1949threepence

There's one I'm thinking of buying. It is rare but has several deepish obverse digs across the portrait. Otherwise VF. Don't like the digs, but overall I prefer them over the cleaned one of the same year I currently possess. Won't post a link as the seller is on this forum, and I don't have his permission to do so. Be different once I've bought, if I decide to do so.

Frugal Victorians Peter. You also have to remember that they were striking for currency users not us poor coin collectors. Basically, if it hadn't flown to bits it was still serviceable. How many Victorian (and earlier) coins have you seen with great die cracks running across them. Its days were numbered but if it could still produce a few more coins then they just kept banging away. Nowadays labour represents a high percentage of a manufacturers cost but then it was cheap, so better to pay someone a pittance to recut a die rather than throw it away and start on a new one. There seem to be many more die cracks prior to the mid 1870's ~ or is that my imagination ? (certainly as far as pennies are concerned)

OK, thanks Gents. Doesn't hit you in the eye.

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I can see, it doesn't have a Freeman number, not, at any rate in the 1985 edition. On page 51, all he says is:- "Some specimens of 1897 with reverse B are found with a small circular dot between the 'O' and 'N' of 'ONE'. This feature occura as a result of damage to the die - a specimen showing only a small crack on this area has been found. It's beyond me why anybody would pay over £1200 for a die error.

It's one thing spotting a mis-attribution. It's quite another getting it rectified after pointing it out. As with other areas of life, people seem unwilling to take it on board when their errors are pointed out, even if supported by hard evidence.

If you want to read about curved R's on shillings, look no further than the part of Michael Gouby's site shown here

There is an interesting piece on shillings here Gives a good indication of what is scarce and what to look for. I did read somewhere that the first year in which silver coins were debased from 92% silver to 50% silver ~ 1920, also saw a large number being mixed with melted down world war 1 spent shell cartridges, so that "silver" coins from that year appear a slightly darker colour than normal due specifically to that. Obviously many of the Edward VII shillings are scarce, but with George V, there are a scattering of semi scarce dates, but no real rarities. Interestingly, it is quite difficult to get hold of a truly UNC 1924, even though the mintage, at just over 9 milliion, is not that low. I did eventually manage to get one, but I faced a lot of competition for it, and I've not seen any that good since. You are right to be wary of fake or tooled 1905 shillings, Debbie. There are a lot about. I'd never buy one from e bay. Oh, and never buy anything from China either. Anything from there comes with a strict health warning !!!

The link article is less than useless. It gives the equivalent of a US AU50 as a UK XF/UNC and a US MS60 as a UK UNC. I've never seen an MS60 that even approached unc, and as for AU50, well........ As far as the descriptions of the three slabbed coins I've bought from the US are concerned, including the 1888 above, the descriptions were spot on. It's a bit incongruous to try and compare it to our grading system, as you are in no way comparing like with like. I thought it was already commonly accepted that their grading was more generous than ours. Yes it is amongst those with experience, but the purpose of any info is expand the knowledge of the ignorant. By definition, they will not know that there are different standards. Mint state from two countries would mean the same thing to someone who is a novice and that is why we have to keep reiterating the point. Well, yes, but obviously, if someone has a slabbed coin with MS70 on it, they will need a Sheldon score interpretation as a starting reference point. To that extent, it is useful.

Strangely enough i'd say they were a little light with the grade on that, but it was'nt in my hand when it was graded, but it does look good Hmm. Might have to dissent from this viewpoint. Spotty on both sides and a rather heavy bagmark below the ties. I thought both those features would count against a coin when you have it slabbed. The strike looks ok. It would be interesting to see the coin in 10 years time. I suspect the spots might have grown a bit. I wonder what they looked like in 2001

The link article is less than useless. It gives the equivalent of a US AU50 as a UK XF/UNC and a US MS60 as a UK UNC. I've never seen an MS60 that even approached unc, and as for AU50, well........ As far as the descriptions of the three slabbed coins I've bought from the US are concerned, including the 1888 above, the descriptions were spot on. It's a bit incongruous to try and compare it to our grading system, as you are in no way comparing like with like. I thought it was already commonly accepted that their grading was more generous than ours.

Another nice link to the Sheldon grading system can be seen here For reference, the above is a coin slabbed by the NGC (Numismatic Guaranty Corporation) as MS65

Simple ~ use the link symbol, which is next to the smiley face in the post tool bar, and when you have inserted your link in the top line, add you own text, as you would like the link wording to appear, in the box below, which defaults to "my link" when nothing else is written in there. So for your link above, you might have:- George V shilling

Actually that obverse is not at all bad. I'd certainly run with EF for both sides, but what I notice about that one, is the decent hair detail on the King's head. I've got a complete date run of mostly UNC shillings from 1902 to 1936, but my 1915, although BU, has very poor hair detail, in common with many from that year and 1916, in particular ~ probably due to the fact that during the years of the first world war, minting processes were probably not up to the same standards as usual, maybe finances were stretched, and thus, worn out dies were used.

Simple. As you have noticed, Paypal do random checks to prevent fraud. I had a lot of money in the Paypal account which I wanted out. They deemed my bank account to be suspect and wanted further verification despite already having info that met their requirements and in fact the transfers had worked well for a few years prior to the problem. I explained the situation to them, but this fell on deaf ears. For 3 months emails traded back and forth (about 30 in total), but it proved impossible to speak to a human being to discuss the problem. Phoning Paypal transferred you to a call centre in India who said I had to email, which was ignored, who said I had to phone in,etc. etc. After 3 months have passed from the start of the process you can refer a dispute to the ombudsman. This I did and in addition sent a courtesy email to Paypal saying I had passed the case over as it wasn't in any danger of being resolved. Within 10 minutes, I had a call from Paypal (based in ireland at the time if I remember correctly) accusing me of not trying to resolve the problem. I pointed out that if he had bothered to read even a handful of the emails, the problem could have been resolved a few months previously. He said, as a goodwill gesture they were going to transfer the funds as I had requested and that I shouldn't post the letter (actually a parcel of a kg or two) to the ombudsman. I said too late, it's gone. 10 minutes later I had a call saying they were going to make an ex-gratia payment into the same dodgy bank account that hitherto was too suspect to use. So much for concern about security and fraud!! Basically, it looks like emails were filed in the bin on the assumption that you would back down, but I didn't believe in giving Paypal a one-off donation and just kept plodding away. All could have been resolved easily if Paypal did customer service by allowing you to speak to a human being. Given nobody sets up an intentionally useless business model, the only indication of service is how a problem gets resolved. In this they palpably failed. I still would have preferred a service that I could use with confidence as it means that I can't sell via ebay because I still use the same dodgy bank account and so presumably the problem would resurface if I tried to sell via ebay again. My wife still sells on ebay occasionally because it is unquestionably a good way to shift oddball things that would otherwise have to go to a car boot, but only at a level whereby the funds received are outweighed by the money we typically spend on ebay purchases. For our security and peace of mind, this is kept to a minimum. Did you ever get to find out why paypal considered your bank account to be dodgy ? I would still have gone to the ombudsman, with that being question No 1.

I appreciate the need for paypal to be careful about fraud, but that zeal makes life exceedingly difficult for perfectly innocent users who make genuine errors.

Good fine....perhaps. The reverse is significantly better than the obverse, which is not only well worn, but also has a number of score marks on it. It's OK if you can't get anything better, and with 1849, that may well be the case for many

Incredible when you consider that at the time of its production, it sold for cents.

Didn't actually see that, whats the number or link? It's this one Dave: 170735096854 I've been wishing all day I got it! Never mind. Quite unusually, I didn't see it either, so thanks for that reference No.

A rare and welcome treat. Makes all the difference to your experience of the event.

Good luck, Mat

Not much I can add to the excellent posts above, but price always comes down to the supply and demand equation. Even in relative boom times, that can adversely affect areas in which there is a dip in demand/popularity.

Really ? Even old, long since demonetised ones ? Never knew that.

Don't know if I've just been lucky or not, but on the 6 occasions when I've had a coin from abroad (4 USA, 1 Germany & 1 Canada) I've never had to pay any import duty, and the coin has just been delivered as normal. The ones from the USA were variously described, as "gift", "token", "numismatic item" & "British antique coin". Don't recall the other two being marked or described on thr packet.

It doesn't look like a worthwhile investment to me, Dave.

It was. He seemingly had everything to live for. Great job, well off, massively respected, gorgeous wife, and 2 kids. What more could any man want ? But the mind can play strange tricks.