Rob

Happy birthday too.

Try an auction. eBay is a disaster at the moment as nobody is bidding on anything to speak of unless it is 99p. The graffiti won't help your cause. I paid £130 for mine in 2005. Better grade than yours, but mullet over bell on the obverse only. From a different obverse die, so that makes at least 3 obverse dies with the overmark including Ashby's.

I sold a copy two weeks ago. Got none.

That one on eBay is a joke at £89. If the obverse was as good as the reverse, you might be in with a chance at 89, but it looks like one to avoid. It looks like a classic case of pricing to the best side rather than the worst.

That's a tough one. Needs to be from a set that was split a long time ago.

Weight is 3g, so unless it is made of silver plated gold/platinum/iridium etc has to be thicker. Normally they weigh in around 1.42g ish. They shouldn't have a seam because he tours fairs etc making them by traditional methods.

Geoff was at Wakefield yesterday. A very nice man as he bought something.

Spink should have advertised it to collectors in Britain. You never know, there might have been fewer bargains. Somewhere on this forum is a general rant about the lack of marketing for the NY sales which most didn't know about until the results were posted. Bargains were definitely to be had.

Copy alert!! http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/331272776429?ru=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fsch%2Fi.html%3F_sacat%3D0%26_from%3DR40%26_nkw%3D331272776429%26_rdc%3D1 Dave would be over the moon if he could get that much for them.

It isn't so simple these days because the web has increased the availability of auctions and nowadays you have to organise on-line auctions. The back-up required should not be underestimated. There were half a dozen or more people involved to make it work, and even that looked stretched at times. Without premises you are going to have to take a table at the fairs to get people to drop things off. London Coins are already there. To have what is basically a coins only auction means you are competing in a fairly crowded market place. Filling the catalogue would be the difficult thing. As for moving on stock, I would presume that collectors are already scouring the web for material, so this would just be an alternative outlet for items that are already available. There have been several dealers cum auctioneers who have tried such as the one in Kendal, Birmingham Coin auctions, the woman near Derby, Bucks Coins (Westminster Auctions) etc, but only the last seems to have been remotely successful and that was because everything was illustrated. He said it was enjoyable, but hard work and very time consuming. So, without offering a full service I suspect you are likely to be on a hiding to nothing. You then have to consider availability of material. Everyone is struggling to get decent coins which is why prices have rocketed at the top end. The world is awash with middle/lower grade material, but that market is in a deflationary phase with everyone hanging on for a better example. For many issues there is a point between VF and EF or sometimes higher where there is a gulf in prices, with little material selling at the expected intermediate price for this reason. Of the four auctions above, only one was illustrated. That was also successful because he sold his own collection as part of the two sales. Anyone can sell their collection to get off the ground, but 'what next?' is the difficult one. There are already too many auctions for the number of quality collections coming up for sale. I don't think that many people would be willing to invest the time and effort into a business that might only last two or three sales. Probably the best way forward is as done by Neil and Lee where you are already geared up to produce catalogues, you have the eyeballs via the existing website and the method of auctioning doesn't require it to be alright on the day at 11am precisely. But this only works for whole collections and not the occasional vendor.

Carrying on the established traditions of the US TPGs then. Anyone would think that most hammered is mint state judging by the typical grading.

Don't know. There are other salerooms that have occasional coin lots, but not geared towards them. Brock's had coin lots because firstly he used to deal in them, but also the pawn shop used to attact them. Might be thin pickings from now on.

Find a microscopist with an interest in coins I have got my customers interested in something because it was old and after a short time they have offered to do it when they had a spare 5 mins.

I'm not aware of any double amputees on this forum. One hand should suffice for a pint pot.

Which is again down to double striking. Look at the inner circle to get an idea of how badly struck it is. The die will have had a C, just that it isn't present on this coin.

email them via the website

In this case I think it is down to multiple blows as you can see a trace of both the chest and the crown in front of the bust

Peckris aka one of the Mr Men characters, can we guess which one boys and girls?(lol, that was a quick edit! you are obviously Mr Finger-on-the-Button...) Especially when the grammer nazi is trawling the forum Was this last statement of yours made post-mortem Dave? You've just been shot - for your own good, I might add. I'll leave you to work out what's wrong.

For all those unaware of the fact, Tony and Wyn have decided to hang up their boots at the end of the month. Tony has been undergoing chemo for the past two or three years and Wyn has reached 65, so they have decided to call it a day.

There is also a temptation to check for any replies to a post you might have made. I blame it on not being usefully employed elsewhere, so it gets used as a time filler.

Yes. Welcome. It is nearly 2 in the morning and I have also looked too often. Mind you, I frequently leave the forum open on a tab, so end up looking by default when I close something down.

I can't help with the nickel analysis as I forgot to do mine when I did all the Weyl patterns.

Was that run against a standard? Davies noted that any scrap from the war machine was fed into the mix initially, hence the highly irregular compositions. I might have expected a contribution from brass.

Eeee it's a strange world. After the conversation with no.4 last night, I dug out my old caving logs and did a search on some US names that I'd caved with. The first result for one person was his recent request on a forum to find me following a working trip to Montana in 1982 which prompted me to take my gear and get in some time underground. One weekend we found a reasonable amount of virgin cave but the system was only fully surveyed a couple of years ago. It transpires I had an underground lake named after me as the finder 32 years ago. Who would have thought it? I haven't looked at the logs for over 20 years, which makes the timing a bit spooky.

That isn't a letter by lighthouse variety. The C will be larger. The font size is the same for any of the letters, so if you find a better image it will give you the size and position too.