Sylvester

I haven't even thought about a pension, i see no point. My parent's had pensions, they lost some of theirs when the government started mucking about with them. Some companies make you have a private pension though as part of the job package. Of course companies come and go and get taken over, then you're pension goes up the spout. Plus the retirement age is forever going up, by the time i get there it'll be about 75, and once you hit 75 to be honest how much of a pension are you gonna need? Most of my family seem to pop their clogs at 72. If you have to finish work prior to the retirement due to ill health, then you might as well claim sickness and mobility benefits like everyone else does these days. At least that way you'll get something back from all the money you've put into the system through income taxes over the years.

Land's the best bet, anywhere that's a good candidate for housing or a road.

I'm glad you told me that! I've put 'collecting sovereigns by die number' on the backburner for a few years now. I guess i'll just leave it there, although i did have my doubts as to how good an approach that was. Although to be honest i got pulled in by hammered before i managed to get back collecting sovereigns and once the hammered bug gets you milled becomes a bit of a bore. So maybe i'm safe? Yeah safe in the realms of the 12th century! That's safe?

I think Tom has a point there. I was going to make a comment about the fact that a hole in the coin in the centre is pretty pointless from a hanging round neck perspective. However, quite useful for withdrawal purposes.

Sovereign obverse die, shilling reverse die, in bronze? Someone having fun at the mint?

I have many reasons to dislike slabbing, but you hit the nail on the head there for me. Slabbing has done a number of things; 1) It leads to ridiculous miniscule grading differences. The differences are small but once you acknowledge there is a difference it exists. There's no way to uninvent that difference once it's been accepted. In the UK people think it's UNC, sure we accept there a different types and levels of UNC, but we don't distinguish precisely, we just price it according to what we think demand is for it and see how it goes. Which means as a collector you can get some real bargins. 2) Once the difference between MS64 and MS65 has been distinguished, accepted and implemented though, it ends up becoming a category in a book with a price under it. Which inevitably makes prices go up. 3) The difference between the grades is Miniscule, however the differences between the prices is in inverse proportion to that. It's just ego boasting at the end of the day. 4) Slabbing allows alot of people into the market, which i generally disapprove of. Investors mostly as they are just in it for the profits they can make out of the coins. Which puts the prices up for all us collectors! From a collecting point of view slabs is 'LOSE, LOSE the whole way to the dealer's bank', from a dealer's point of view it must be the best thing invented!

I can't decide on this; Could be chipped off but looks a bit too neat, like it's been cut off. Geordie have you some weighing apparatus? Are they underweight or correct weight? (That's not as daft as it sounds). Do all the cut ones weigh roughly the same?

I had one of those somewhere!

Look at Athenian Owl Tetradrachms! Timeless.

I'm with Geordie on this! The old stuff rules.

This is a very interesting subject, and it is very difficult to translate 14th century purchasing power into modern purchasing power. It might be interesting to look at the coins themselves. Pick a 14th century coin at random and multiply that value by roughly 7 (it's 6 with some and 8 with others, 7's the median) and you'll get a similar sized coin of the same alloy in the 19th century; E.G; Quarter Noble = 20d (in 14th C. terms) x 7 = (140d) which is rougly the same size as a Victorian half sovereign at 120d (19th C. terms). [bang on with a conversion factor of 6] Half penny = 1/2d (in 14th C. terms) x 7 = (3 1/2d) which is roughly the same size as a Victorian groat at 4d (19th C. terms). [bang on with a conversion factor of 8] Groat = 4d (in 14th C. terms) x 7 = (28d) which is roughly the same size as a Victorian florin at 24d (19th C. terms). [bang on with conversion factor of 6] So give or take a rough idea of the weights and values, anything in 14th C. prices might well be 7 times that figure in 19th C. prices. Quite how well that holds up though i dunno. You'd have to compare 14th C. living costs with 19th C. living costs and see how it goes, but you have to take into account that the Industrial Revolution and improved technology of the 19th C. will have made somethings easier to produce and thus cheaper. Translating 19th C. to modern should be quite an easy task as i'm sure quite a few websites deal with late 19th early 20th Century living standards compared with modern standards.

I will do Chris! Oli or you alway seem to beat me to it though! I get the official complaint PM, i follow the link to the problem post and find it already gone! But if i do make it i'll write the IP down for you.

A mark is two nobles. Three nobles are a Pound. A noble is 80 pence, a groat is four pence. You might find this list useful; Half Groat - (two pennies) Groat - (four pennies) Quarter Noble - (twenty pence or five groats) [1/8d] Half Noble - (40 pence or 10 groats) [3/4d] Noble - (80 pence or 20 groats) [6/8d] Mark - (160 pence or 40 groats) [13/4d] Pound - (240 pence, 60 groats or 1 & 1/2 marks) [20/-] I think that's right. Bringing shillings into it causes no end of confusion, it's much easier when prices are quoted in groats. So 500 marks in pounds would be 1.5 times less pounds. I make it about £333.33 in modern money. Or in predecimal £333/6/8 40 shillings is £2, a shilling being 5p. Anyone want to double check my maths there?

Noyce!

One, at Manchester Museum. Exactly why i like hammered!

Well that depends yet again on the type of hammered coin you're dealing with. On some serieses the legends are notoriously bad, on others they are good. In my experience it's very seldom (bearing in mind other types i'm not familiar with may differ from this), but i've often found it to be the case that if the legend is good then the portrait is below average. If the portrait is a stunner then the legend is crap! To see both being good is somewhat uncommon. Certainly for things in say Queen Mary's reign, and Elizabeth I's reign it generally holds true. The Stuarts may vary somewhat. Grading is very difficult, it often depends on strike to some degree, weakly struck coins with only light wear can look pretty circulated whilst exceptional strike coins with more moderate wear can still pull off a high VF. There is no general rule, it really does depend upon the coin and the 'normal' wear features of that series. I'm sure Tom would agree that grading a coin of William the Conqueror would be a whole different kettle of fish than say a coin of Henry I or Charles I. Hammered is all about knowing the series. Grading Stuart coins is VASTLY different to grading Norman coins. Actually whilst we're on about grading and legends this reminds me of something that annoys the hell out of me. I once saw the most beautifully struck Queen Mary groat for sale, sharp legends, crisp sharp portrait (exceptionally uncommon!), the catch? Mary being unpopular as she was the coin had been defaced by having lines (deep lines) scratched through the portrait! It breaks the heart. Good contemporary damage = good history and context for sure, but not on a museum quality specimen!

Not a problem Josie! It's what we're here for, any questions or problems just ask us. I'm not promising we'll know all the answers because we don't, but as the members here have a wide variety of interests in different areas there's a good chance we might be able to help. And we were all beginners once upon a time!

I don't know if i'm even follow this conversation correctly, but Josie when you talk about 'secret types' i presume you are talking about all the minor varieties (like the 1908 above?) And why they're not listed in the catalogues? Well that all depends upon which catalogue you're referring to. General guides and specialist guides vary in their approach. Some collectors are nuts about minor varieties, other collectors couldn't care. Something like the Krause book of world coins is a general guide of 'all' world coins in whatever century the particular volume is covering. This is clearly a general work that is trying to cover the main 'major' coins of each country. There is obviously a limit to what they can record, why record all the minor varieties? How many extra pages would it require, who's going to use it and how much is it going to cost Krause to publish it and how much for the collectors to buy? The 20th century Krause is a monster volume in itself, and there's alot of stuff missing out of it! Then we move to say Spinks coins of England which is still a general all-purpose work but more specialised than Krause as it only covers England, but it still goes from BCE to present, which is a long period of time. Then we have Chris' books, which are even more focused, the late milled one on British coins for instance covers the period from c.1797 to present, much more focused and thus you can go into more detail. That said though this is still a general all purpose coin catalogue, not a specialist work. If you want to find the secrets of British coinage, it would depend upon where your interest lies. If you are big into copper of bronze then you need the books by Peck or Freeman. These deal souly with a very, very narrow field of coins but they go into extreme detail. Detail that someone like me who is not into copper or bronze would never need when trying to price up a Victorian penny. If hammered was your thing then you'd need the North catalogue (which isn't exactly user friendly!) but it goes into much more detail than Spink does. The difference is Krause/Spink/Chris' books are generally 'price guides' rather than reference works. Coincraft likewise is more a price guide than a reference work, although there is alot of interesting aside texts delving into the backgrounds of the coins themselves, which makes it kinda both. Works like Freeman, Peck, North etc. are proper reference books. The main aim of the book is not about being able to price a coin up accurately, but about learning how to identify a coin to a type and to know all minor types and all the history that goes with the coins.

Where are you exactly?

What i meant was slabs are generally (i say generally, but NOT always) about investment, getting as much bang for the buck, the best price or return for a coin bought. Prices of coins in the US have skyrocketed since slabbing came in, in the 80s. It makes it easier for investors and novices in the coin world to buy good quality stuff and not worry about things like grading and fakes.* The question i put forward though is that a good thing or a bad thing? (see below) How do you feel about this Josie, do you think profits and money spent on coins and returned from selling them the most important factor in numismatics? (from above)... Slabbing companies are doing alot of the work for US collectors these days (lets ignore the sometimes inaccurate grading that occurs occasionally, or the odd good fake coin fooling the experts [it happens], or heck even the fake coins in fake slabs that have turned up before now). Lets ignore all that. Alot of newer US collectors (and investors) are just going with the grade on the lump of plastic and are taking it as gospel! Is this a good thing? Collectors need to know how to grade for themselves and they need to learn how to spot fakes for themselves, i feel slabs are dumbing down the hobby alot and taking away alot of the learning that has to be done in the formative years as a collector. It's best to make mistakes when you're starting out on cheaper coins and learn from those mistakes than to buy an expensive coin and have no idea how to grade and thus overpay for the coin, only to find out it's a dud because you've never bothered to learn how to spot them because you left it to the grading company to protect you. I'm not saying slabs are all bad, they have their uses, they are very useful for ease of liquidation of a collection and they offer some kind of protection from the environment, although it varies from slab to slab (but take into account Scottishmoney's statement earlier). The problem with this debate is how you look at coins, why do you collect them? Do you think like an investor (does money out and back matter?), do you think like an art/sculpture aesthetic type where it's about preserving the image, the design, the message of the artist who created the coin? Or do you think like an historian/archaeologist whereby it's all down to what the coin may or might have seen and where it may or might have been? I'm an historian myself, so to me the history matters above almost any other attribute. Thus slabs really don't feature much in my viewpoint, but i can see that they'd be of use for the other two points.

Without a doubt.

I agree with what you all said. In particular i agree with Tom. There was a time back in the days of me being a milled collector when i did place an emphasis on grade. When i say emphasis i don't mean that grade was the 'be and end all' of the coin for me, far from it, but grade did matter. Lets face it when you're staring at a group of 1920s sixpences or shillings you might as well get the BU rather than the VF if you could afford it. Although the more i think about it the more i wonder if even back then it was really about 'grade', i think grade was actually only the superficial exuse for what i was really buying on. I would by nice lustrous BU sixers because they looked nicer than the dull grey worn VF things sat next to them. Although it took me until hammered to realise that really to me grade for grade's sake didn't mean a great deal! I have to say even now i still like high grade hammered coins, but the sellers i deal with most often usually stick all their hammered coins in trays ungraded. I've found the grade is almost never stated (they expect you to know yourself). So often i'm buying higher grade coins (without generally taking much explicit notice of what grade the coin is, lets face it i'm too idle to grade), i generally buy coins where the detail is sharp, well struck, and it a nice tone. Basically i now collect by eye appeal. Which is what i've been doing all along really, but these days i rarely bother grading my purchases. With ancients and hammereds the grade can vary greatly from person to person, so i figured there wasn't much point.

I say no. I simply don't like slabs, the last thing i want to have to do is have to go through the process of having to crack every purchase out. Trust me i've had to crack two out in the past and it's a process that requires a g-clamp, a cloth and alot of patience. Especially when the coin is a 1786 Austrian ducat. Talk about being under pressure. I definately wouldn't want to have to crack out something like an Henry I penny, a series that is notorious for coins cracking in the post.

* Are you referring to population reports here? If so it's probably worth while me pointing out one small often overlooked point by even more experience collectors. In the US coins are slabbed and given population reports (i.e 12 grade as this 3 higher), however, they quickly become very unaccurate, firstly because coins submitted after that might be the same type and add a few more to the population report. However, simultaneously many coins are cracked out and resubmitted regularly! So How many have been added to that 12 since it was graded and how many lost from that 12 due to resubmissions. Which to me makes the whole pop. report a pretty useless measure. It's simply put there by slabbing companies as a selling gimmick.. kind of "look how rare this is!". ** Another small point which you'll no doubt encounter as you become more experienced, and it's worth holding in mind, "higher grade doesn't always mean better or nicer". Sometimes a coin in EF can look way better than another one in a higher grade. Be it differences in strike, tone, or whatever. Some coins simply have more eye appeal than others, and eye appeal has nothing to do with grading. Let no one try and convince you otherwise. It's an important point that's often overlooked. You will no doubt here colectors and dealers saying that AU58s often look far nicer than MS60s. MS60 might have the higher state of preservation but AU58 whilst a lower grade can often turn out nicer looking specimens.

Yep this forum is the mahogany cabinet fraternity.