1949threepence

Pleased to meet you Mr President

I wouldn't be surprised if he bought the 1869 + the 1864, for a negotiated price of $2000 for the pair. Time will tell Mike Well if he did buy the 1864, it's not on sale yet. In fact there's not much at all on his e bay page at present.

So was it cleaned again after the first sale, or is the startingly different appearance down to varying photographic takes ?

I wouldn't be surprised if he bought the 1869 + the 1864, for a negotiated price of $2000 for the pair.

Some nice items there. I see you've even got an example of Edward VIII which are generally very rare, although I've no idea about the one you've got.

You're right, Dave, the 1869 was on sale initially from jmb4home at $1400, but in the last few weeks he reduced it to $1350 still as a buy it now. I know, because I'd got a shortcut to it, and was keeping an eye on it. I'd been toying with the idea of going for it myself, and was hoping the pound would rise against the dollar. The $1350 is the last buy it now offer price. MP obviously contacted jmb4home (John Bailey) and negotiated a private purchase outside of e bay. How much reduced from $1350 that was, is anybody's guess. But I wonder if he also bought this very nice 1864 as part of the deal at a collectively reduced price for the pair. Pure speculation on my part. I concede I may be completely wrong. But it would make sense given that John sends out a monthly stock list to all his previous customers, which includes coins already on e bay.

I wish. That was when I lived on the Kent/Sussex borders. Now that I have relocated to North Essex, I find I am living in a beer desert. IPA and Woodfordes Wherry ? Exceedingly poor fare. Guilty of absence sir - it's taken me a while to adjust to the new lifestyle. Hopefully becoming more settled now and might even resume the penny collecting. Then again, I might look at something else because I don't have the money I once had and I notice prices haven't come down. How's the dealing coming along ? Anywhere near my home town, Chelmsford, 400 ?

Yes, Declan, I have & as you say, the coins are breathtaking.

I always found the Russian national anthem (which is the same as the old Soviet Union one, but with different words) quite inspiring, and in truth, pretty much all the national anthems globally, are better than ours. It is, as others have said, a dreary and tedious dirge. There are so many pieces from home grown composers which could easily be adapted to form a new national anthem. To take just two examples, Walton's "Crown Imperial", or maybe Elgar's "Pomp & Circumstance March No 4". Even the hymns "Jerusalem" or "I vow to thee my country" are better than what we have at present.

Actually, thinking about it, have you thought of putting some of your stuff on e bay, Derek. You might shift one or two bits of stock that are presently just sitting there dormant, as it were. I do sell the bum end of various bulk lots on e-bay but that's about it at present. I know it is not unusual for coins to sit in dealers' trays for many a year and that's okay, these pieces can happily hang around with prices periodically adjusted to reflect market trends until the right buyer comes along. I had considered starting an e-bay shop but for the moment I am happy with my website. Like many dealers I do frequently buy coins on e-bay which I consider to be undervalued and this has so far been reasonably successful both in terms of buying in and selling on. I have however noticed a trend away from items being sold in the auction format towards Buy It Nows which, if it continues could restrict the supply of stock to the trade. Indeed. Like the EF1865 5 over 3 penny, which is currently going for £450 as a BIN. Maybe slightly underpriced ? There are, however, several very nice high end auction pennies being sold by Mr Martin Platt !!! An EF 1868, a GVF 1869, an absolutely gorgeous BU 1888, and an UNC 1895 2mm. + 1860 & 1869 nUNC Gothic Head florins. The 1895 2mm, is alreay at £620 with 2 days to go.

Very interesting post. Thanks for the info.

I'm not trying to start an argument here and should perhaps decline to answer your question as others have done, as this is a bit of a touchy subject, but the above is not correct. The United Kingdom is the combination of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland and was created in c.1707. The English portion consisted of England and its two provinces of Wales and Ireland which had been acquired by England sometime after the Norman invasion but before 1707. Both are geographical areas and were never counties as they consisted of many independent tribes, much as England had been prior to the Norman conquest. Today neither have parliaments, rather regional assemblies. Further correction. Wales for centuries has not been a 'province' but a 'Principality'. (Viz., the Prince of Wales). I'm not sure what Ireland's status was in 1707, but Northern Ireland has certainly been a province since the formation of the Irish Free State. The status of the government of N Ireland has changed several times : the parliament at Stormont was suspended in the 1970s during 'the Troubles' and direct rule from Westminster was imposed. But now government has been reintroduced from Stormont with direct elections. The British Isles includes the whole of Ireland (merely a geographical entity). Britain refers to England, Scotland, Wales and the islands. Great Britain refers to the same with the addition of N. Ireland. I certainly inadvertently started something here. Isn't it the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland ? That was always my understanding.

Actually, thinking about it, have you thought of putting some of your stuff on e bay, Derek. You might shift one or two bits of stock that are presently just sitting there dormant, as it were.

There are a plethora of fake £1 coins. You'll have no difficulty locating them in your change if you keep a sharp lookout. I can't imagine many fakes of lower denomination values as it would hardly be worth the effort, their value is so low. Although as stated earlier, there are some pre 1997 fake 50p's about. Haven't yet spotted a fake £2 coin. No doubt the bi metallic is difficult to fake.

No, I'd say it was a deep score mark.

Sounds like typical e bay seller routine. Don't worry, most of us can see through it.

On the face of it, a fantastic concept. Indeed, anything that will go some way towards breaking the power of the current banking system, is to be strongly applauded. Global banking has become way too powerful and arrogant in recent decades. I can see this idea catching on in the years to come, but I'd like to actually see it in action and in a more generally recognised way, before I tried it myself.

I've received 3 in my change, so I wish only 25,000 had been minted !!! Actually the true figure is 3,903,000 ~ see Royal Mint mintage figures here I'm obviously looking at the wrong websites Easily done, Phil. I've been there myself !!! If you want a really scarce modern coin, look out for the Kew Gardens 2009 50p. Only 10,000 minted for circulation. Now that's rare

Well done Mat It pays to be persistent and to present a hard to argue against, logical case.

I've received 3 in my change, so I wish only 25,000 had been minted !!! Actually the true figure is 3,903,000 ~ see Royal Mint mintage figures here

It's because the £1 is the only coin that's useful. To buy a 75p can of coke,for example, you have a few choices: Ridiculous numbers of 1 and 2ps which are now worth pretty much zilch, while when it was new it was worth closer to 20p now. A handful of silver coins or just the plain old pound. Personally I prefer to carry around a few pounds in case I need anything and fling the change in the penny jar to go to the bank in 5 years time. One of the flourishing shops in Aber is poundland - and you can bet there's a lot of pound coins being battered in there. The pound coin is just handy. It's easy to buy things, saves carrying around awkward and useless change everywhere and I admit it's the only coin I carry around with me. Nowadays, notes and plastic are the only real money - coins aren't as useful to people these days as they were in 1971. Using a worth calculator, I can see that if I took a 50p coin back to 1971 and wanted to know how how much spending power I had, it would be something between £5 and £10. We only have coins with the spending power of <£2 and now anything £1 or over is pretty much worthless making the only coins useful 50p, £1 and £2. I'd just about add the 20p to that list. It's small enough to be not a nuisance, but large enough to handle without the difficulty of the 5p, and of sufficient spending power to still mean something in relatively small multiples. 100% agree with the rest of your post.

Sorry to bump this old thread, but I noticed it whilst looking for something else, and had to say something. I think we've long reached the stage in this country where the £1.00 coin is probably the most heavily circulated of all the coins. Conversely, the 1p, 2p & to some extent the 5p, are spending protracted periods sitting in jars being saved up to pay in bulk to a bank, or otherwise not being used. This is why it's still relatively easy to find a lustred circulation 1990 1p, but virtually impossible to find the same in a 1990 £1.00, for example.

It was the difference between the coin types displayed between the two options in your earlier link, that I was referring to. Using "search by criteria" under "United Kingdom", the only denomination options displayed are euros. Conversely, using "Great Britain" gives you the expected options, including pre-decimal.

Absolutely excellent with every type/variety listed. Mind, I had to take the little video course, as navigation wasn't obvious at first. Also big difference between "United Kingdom" and "Great Britain".

Had to be a PLymouth lighthouse, and a little research confirms this. See here