VickySilver

Is he saying he wants you to fly there for the coin? A lot of detail and hassle, and more than suspicious. Bottom line with these fellows remains the same as always : "There is no Santa Claus in Numimatics". I don't have too many to add as I have pretty much stuck to the same sellers. I do know of a fellow who bought some years ago an 1838 currency sovereign that turned out to be a milled edge proof, and bought at 1250 pounds! So a bargain to be had every now and then as well...

Wow, that sounds pretty blatant and worse than anything I have experienced on the 'bay! I have noticed that there has been rather a dearth of material on ebay, and have gotten very little of consequence for a year or more. Who was the seller?

Rob, I have had to send back a number of coins to them and so do not bid with them any more. There seemed to be cleaning and overgrading that naturally concerned me as I was seeking individual coins for my collection. I always still like to look but no touchee....

Hi Mat, Yes, some very high prices. I still think that the single coin lot rarities such as the 1860/59 penny that you describe are the better deal when compared to tubs full of dirty old bronze and copper. I got the W&W catalogue but don't have recall as to just how nice the overdate penny was but seem to recall perhaps GVF or EF (?). Just how much is fair for these? A GEF piece with some lustre and no real wear may be a fair buy at 3k in my opinion but as wear levels pick up I think the price should fall. IMO (in my opinion) F should go for about 1k, VF for 1800, EF 2400-2600, GEF 3k-3200 & possibly up to 4k for a really nice specimen. I have not ever seen one that I thought was truly mint state uncirculated and that is partly the nature of this overdate which seems to come complete with clash marks and soft struck Britannia, etc. Overall quite scarce but not exceptionally rare. Another will come along with more favorable terms I should think. E.D.

London Coins have now posted CGS certified coins for sale on their website. I was struck by the numbers of coins now listed, but then noted that most were of a more common sort that have now been encapsulated and priced upwards in most cases rather aggressively. Rather scarcer examples struck with the same (editorial) malady would be the 1868 florin at 1500 pounds, and the 1934 crown at 6000 pounds. I had thought that this new grading scheme was not going anywhere and perhaps being abandoned but evidently this is not the case, at least for this firm. I am just not at all sure that the product is worth the premium and it seems inspired by the American "third party grading" (TPG) firms. BTW, I can not see how they are third party since they sell coins that they grade and this might represent a conflict. What say you?

Well, 28 ounces of silver at L8.50 would seem to leave Chris's offer in good stead. On the other hand ebay may be able to get 335-375 perhaps.

These "bits" (hardly so) sell for 625 USD or better on ebay. That might be worth a go. The Aussie 10kg Year of the Dog appears for sale in an upcoming Stack's sale with an estimate of 7k USD - hard to tell what it might bring but that is 22 pounds of coin!

That will probably go 25k pounds, at least.

Norweb collection had this bit on sale some 20 years ago; the catalogues are invaluable. I can not imagine the price it would fetch nowadays!