me know... "-cufflinks -keyring -pattern -copy -holed -guernsey -201* -200* -framed -decimal -£1 -199* -jersey -cover -5p -197* -wedding -mum -churchill -reproduction -50p -£2 -198* -20p -gold -2p -sovereign -1967 -token -festival"

Hm. 100 multiplied by any number of amateur chancers, still = a whole lot of crap. I'm not hopeful this will do more than slightly dent the problem, especially when you consider those people can just create a sockpuppet and put in another free 100 Judicious use of the advanced search works wonders. I maintain a blacklist of sellers excluded from search results (currently 61 names on it), and 31 text strings that stop an item appearing. Combining the two cuts the number of coins in the British section from 50-odd thousand down to 15,000 or so. Any new sockpuppet appearing just goes on the list and is never seen again!

We found a 2002 Northern Ireland Commonwealth Games £2 today in change - and I said to the Pwincess: "I think that's the best one - Scott will know!" can you confirm, Scott?

Lay 'em out Scott! Let's see 'em in all their glory! There were 700 coins on that table I used....I'm sure you can beat that if you can find a big enough floor...

Quite agree, Rob. The idea of completion terrifies me, so I'm always looking for new gaps to create. Most recent was the Bird's Foot flaw on the 1918KN. I got one, by accident, so it went into the 'A' collection as a new recognised (by me) variety, and thus created a "Shop-gap" in the 'B' collection so it needs to be upgraded. I'm trying to do the same with 1953 halfpennies (plenty of ex-set 1+A examples about, but can't find a 2+A), sharp-cornered '48 3d, round cornered '41 and 1937 Pennies. Part of all this is due to just acquiring a Freeman, but I'm sure once I'm done I'll be looking for a Davies.

I'm such an obsessive neurotic I hve to have a system for everything, and coin collecting lends itself beautifully to that. I even have a system for digging the allotment. Then you can constantly review the results and adjust the system, see if that works. I'd feel helpless doing it by instinct!

Colin, I think you may have shone a bit of a torch on where I'm struggling! I can't seem to get past the level I'm at now, and it's not for lack of spending any money...I spend tons of the stuff on coins, but only money that is earned from coins (PayPal, to be precise - I could never really justify spending sweat-earned cash on them). Conseqently, it's dead easy to identify "an amount to spend on coins" as you put it, I'd just look at my PayPal balance. The bit you've clarified for me is quality rather than quantity. If I've got say, £30 to spend, normally I'd try and fill as many "shop-gaps" as I could with that - the logic being that if a punter is looking for a specific coin, that's what he'll search for, and his search results will bring up a list of examples from different sellers. If I'm not in that list, there's no chance he'll pick me. So I've been going for breadth rather than depth. I think, in future, if I've got £30 to spend, I ought to go and find a coin that I need for as close to £30 as I can get. I can spend the change getting commoner shop-gaps filled. Means I have to shake off the bargain hunter mentality though. You know how you sometimes miss something fundamental when you've been doing it the same way for so long...

I'm constantly falling into the trap of assuming everyone collects with exactly the same methodology as me, so I wonder if you advanced types could clarify how you do it.. I see all these lovely coins being discussed here - and that 1909 dot penny is a good example, and I wonder, have you completely finished with lesser coins, have you tucked away a full set of Elizabeth II in BU, and that's that dealt with. Have you got rid of them? Did you ever inhabit that area or did you go straight into the serious stuff? If you saw a BU 1954 florin, for instance, would you still take a look, or are you past all that now? Just thinking aloud really...

I'm a lucky man, Mr Peckris, it's not every coin collector who has a Pwincess who understands why I might want to spend an evening doing that.

Declan, that's exactly the potty, bizarre sort of thing that I would do. You're not an only child as well are you? No, Derek, one of two, but as as child I could never get my little sister to take her visits to my pretend coin shop seriously. Now, thanks to eBay, I don't need my little sister anymore, I can play shopkeepers to my hearts content. To me, that's what coin collecting is all about, not investment or profit, but the buzz you get looking down that unbroken run of halfcrowns back to the first gap (which is 1905).

We're house sitting for the minor gentry this week, and they've got this long thin table in their huge kitchen. As soon as I saw it I thought "ooh look, denominations down the short dimension, dates on the long dimension, I could get my whole collection on that" Well it took a bit more than an evening, but I did manage it... Right hand side of the table is 1967 in the foreground back to 1908 at the far end, so you can see the gap for 1961 ha'penny, and 1954-1960 pennies, and the missing larger denominations for 1952. There's a row for every year on the right hand side, but I had to compress it a lot to fit the 19th century on the left hand side Left hand side of the table is early stuff in the foreground (you can see the 1797 twopenny) going back to 1907 at the far end. Farthings in the middle of the table, big silver at the edge. Hours of fun.

ever feel like you just get blown out of the water sometimes? 1912H Penny mine is the £2.88 bid!

yes indeed - in fact the only time I can buy is when I sell, so it's a bit like riding a wave. I usually manage to spend it withing an hour or two of it coming in - the quicker the better I say.

That's good idea, then can we have the next peak in 2019 around april - may time. Noooo! Not yet, I'm not quite ready! Hahaha - did you mistake that 9 in the date, for a 0 Declan? I still maintain that mere 'supply and demand' is an unsustainable mantra. It would be true of petrol, wheat, potatoes, and things like that, but too many other things - housing included - are at the whims of fashion every bit as much. If it were not so, then perpetually restricted supply of, for example, Wreath Crowns would have ensured peak catalogue values over the decades. But even those have been subject to the ins and outs of fashion. S&D on their own are misleading. no I mean I'm not quite ready for a price crash yet...!

Of course. And, to make matters worse, I've bought stuff of her in the past as well. Which rather makes me look a donkey doesn't it. Bray. Julie Sutton?

That's good idea, then can we have the next peak in 2019 around april - may time. Noooo! Not yet, I'm not quite ready!

oh dear - I spend far more on coins than on food, tobacco,and petrol put together. Three reasons 1) In only spend PayPal on coins, not real money, and the coins earned all the PayPal 2) If I buy a coin that means I get to spend the money again one day. Food, tobacco, and petrol you can only spend once. 3) Living as we do, we don't have any bills to pay, apart from the odd propane bottle, so I have managed to convince myself that there genuinely aren't that many more important things than coins - after all, they are our pension fund for when I can't dig gardens for the middle classes anymore. I suppose that puts me in the "nothing but coins" category, Mat!

WOW that's heroic. That's where I want to be in about 25 years time. Have to get a big kitchen table though.