Sylvester

I'm not sure on the particulars with the US but in the UK Coin collecting was a dying hobby until recently. The internet might have saved it, but regardless of whether it has or not, coin collecting is still seen as a marginal 'uncool' hobby to partake upon. Depending upon your viewing angle, naturally. coins/stamps/trainspotting are seen as one and the same by the average Brit. As far as i can envisage there would never be enough demand to warrant the government to take any notice of the coin collecting fraternity. Indeed, when new designs are submitted by the Royal Mint you may (or may not) get dissatisfied customers writing in saying the proposed designs are terrible and object. In the end though the Royal Mint will issue what designs it sees fit to issue whether it gets complaints or not. Now i've recently been reading a topic over on the US biased coinpeople forum about the new Presidential Dollar coin series and there's some statements there about some of the new designs being opposed by the coin collecting fraternity and perhaps the mint might be forced to alter the designs. It seems the US fraternity has clout. That would never happen in the UK. At the end of the day the US coin market and the UK coin market are two very, very different creatures and what works for one isn't automatically applicable to the other. This is all before we go on the bring the rest of Europe into the equation which would alter all the answers yet again! At the end of the day slabbing is an American phenomenon in an American way of thinking. Where emphasis on grade and who's is best outways emphasis on history. More paramount though is the role of capitalism in the US way of thinking, 'profit, profit, profit', is the thing that's emphasised time and time again on US coin forums it seems. Sit on a US forum long enough and it's generally all about; 'low mintages', 'how to spot sliders to crack and resubmit', 'is this really an MS63 or is it a possible MS64?'. That is pretty much all that ever gets asked upon US forums outside of toning questions. It's fairly dull to be honest. The time scale of US coinage is far more restricted which means the only way to create more areas to work in is by scrutinising the full range closer and subdividing it. Which is why there's such emphasis on quality and grade, and that's what slabbing needs to thrive. British coinage is so vast over an historical timeline that scrutiny on the American level (errors/grades) tends not to be really much of a driving force behind collecting because there's probably too much space for working. There are only two areas in British coinage where i think slabbing would be viable, first copper/bronze coinage (George III +) with particular emphasis upon Bun Head pennies and after through to George V, thanks to Peck and Freeman, these fields are the only fields which come anywhere near the US way of collecting by minor varieties, die types, errors, mules, etc. The second area would most likely be proofs. I can forsee no real demand for slabbing outside of those areas to be honest, the hammered fraternity would most likely strongly oppose it, the early milled likewise probably wouldn't be that bothered about it, and the modern stuff its a mix of opinions. Most post-1937 stuff isn't worth even doing.

Has anyone brought up the other point here? I presume London Coins sell coins, and they're slabbing them? Now to get the best reults out of slabbing shouldn't it be done by someone without a vested interest in the end grade? What do they do with borderline grade coins? I suppose they mark them up, if they bought them from you though would they say 'sorry the grades wrong on that?'. Now of course yeah they do that without slabbing, but with slabbing part of the advertising gimmick is that 'it protects the buyer from dealers over grading coins', the question is does it though? Now i'm not saying London coins do that, but you can bet your bottom penny that if this grading company take off there will be others and they'll be a boom of grading companies all trying to out do each other and some practices of future grading companies mightr be less than ethical. Thus to quote another member 'who grades the graders?' The only way slabbing would be hugely beneficial to the collectors market would be if it was totally neutral and probably a nationalised company that's not allowed to make a profit, so they couldn't care less what grade the coin came out. A private firm will always do what is in the best interest of it's customers to ensure they come back again, which is the people sending the coins in that pay for the grading service. They're not going to send them to XYY service if they know XYZ will give them a higher albeit less accurate grade. Hence the crack out and resubmission culture that follows slabbing around. Excuse me if i'm cynical but i don't think it's in the hobby's best interests in the long run. It's in investor interests and investors are something the hobby is better off without as they put the prices up on nice collectable pieces that other collectors need for date sets etc.

I've picked up upon three spam posts this evening, two of which i've deleted. The other is in this area about furniture of all things from the look of it but i'm not in control of that area so there's nothing i can do about that one. Someone bet me to the other reported one this morning. There's does seem to be alot of spam around these parts lately!

I hope you told him so!

Of course slabbing brings price rises but if people want it it'll happen, it all depends upon how good they are at advertising the product. If slabbing does take off i'll set up business as a professional slab cracker. £10 to have a coin professionally cracked out and £5 for every subsequent coin sent with it, each customer recieves an exclusive gold trimmed certificate of authenticy with every purchase. Feel the history not the plastic!

Chris is this the one i proof read ages ago, the introduction to hammered coins? I'd be happy to proof read it again for you if you'd like. Sorry i haven't been around much i've been extremely busy. I still have all the Early Modern templates and stuff too, do you want that? Alot of the groundworkl has been done, it just needs prices filling out and intros scripting, but i just haven't got time.

I knew it was 1870 something, couldn't remember if it was 1870 or 1871. Once i've sold them i delete them from my records.

Looks like a penny? Kuchler was the designer of this series. Definately much better workmanship than Lewis Pingo ever had to offer. Not that i don't like Lewis Pingo you understand! Thomas Pingo was much better.

I did have an 1870 sovereign (slabbed) i sold it to Chris. I don't recall the die number off hand, can you remember it Chris?

You'd be naive to think that! From what i've seen not only is the Victorian series (any denomination this is) a complete minefield of varieties but it seems the sovereigns were a field of particular interest to them. I have no doubts you've come across the Ansell sovereign. Not only were they playing around with different dies (presumably minting coins at different pressures, with dies of different alloy compositions, but they were also altering the relief &/or alloys as well. The question i've always pondered though (and since you've dabbled in die numbers you may or may not have noticed this), is as the date is on the obverse and the die number is on the reverse. Is say Die 65 on an 1860 coins the same die as Die 65 on an 1861 coin? I presume at some point in the Die number era there were several Die 65s or 66s or whatever, the question is though was there one of a certain number each year. So Die 14 in 1862 and Die 14 in 1863 were DIFFERENT dies, or was the 1862 Die 14 the 1861 Die being run over into the next date year, or perhaps there was half a dozen Die 14s in any one year? (All the dies being of the same alloy composition?) It raises many interesting questions.

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!