Rob

As a significant participant who helped kick off the current steep upward trend at the Slaney sale in 2003 with his purchase of the Petition Crown, I hope he is not forecasting the future based on insider knowledge of his forthcoming purchases. I was hoping that my nemesis on more than one occasion was taking a really long and well earned break. Twenty years should suffice.

Assuming it is a guinea (diameter about 23mm), in that condition plus the fact that it has been holed it would be worth bullion value. The reverse looks a bit better, but it has clearly been polished a lot with the lack of obverse detail. However, if it is a half guinea (diameter about 20mm), it may be worth a bit more as 1792 is a very rare year. Spink 2009 gives prices of £500 in fine and £1550 in VF with no higher price quoted. This is x4 the price quoted for all the other years of this issue. Notwithstanding the fact it has been holed and the obverse of your coin is nowhere near fine, if it is in fact a 1/2 guinea you might expect a slight premium to bullion due to its rarity. The image shows a gap between the first G and the hair which suggests it is a half, but the unambiguous test will be the diameter.

I've got a 1905 with the 1st & 4th R's with a tail and the 2nd & 3rd short. Don't know if that is already covered though. The D's are as for obv.2 and the E's have a shorter top bar.

I have just used the silver content vs the current spot price. I don't think you could actually realise £2 because there are margins, commissions and wear to consider should it be sold, but it gives a ballpark figure.

The design is the same for both 6ds and 1/-s, so the diameter will tell you. Shillings are about 23mm, 6ds are 19mm. Value in that condition is melt - which at this moment is about £2 for a 1/- AND £1 for a 6d.

I don't think it is a fake because the workmanship is quite competent. I think it is a token or medallet of some kind - perhaps someone else on the forum knows about these things. Just because it is the same size as a £2 doesn't mean that it was intended to pass as one.

It isn't a coin. It may be toy money or a gaming token. If intended to be a forgery then presumably it would be for a crown or higher denomination depending on size. However, neither the bust nor the reverse are remotely like any of the official designs, and so by extension is unlikely to be a genuine forgery - if that isn't a contradiction in terms.

For all of you desperate to acquire the key date 1925 half crown, you could do worse than bid in the next Noble auction. Lots 1902-1919 contain a cumulative total in excess of 4000 of them. Rare - I think not . Ebay is likely to be full of them at some point unless they hopefully get melted down because most are not really collectable. link

Are you saying you want to buy an example of the illustrated coins for the prices indicated or are they the actual coins? If they are the coins on offer then the price for the half crown seems way too cheap, that for the florin less so. So if you have been offered the actual coins in the pictures for the prices listed I would question why. The half crown looks ok, but the florin is featureless and washed out indicating it has been cleaned or dipped. In that case not so attractive as a purchase.

Few too many proofs for my liking, but in mitigation, I love this 1919H penny on page 2. The sales blurb associated with the lot is a bit economical. It suggests that people have difficulty grading coins that aren't mint red and that the slabbed grade should give added confidence for bidders. What it doesn't mention is that a penny with wear to Britannia's fingers isn't uncirculated, shouldn't be called mint state, and shouldn't be graded 64. There also appears to be some trace of rubbing to the portrait. I am sure it will do well.

But they do say that copper prices in UNC are for examples with full lustre, so that covers BU. cf. p.446 in the 2009 tome. I never spotted that . But to get me out of the hole I have just dug why do other books state different prices for Unc and BU coins. On another note how can you determine a correct price for a coin with say 25%, 50%, nearly full lustre, or is this left to the seller’s opinion. What I am trying to say is I AM CONFUSED, when I look at one of my coins and one is brighter that the other how do I put a value on the coin when no book can specify this in detail. I think this can lead to confusion for the collector, especially for someone new to the hobby. Forgive me for being a bit thick, but this is the only part of coin collecting that I am not confidant about (grading). I have the 'Standard Guide to Grading British Coins' but to this extent I am still none the wiser. I suppose it’s like buying a car, to the seller the car can look in great condition but to the purchaser it can look ok, until the time you want to sell the car after you have purchased it. Mark The correct price for a coin with whatever percentage of lustre (or in any other grade for that matter) is what the buyer is happy to pay. This obviously varies from person to person. You can't have a binding, fixed recommended retail price for coins any more than you can for any other item.

But they do say that copper prices in UNC are for examples with full lustre, so that covers BU. cf. p.446 in the 2009 tome.

Not necessarily.

Because the cost of silver dipped brass is considerably cheaper than pure silver. Originally the coin would have had a silver wash applied to make it pass as a genuine 5/- piece. The silver price at this time fluctuated considerable. The initial used of countermarked 8 reales pieces wer made current for 4/9 in 1797, but by 1800 the silver price was 5/6 for the same thing. The 1804 5/- dollar was current for what it said, but by the end of the decade was up at around 5/6 again. Brass is not really obviously less dense than silver when weighed in the hand, so there would have been a good chance of the counterfeiter succeeding in getting them into the market place unless the recipient was able to compare with a genuine piece.

The standard of the legends on this first issue farthing was fairly dire. It would probably be correct to say that a coin with evenly spaced and aligned single cut letters is a comparative rarity. Most have the legend recut, frequently at odd angles. The second mark is due to clashed dies where the machinery has operated without a blank between the dies. This has resulted in an impression of Britannia's shoulder (from the reverse die) being punched onto the obverse die which has therefore been present on all subsequent impressions taken from this die. Again, quite a common feature.

£50 is too much. Grade I'd put at about VF for wear but with the dings knock it back to the gFine price. It looks to have had a clean in the past too. Try about £10 max to buy, less to sell.

This quote from his sales pitch seems a bit cheeky. Although many businesses make additional profits on shipping & handling, I find it distasteful and therefore refuse to do so. For individual raw coins it will always be 60¢ to anywhere in the U.S. and $1 to anywhere outside the U.S. . The opening price of $5000 is clearly not OTT. I was going to say that it probably is the only 1670 farthing listed, but if you look hard you should be able to find another - incorrectly described as a 1672, 1673 etc. and in a suitably dire grade

You can if the book is wrong

I think I'll have 5 lots of 10@£19 please and not 50 for £96

They seem true to their blurb. They buy a £50 coin, slab it and call it a £100 coin. (see other thread where you can buy a 1967 2/6d for £25 or whatever). The investment in my opinion is theirs. They buy coins at regular prices and then double them because they have put a number on the individual coin. Nice money if you can get it, but a bit disingenuous for the inexperienced punter who is the person most likely to be drawn into this on investment grounds. His investment will only double if the market as a whole rises in line because collectors in general will not pay a vast premium for something they are able to grade for themselves and so price accordingly. They are trying to drive the market higher by claiming an elite product. As has been said many times before, do your homework and the third party's homework becomes irrelevant.

Slabbed coins may enjoy a markedly higher resale value in the US, but I do not believe that is the case in the UK and in fact the opposite may be true. I always knock a bit off a slabbed coin if I am buying it for the collection because you don't know what the edge is going to be like when extracted. I have a few pieces that had edge defects hidden by the holder so now err on the side of caution. If the slab is for resale then that is a different matter because the risk of a dodgy edge is passed to the purchaser.

I like my coins to be available for research. All that goes out the window when you can no longer check for over cut lettering, traces of an underlying coin or even check whether the edge is correct. As for weighing it to compare with a known coin's weight - forget it. The idea of a slabbed photo is a non starter for the reasons outlined by Red Riley.

I don't think it would make much difference in the case of a unique or nearly so coin. If the grades look similar in the picture, a collector looking for an upgrade already has experience of what a particular grade looks like, so any unexpected increase in attributed grade is likely to be down to TPG inconsistency. If that person doesn't have a clue then it doesn't matter what the grade is on the slab, he will buy it at the going price and have a shock, pleasant or otherwise when the time comes to sell. We can't live in a nanny state. Establishing personal views on rarity is a fundamental part of research, that is why I have a library of a few thousand catalogues. Again, we can't live a life free of the dangers of the market place. If I make a miscalculation in the price I pay or am prepared to pay based on misguided research then it is a case of mea culpa. I certainly don't expect others to think for me. It's why I don't win as many lots as I would like. I may know a coin is rare, but not having done a definitive check on the population frequently end up bidding short. It is also why I am prepared to bid more for some pieces than apparent logic may dictate. I concede that the slabbed populations do give an indication of relative rarity, but only at the top end because lower grade coins aren't worth the expense in general. A reduction in the number of points between MS60 and MS70 would be more beneficial in my view. If you were to group 63 & 64, 65 & 66, and 67 and over you would end up with something like good extremely fine, unc and gem, though arguments would always ensue as to whether mine is better than yours etc. When it comes to grading, that found on ebay can be disregarded. We all know that the average seller knows little or nothing about grading and if obviously cleaned or hairlined there isn't a problem except for the unitiated. We also know that some dealers are better at grading than others. (I sent back two pieces today that were overgraded). Regarding the grades found in old catalogues, this has long been known to be variable. Examples exist of both under or overgrading throughout history, and so an indicator saying it is better than usual for the type is very helpful. A good example is a hammered halfcrown I bought just over a month ago. In Montagu it was graded VF, in Hamilton-Smith an unusually fine specimen, in Lockett mint state, in Willis very fine and Lloyd Bennett gave it good very fine or better. That is a fairly diverse set of opinions; I settled for somewhere around gVF because as usual parts were not fully struck up, yet other parts had only the tiniest amount of cabinet friction. Another point to consider in old catalogues is that collecting copper or small silver was considered somewhat oddball by the main salerooms and dealers, so it is likely that their grading of these items was equally contemptuous. Inconsistency is not a new problem, and the latest examples thrown up by the TPGs and others are just a modern incarnation of an old problem. It is something that will never be resolved to everyone's satisfaction. In my view the ideal solution would be for all collectors to learn adequately and all sellers be required to take back pieces within a certain time limit if the customer is not happy. Make both parties responsible for their actions and don't leave it to a third party. Sadly it will never happen though because people are both lazy and greedy.

In unabbreviated English meaning what? Sorry old chap, I don't understand your acronym.

The basic principle of the TPG system was sound up to a point. I can see that some people don't feel comfortable assigning grades themselves, though it would be better if they took the time to do research even if it was just a case of getting a bag of 1967 pennies, doing their own grading and submitting the same to a TPG or other individuals for an alternative opinion. In the view of some it eliminates the cowboy operator and grader, though this can be overcome by the purchaser having knowledge of the coins in question and if coins are only bought from reputable dealers or individuals that will always offer things on approval then there isn't a problem. The TPGs do provide some degree of consistency, but have too many outlying data points for me to place their opinion above my own. The dangers of the TPG system I see as follows: People take their word as gospel and don't question attribution, grades etc. The system is not infallible, otherwise it would never result in a change of grade when resubmitting the same coin. The difference in grades assigned from one company to another is not a problem if standards are consistently applied, but this has to be tempered by the fact that they are all allegedly using the same Sheldon system. The overwhelming belief in the system particularly in the US has resulted in their defining the grade and ballpark value of a specific coin because it has a number - a policy that has been emulated by CGS over here too. Consequently it is a triumph of marketing managers over common sense IMHO. The TPGs claim not to slab coins that have been cleaned yet will still grade those that have been cleaned chemically (dipped) - I fail to see the distinction. As for the guaranteeing of a coin being genuine, this sits rather uncomfortably with their frequent inability to identify the coin or the variety correctly and so the phrase "caveat emptor" applies equally to their slabs. All of which I have previously expressed elsewhere. As regards pegging the relative values of rarities, it will always depend on supply and demand. 100 people chasing a unique coin will always result in a higher price relative to its peers than a unique coin in a series that has a limited following. So pennies which were always available in higher quantities and grades than halfpennies were always collected preferentially. The farthing's popularity was I think down to nostalgia originally, as the same principle applied at the end of the silver 3d. There is no doubt that the publication of population study data has an effect of values too because it highlights which varieties are difficult to get and so chases up the price. Ultimately every dog has its day and so with different denominations, eras or varieties being popular at different times, the relative cost/value of equally rare pieces will fluctuate. Values will also vary according to the number of individuals doing research on die varieties. Once a few people have done the same research and drawn the same opinions regarding rarity, they will also chase the price higher.