Rob

And the description is a very rare form of English.

This is also debated in the thread "Has the market got out of control" on this forum. The problem is not the top pieces, but the relative crap. There is a surplus of VF-EF pieces in many cases, yet these are being chased up in the mistaken belief that they will hold their value. When the market turns down and only a couple of major players are left they will still want the top couple of pieces, but who will want the rest?

Low start due to the digs on the 1951 1/2d obverse?

Incredible! Did it end up with a dealer or a collector? It wasn't me, my bid of £50 was rejected. Well at least you tried! I thought nearly 170 times face value was overly generous

Incredible! Did it end up with a dealer or a collector? It wasn't me, my bid of £50 was rejected.

It's not Hussulo I'm complaining about, it's the peddlers of non and stale news. Press sites reporting 2 week old news tells me they are struggling to find anything to write about. The forthcoming sale of the double leopard was mentioned on Spink's website a few months ago. First i've heard of this, interesting. So there's three of them now then... interesting, one day perhaps, one day. SOLD FOR £400,000 hammer

Having acquired and assimilated Colin Adams' library following his half crown sale last December, I now have the attached list of books and other items for disposal. There are more to follow. I haven't had time to price them, but a general guide would be the low end of normal commercial prices. Sorry I can't give things away, but I have to defray the not inconsiderable purchase cost. Colin was also a collector of banknotes, so a small number of related items are also available. Anyone interested in specific items please PM me. Thanks. Adams_Library_Duplicates.doc

Am I missing something here? I can find no fault with that listing. I have seen a Charles II half crown dug that was hardly recogniseable, almost diamond shape with rounded edges, but judged to be genuine. Many hammered coins leave the ground completely unrecognisable. Yes you are. When it was first posted on eBay, all his pictures were in iridescent green with virtually no detail. He probably read the thread on this forum and replaced them with good pictures.

Australia were robbed by a cheating Italian who looked for someone laying down to fall over.

It's not Hussulo I'm complaining about, it's the peddlers of non and stale news. Press sites reporting 2 week old news tells me they are struggling to find anything to write about. The forthcoming sale of the double leopard was mentioned on Spink's website a few months ago.

This and the Manx article are hardly news, the auction catalogues came out 2 weeks ago. It will be in the Star, Sun and Mirror next week.

The problem is not the pictures although admittedly they are dire, but being able to trust someone else's judgement and grading given it is impossible to identify any defects and hence sensibly value the piece. If in doubt leave it out is particularly pertinent to ebay listings.

Could be a contemporary forgery in copper with that amount of verdigris

There are 2 main reasons why estimates are low. The first as you say is to get people in, the second reason is that auction houses which are also dealers will offer to buy in unsold lots at a bit less than estimate, so a reduced estimate results in a lower cost to them. Lowering the estimate will minimise the unsold lots of course and so reduce their potential outlay. Too low an estimate also means that some bidders will be discouraged from going too high and so sometimes you can get pieces you want cheaply as I found today.

Hi Rob, Hope it is not too much of a bother but do you know what the 1864 xlet, 1869, and 1871 pennies went for? Thanks, Eric

Only lightly hammered, there's still pretty good detail remaining.

Looking at the prices for today's DNW sale, a lot of things went for an awful lot of money. Lot 99 for an 1877 penny F90 which admittedly is rare (Freeman says R18), but is it worth a hammer price of £3100 for a piece in fair? The estimate by the way was £50-100.

1854 is a valid date. It's possible that you could have an overstruck digit but it would be better if you posted a picture. Any character can in theory be struck over any other character as it is not necessarily the use of an old die. It could be the result of a punching error and therefore it doesn't have to be the preceding number. There is no connection between overstruck digits and grade. so I'm not sure what you mean in the last sentence.

Now that the footiefest is well and truly underway, does anyone have anything to say about the orgy of intense melodrama occasionally punctuated by moments of footballing genius. I for my part would like to see Budweiser do the football and FIFA the beer as both would likely be improved.

Is it a brown gilt and does it have the RENDER edge? If so it looks like a P966. What is the die axis on this piece? I would like to know because normally P964-6 (silver plated, gilt and brown gilt) are inverted but P967 & 968 (bronzed and copper) are en medaille which suggests a different striking period. I posted about this last year.

..and? We need pictures! I bought the 1860 Weyl tin farthing to make up a set as issued which was my primary aim. Probably unique, they all came out of the same Glens sale on 15/12/93 and are probably Murdoch 3 lots 689 or 690 (part). I also bought the young head copper uniface trial ex- Murdoch 3 lot 675.

My lots came today.

Firstly it's not a penny as these were too small to accommodate the declaration. Secondly, usually there was OX on Oxford mint coins with OXON only found on the Rawlins crown (I think). A note in Spink suggests that there are a lot of electrotypes and copies of this piece. This is not surprising as Spink 2006 gives prices in Fine and Very Fine as £12500 and £37500 respectively. Post a picture together with details of size and weight if possible and it should be possible to ascertain what you have.

they come back again and again

In any coin series there are certain dates and varieties that might be exceptionally rare in mint state (the 1827 penny for example). In the US, we've taken this concept of condition rarity to the extreme where we actually differentiate rarities based on eleven grades of mint state ranging from 60 to 70. There are even "population reports' on the numbers of each variety encapsulated at the various mint state grade levels (60 to 70) and many collectors and dealers religiously follow and rely on these reports to determine how "rare" a coin might be, for example, in MS-65 versus MS-64. So even a very common coin of which millions were struck and of which millions are known in mint state can be considered "rare" because very few have been awarded an MS-65 versus an MS-64. This is a purely artificial definition of rarity created to enrich the grading services and the dealers whom they serve. Oftimes many thousands of dollars are lost and gained on the basis of such nonsense. So on that basis, a coin graded Crap02 must be phenomenally rare, certainly rarer than mint state pieces. There is hope for my circulated 1967 penny yet.