Kipster

https://www.standard.co.uk/business/we-should-scrap-cash-it-is-holding-our-country-back-nigel-farage-b1103032.html

He's not wrong. I've been studying a man called Semion Mogilevich, boss of the Russian mob (most likely by proxy for Putin), for some time now. His links to Putin and organised crime, in particular financial crime, are quite alarming. I would not be surprised if the creation and subsequent expansion of the crypto-sphere in the first decade of this century was not orchestrated to defraud vast sums of money, and weaken the financial institutions of opposition countries. In fact, I would say it's a given. There is something deeply insidious here, and we should all have a tiny little bit of worry about it. By the way, I'm not a tinfoil hat wearer, just someone who's connecting dots. I wasn't always a gardener.

Really? There should be no paywall on that. Works all ok for me.

A quick read from today's Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/08/18/phone-payments-wallets-coins-money-cards/

I hate to see independent high street bastions disappear. It's like the very history of the town is being slowly erased. But then we can't close Pandora's box, the internet is a gift and a curse at the same time. St Albans is just bookies, coffee shops and pubs now. Very few independents remain, and the exorbitant rent that they get charged for space drives them into the ground. I remember someone I knew had a franchise of a big name product, and the rent for their very small space was about £70k per year about 20 years ago. That's an awful lot of jeans to sell. It's all succinctly wrapped up in a great episode of Ever Decreasing Circles, where a local DIY shop that's been in the family for something like 150 years is facing closure due to competition. Martin goes into the shop to buy *one* six inch nail and the old fella running the shop happily sells him one for about 3p. I remember doing the same with my Grandad 40 odd years ago. The episode is full of pathos. Series 4, episode 2 if you're interested. It's worth a watch.

Then you'd have another load of sausages complaining about it and setting up a group called Just Stop Poop.

Did you see Piers Corbyn and his recent stunt in a cashless Aldi where he insisted on paying for a punnet of strawberries with cash and they refused to sell them to him? The man is a weapons grade loon, but to be fair, I can see his point to some extent, even though I would have probably popped into Sainsburys instead. The whole issue of paying with cash will become obsolete with the generations that follow us, in the same way that music tapes, betamax videos and polaroid cameras did. I was behind a bloke in B & Q the other day and saw him pay for his stuff with his watch. I couldn't believe it, but it'll be second nature to kids that are weened on ipads and mobile apps. Cash money will die eventually with the generations that used.

That's great, thank you Rob. I appreciate it.

Afternoon, Just received this 1708E* sixpence in the post, and hoping someone can help ID this please. Looking in ESC, it looks like it's 1471, but this makes mention of (4? strings), whereas this coin has 6. There looks like a definite 8 over 7 to me and the legend reads as per 1471, but would be grateful if someone with a better eye could confirm please. It definitely looks cleaned though. Grateful as always.

I had another conversation with Shirley today, and will let you know the upshot of how things pan out.

I just had a most peculiar conversation on the phone regarding the above. A lady saying her name was Shirley Watts just called me out of the blue, telling me that my coin cabinet order was ready, and if I could arrange for payment to be made. This all stems back to late March this year. Odd, as the last communication was me sending an email to whoever gave me the dodgy sounding bank details calling them a scammer. I explained what had happened with the request for the payment to a weird sounding bank account and she sounded surprised/concerned at the same time. I said that as the general consensus was that PN had retired, that this was just someone trying it on. The idea that he had retired and wasn't making any more didn't sit well with her. I have genuinely no idea what to do now. I have rung her back on the number that she called me on, and it goes to an automated phone answering service for a different company altogether. Also, the number she rang me on was the PN number, but it had +44 at the start, not the usual 0. That and the fact that I have already got a second hand one now kind of makes me feel like saying thanks, but not today, but then I don't want them to be £500 up the swannee if they are genuine. It's all weird.

A quality item. Very nice indeed.

That's interesting. I've dealt with him before on a couple of occasions and seemed ok, if a little distant and abrupt. I put that down to being busy.

Hi Paddy, If you don't get things graded, it would be best to send it to someone like https://www.thenumistacker.com/ who will handle that all for you. He deals with all sorts of coins and sends them off to NGC for grading on your behalf. Here's a video explaining what he does. The cost of the grading depends on the value of the coin really. The charges for the categories differ, as some are more valuable than others, and others need more research. You're probably looking at around £50 odd to get this graded with NGC, but his charges are detailed on the website. The worst that can happen is that NGC refuse to slab it as "not genuine", in which case you've lost your money, regardless of whether they plastic it up or not. Having it graded may make it easier to sell on somewhere like ebay, but it's a crap shoot half the time on there. Difficult to tell what grade you'd get, but looking at the others on ebay, you might get an MS60 at best which roughly equates to EF to gEF.

Unfortunately, when things get chucked in a slab, a lot of the associated paperwork goes awol. Had it before with some farthings.

You'd think so, bearing in mind the fees they charge...

Well done. I didn't get the one I was after as it went for about 40% more than I was prepared to pay for it, but I did pick up an alternative which is an improvement on my current one.

I saw this crop up last night when browsing: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225686953019?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D777008%26algo%3DPERSONAL.TOPIC%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20221115143056%26meid%3D718fac819f5549e887ee9b20b8a2d979%26pid%3D101612%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26itm%3D225686953019%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D4375194%26algv%3DRecentlyViewedItemsV2&_trksid=p4375194.c101612.m4236&_trkparms=parentrq%3A8689251b1890ab8cd32b4309ffff6ca2|pageci%3A60cde8aa-29e9-11ee-93fc-6ec085d988a6|iid%3A1|vlpname%3Avlp_homepage I messaged the seller to say you can pick these up for £60 and sent a link to one, and told them it really isn't what you think it is. I got a four word reply saying "not the same coin". Now either this seller has had their pants pulled down themselves, which I think is more than likely, or they just read the Daily Mirror and take that as gospel. Either way, the whole eBay description of the coin in the listing is a masterclass in Donald Trumpism.

Afternoon, Just picked this 1697B sixpence up from the Morton & Eden auction as it was listed as an R over sideways R with the overstrike quite clear. It also has a die rotation on the reverse of about 90 degrees. It seems to be an unlisted variety as I can't find anything relating to this after scouring the internet, and after calling into Baldwins afterwards, they didn't recall seeing one like this before. Photos are as best I can do with the rudimentary camera, so any thoughts most welcome.

Afternoon, If anyone has one of this weeks catalogues (19th July 2023) that they don't want, please let me know. Happy to square for a few quid. When I called into Noonans today, they'd run out and there was about half a dozen people ahead of me that wanted one. Cheers.

Is this the little one you bought from Rob Davis? Tidy little piece that.

I asked this question to a well known retailer only recently after picking up a couple of proofs. Lighthouse capsules were ok to keep them in, along with the small cellophane envelopes that they are sent out in. It's the PVC ones that they need removing from immediately. So I now keep mine in the cellophane envelope inside my cabinet. I'm sure others with more experience than I will chip in with their opinions.

A useful link regarding CGT: https://www.gov.uk/capital-gains-tax/what-you-pay-it-on

Agree completely. With the funds at their disposal, a decent camera setup, or failing that, a coin microscope, would make it look more appealing, instead of looking like it's been scanned on the photocopier.

That's great. Thank you very much, saved a lot of head scratching. 👍