Rob

Don't confuse collecting bullion as an investment with collecting coins as a hobby. Buy bullion for a few pounds (literally) under value and sell it for closer to bullion value if you can, preferably within hours whilst at the same time being grateful for the pound or two profit made (if successful). If you think you know where the market is going in a given time frame, there is scope for a longer view, but do not anticipate a fat profit. Bullion dealers make a small margin on quick turnover. Bullion coins are sold across the world for more than their value, because once they have left the mint, very few issues are desirable as collectables and so are repurchased on a price related to their bullion values and nothing else. If you want to collect coins whose value is not direcly related to the bullion price, then there is far more material available than with bullion and a good depth of knowledge available on this forum.

The line of bagmarks(?) running along the middle of the truncation looks wrong too. I would have thought that was almost impossible to achive in normal handling. It's almost as if the raised portion of the design is cominaway from the surface.

It is.

That's a very good point Rob. Though I don't buy 10k coins, I have bought several for £1-2k+, which means that when I spot an example on eBay that would perhaps be a nice upgrade for a relatively common coin worth only perhaps £100, I might nevertheless stick in a bid for £150 just to be sure of getting it. This doesn't mean the coin would generally be worth more than £100, just that there's a fool out there (me in this instance ) willing to pay over the odds to save the time and hassle of finding another such example. I did this very thing the other night, buying an UNC 82 grade CGS slabbed upgrade for over the odds. I can't be alone in ocassionally acting this way! You're not.

Even the sharpest get stung there occasionally. The most successful strikes on e bay fall into two camps, in my experience:- a) Nice coins with a high initial bid price, which nevertheless is still nowhere near their true value. Would be bidders are strangely put off by the high start price, and often by-pass it completely, leaving someone else to make the only punt at the original price, thus bagging a real bargain. b ) Really high end coins which would be better off in a proper auction. They will sell, for sure, but usually end up at between 55% to 75% of what they could potentially realise elsewhere. It's a real mistake for high quality expensive coins to be put on e bay. Gambling strikes which may or may not pay off, are on those with poor photography, where the coin cannot properly be seen. This often puts buyers off, leaving the speculator room for a potential killing, or to get their fingers burned. I'd agree with this analysis apart from the one factor you missed out - certain key dates that somehow seem to do far better on eBay than elsewhere, I'm thinking of things like 1903 and 1905 halfcrowns. Regarding the above point b I absolutely agree with the percentages, but I'm not sure which auctions outside of eBay are being talked about for better prices? I spent a few days, six month's back, looking at the realised prices for a number of major auctions...I didn't find that many there that were making Spink book prices either, and sellers premiums aren't any better than eBay (mostly). I know minus 5% has been mentioned before but, generally speaking, eBay aren't off the scale at 10%, and they know it! Does anybody know how often nice coins make their book price in major auctions? Would it be more often than not? I mean, the book prices are set according to the major auction results, so one would think they must more often do, it just doesn't look that way. Do you think books like Spink attempts to 'drive' the market, rather than be an honest reflection OF the market? Out and out raities, best known or way better than average pieces you can disregard the book. Just below that will try to push the boundaries, but not too much. Mid-range pieces will probably make around book after you have added buyer's premium, low grades won't sell unless an acknowledged rarity. Spink doesn't attempt to drive the market prices. As a rule, there will always be a specific coin that goes way over the odds and the reason for it doing so filters into the market gossip. Consequently the yearly price revisions will not reflect a high price in full. We all notice the lots that sell for more than expected, but rarely comment on those that mark time in keeping with the estimate. The latter is a truer reflection of where the market is at and will probably go in the future. The top end is driven by a larger number of people who recognise relative quality and have sufficient funds to not worry about overpaying on occasions. If you are happy paying £10K or more for a coin, it doesn't really matter if you pay £300 for a £100 coin in the overall context of the collection as the overpayment will be a praction of a percentage point of its total value. The problem with overpaying on ebay is that most culprits are doing so out of ignorance with respect to the general market, what dealers have on offer (usually at substantially lower prices), have a reliance on the quoted grade as gospel, and mostly have never seen a high grade coin with which to make a considered judgement.

Yes, both are last small cross. It would be easier to read if the pictures were smaller and not pixelated, but the second is a London coin. I think the moneyer is Lifinc.

Die 10 will only refer to the reverse. The obverse die could have been made the day, week, month or year(s) before, though obviously within the time constraints that the obverse design was current. The profile of the underlying bust is different too which suggests it might be older. Does it match any other portrait styles? Postscript: Willie was let off without any action being taken.

Looks it bearing in mind you have three sizes of H for pennies, halfpennies and farthings. One of the 1876H halfpennies has a 6 over a farthing 6 and one 1856 halfpenny die has the 6 over a penny 6. I think these punch varieties are more common than people might assume with some taken for a displaced underlying letter rather than a larger one.

Yes. One is generally flat, the other is extremely flat.

Other than playing the part of an erotic car accessory, does she have any other public persona - porn star, royal correspondent, model? Sorry, I'm not familiar with her.

Only 7 weeks It would take me longer to establish I couldn't get out of Kelly Brooks bed. Am I missing something here? Link Just kidding. I'm sure I'd recognise her if I saw her again. In fact I'm sure I saw her sister today, and I'm sure the wife saw I saw her sister too.

It's worth breaking my rule not to get two coins of the same type if possible. I have a Cissbury last small cross as a Hobson's Choice piece because all bar one of 39(?) coins for the mint are of this type, but Warminster is sufficiently difficult as a mint to justify doubling up on the type.

Excellent, which sale?

Round here we have a rhyming word for spade, it's called.............. spade.

Is it for sale?

It seems to share quite a lot of the same characteristics as the fakes that were discussed last time. With this sort of suspicion associated with them, I would only consider buying one from a top auction house or reputable dealer. Or a verifiable provenance which pre-dates the appearance of these copies. There were few copies around prior to 2003 2004ish, and those there were tended to be quite recognisable, and crucially, documented.

True, the overhang from the Bole collection is going to influence the market for a while yet.

Don't be tempted. Things could get horribly expensive when it comes to siege issues. A decent Newark will set you back a couple grand, a Pontefract at least double that, a Carlisle at least seven or eight times and if you are seriously thinking about a Scarborough you might find you have a lot of friends.

Does anybody have a low tide halfpenny with the fingers well struck up? Never seen a good one, that's all. Mine also has no wear, loads of lustre but no fingers.

Collect both. You aren't going to be able to complete either denomination. Unless you win the lottery it will be a financial non-starter and you wouldn't be able to fill all the holes even if you had the money available due to the number of unique items, something that applies to all denominations.

Did we really have 30-40% deflation in the early 80s?

The marks vary in style depending on the size of the punch, though are reasonably consistent for a given size. Bear in mind that they were all individually engraved in the first place, so there is no mass produced consistency. Mint marks are usually referred to using the old Seaby references, so get yourself a copy of Spink's coins of England where there is a page dedicated to them. An old one would do just as well as the list hasn't changed for years, though some were added later. The numbering system will be incomprehensible as some of the marks are not in chronological order.

Most coin fairs cost a pound or two to get in. Exceptions are the big London ones on the first morning when they know big spenders will be in trying to get the most desirable pieces. York is free, Harrogate is a couple quid. Wakefield is this weekend at the Cedar Court hotel just off junction 39 of the M1, opens at 9:30. There are regulars who come from further away than you. Ditto for Birmingham at the National Motorcycle Museum which opens at 10. Both wind down by 2-2:30.

Yes it is.

Without wishing to proscribe how we should all collect, if you intend collecting back in time then doing so from the beginning alongside modern coins is not such a bad idea. It is easy to say I'll get the modern ones and finish them off before going backwards, but even in this area there are relatively expensive pieces to acquire. Go back a couple hundred years and identically graded pieces sell for an order or orders of magnitude more. We all suffer funding constraints, so if you are in for the long haul buy yourself a mixture of cheaper and more expensive pieces. If you get all the cheap things immediately (and there are a lot of them) you are likely to find that you have already spent a considerable sum making the acquisition of the next group a daunting task when you discover it will cost multiples of the first stage. Unless you intend restricting yourself to a finite and relatively narrow band, this problem will raise it's head earlier than you think. Very few people are fortunate or affluent enough in that order to even get close to completing an all encompassing denomination collection, short run oddballs such as quarter farthings excepted.