Rob

They are there if you look.

Oh, we must have met some time in the past. Obvously I impressed her.

Nobody I recognise.

I'll PM you with details in a minute when I have finished phoning

Looks like Davies 1096 (5+D) to me. I of GRATIA to bead, 8 beads A to A on the obverse and faint cross touches left of bead, 10 beads covering date. This pair also exists for 1880, though Davies prices suggest it is scarcer than the obverse 6 for this date. This has I of GRATIA to space and 11 between A's. ESC is useless around 1879 for shillings certainly,and now it appears for 6ds too.

Lady with long dark hair means nothing - I don't watch it.

Dare one ask who said dealer was?

'By the window' was a frequent comment from Richard.

The other problem with 'returns' is that you cannot really 'mark to market' for a piece that is so rare that there is no market. So the value that gets put on it is what you think someone might pay rather than a solid history of similar coins fetching given prices over a period of time. Correct. It is the same conundrum from the stratospheric pieces all the way down to a grotty washer of which there is only one known - there is no market to provide a guide price. I often have people visit the table, but shy away from a pattern because they aren't comfortable paying £xxx for a piece that isn't listed in the standard price guides. It is probably a good job, as they might become unaffordable across the board once everyone has a reference point, given their absolute rarity in many cases.

A significant number are out of reach of any collector. There are some commoner pieces on the list such as the Henry VIII testoon or 1841 halfcrown, many of which are held by ordinary collectors. It is mainly a list of seriously rare coins. It's safe to say that if the 'investment' chaps stuck to that list, they would take a very long time to build up a portfolio. The plantagenet hammered gold is fairly abundant as is some of the milled, but the tudor gold section contains some serious rarities as does the Saxon.

A more detailed look at the SG list suggests that it is a bit disingenuous. Apparently the only St. Martin of Lincoln silver penny in private hands has returned 12.1% over the period, whilst the equally common Henry III gold penny has done over 15%. Yeh, right. The Scarboroughs are not freely circulating either. There are a lot of pieces on that list for which the return is a lick your finger and see which way the wind is blowing number.

https://www.stanleygibbons.com/medias/sys_master/8861642424350/coinindex2012.pdf Very interesting. Only one coin on there that would interest me. It struck me too that many of the pieces there are out and out rarities which have always created a free for all when they come around. Given these buyers are not driven by collecting motives, one can only assume that the strength outside the 'investment' pieces is simply due to increased demand from 'normal' collectors. Bit of a blurred distinction here as many 'normal' collectors don't like parting with their coins for less than they paid. Having said that, a person I am familiar with wanted to buy for investment reasons, but wasn't patient enough and so lost money on the sale. C'est la vie.

I concur.

I think this is a fair comment up to a point, however, a dedicated denomination collector will in all probability try to get an example or two trophy pieces. Obviously this depends on the criteria set, but a collector of bronze pennies for example may well want an example or two of a proof bun head, or a G5 VIP assuming it is within their financial resources. For all the reluctance of many to get involved with proofs and patterns, their value tends to hold up well and are probably more suited to the investment approach in any case as their values appreciate slowly but reasonably surely with time. This is another reason why the odd proof or pattern is not a disaster for a mainly currency collection. Currency coins may have a greater following, but their prices fluctuate far more between sales.

It's still alive and well, just that a few people with a lot of money and nowhere to use it have muscled in. There has always been more coins available than collectors to absorb them, just the most desirable pieces are increasingly sought after. This is the area where the pressure lies.

Don't know as I wasn't there, but David was probably David Guest, formerly at Spink and now with CNG, Roddy will be RR, and the third is anyone's guess, though is likely to be either Steve Hill or Tim Webb-Ware.The former more likely than the latter as Steve would be more active as a bidder, though Tim would usually be sat far right at the front. MH was there, so perhaps he could elucidate.

They don't grade very many hammered realistically. So much is given AU or MS that the populations would suggest they were hot off the press from China instead of at least 400 years old. It is probably worth slabbing some horrible looking pieces in the hope of getting a few decent numbers as this would add value when sold into the US market.

James I 2nd bust penny. You can tell I'm bored today.

Charles I 3a3 halfcrown struck on a shilling flan, ex Rashleigh, Farquhar, Brooker and Adams

Henry VIII Canterbury halfpenny struck under William Warham

Henry VI Rose-Mascle halfpenny of London, ex Longbottom and Lockett

Seeing as people seem to like them, here's a Henry VIII sovereign penny struck by Thomas Wolsey

It has been done in the US as I understand when something was graded anywhere between 67 and 69 after 5(?) attempts

I concur. There was little there that said 'buy me'. The 1673 5 guineas was probably the best of the milled, but that went to 135K. After that, lot 439 was nice and 512 looked to be a bit better than the EF grade assigned, but there was a lot of indifferent pieces.

Not only the name, but possibly more important was the fact that the material had been off the market for over half a century. There can be very few collectors who were actively collecting at the top end in both 1945 and 2015, so all of this was a refreshing change from the material that goes round on a regular cyclical basis. An 'old' collection almost invariably does well. Look at Chesser, 18 months ago, or the William Boyd sale at Baldwins in 2005. Also the Neville-Rolfe sale went well. The gold patterns at Plymouth in 2008 got the market talking, though the venue probably restricted the final outcome.