Peckris

By the same now-broke-but-certified individual??

I've often wondered why low grade (or common) coins are submitted for grading. Could it be that CGS UK give discounts for bulk submissions? Or perhaps, some people are just deluded into thinking that their coin is the best out there. They haven't necessarily been submitted by a paying customer. They slabbed some themselves to get the populations up, particularly the cheap items. Expensive coins are a different matter as you have to spend money to acquire the coin in the first place, so some of these can be reasonably assumed to be from paying customers but it would be wrong to assume that all are. Thanks Nick, Rob. That one small scratch does seem to give the game away. Presumably CGS - if they have recorded some low-value coins themselves to boost populations - took photos and have all the statistical documentation, but may not have incurred the expense of actual slabbing? Unless they decided to 'sell on' the slabbed items at a fattish profit to recoup expenses. One does wonder though, why they would bother to boost the population of something like 1929 halfcrowns, unless it was some kind of statistical self-aggrandisement. (I.e. the total number of CGS slabs done to date...)

It's not that Colin - in the slab it looks a bit worn, i.e. EF maximum, but outside it looks not only UNC but most lustre too. It is the same coin though (the tiny scratches and specs in the patina match up). It shows that it's possible to flatter a coin simply by choice of angle of lighting. How can you be sure Nick? The pictures aren't that big (it's one time where "azda size" images would actually help ). I can't make out any scratches at all. As for the toning, the dark patch surrounding GEO is the same on both, but the similar dark patch around REX on the right, doesn't appear on the unslabbed picture (left). Also, there appears to be loads of lustre on the left, but none at all on the right. The only way to completely 'kill' lustre is via scanning, but the slabbed picture must be a photo not a scan. Either way, I wonder at the seller paying £10 to slab a sub-£30 coin - its population rating of 9th out of 9 comes as no surprise at all. What is surprising is that 9 people have bothered to pay CGS to slab a 1929 halfcrown! CGS have made £90 minimum out of that particular exercise. "Nice work if you can get it".

It's not that Colin - in the slab it looks a bit worn, i.e. EF maximum, but outside it looks not only UNC but most lustre too.

You would make an excellent TV critic with that kind of attention to detail! I AM an excellent TV critic! Call round any evening and I'll give you a demonstration

Here's an oddity from the same seller : http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1929-George-V-50-Sterling-Silver-Halfcrown-CGS-EF-60-/290568189198?pt=UK_Coins_BritishMilled_RL&hash=item43a736b50e#ht_3911wt_953 Scroll down to the pictures below the picture of George V etc. Do you agree that the coin obverse in the CGS capsule looks - as graded and advertised - to be only EF, whereas the same coin (apparently) pictured obverse / reverse on a black background, appears to be UNC?

"Antiques and Collectables", often in the SW? Glenn Ogden present?

Looking at the way the blue is precisely on all four crowns, but has also slightly 'crept' over the raised top of two shields and contaminated a few random harp strings, I'm thinking it's probably artificial. Having said that, it's certainly not unattractive, but I'd want to see it in 6 months', a year's, time and check if it's still the same.

The eBay gallery picture looks fine, but the seller's pictures won't load at all.

I'm afraid if the coin has "a great deal of mint lustre", then there isn't much you can do. Having said that, olive oil is the least invasive thing you can do, but you should monitor it regularly and pull it out at the first sign of any deterioration. If it didn't have lustre, my advice would have been : leave overnight in blasamic vinegar. This will lighten the whole tone of the coin quite a lot, apart from the verdigris patches which will be converted to darker patches with the green all gone. The coin can then be washed carefully, dried, and thinly coated with olive oil as a finishing touch (you wipe off most of the oil leaving only a lustrous sheen). If you can live with the lightening, this is an effective way of dealing with green. Needless to say, practise your technique on a low value coin!

OY!!!!! 'Ave I bin wasting me time posting the last two years??? I'll come rahnd yer 'ouse and shove me wit right where the sun don't shine

£440 for a BU 1865/3 ???? Shome mishtake surely?

i struggle to understand him. ive heard though that rioters have stormed jdsports in walthamstow, apparantly theyre taking back the arsenal shirts they nicked last month ski

Rendel (Ingram) is pretty reliable - if he says it's a proof I think you can be confident that it is. As for rims on something like that - if the milling goes evenly from edge to edge, without a chamfering fall-off towards the rim edge, and if the rim edges feel sharp to the touch, then it stands a good chance of being a proof if all other factors are in place. You'd have to see and 'handle' the coin to be sure though, pictures generally wouldn't do.

It's amazing the number of regional versions of our language..... Your wife is fluent in Englsih, GeoffT uses Englisn and Azda is fluent in ******. Brilliant. Lol, just noticed the TYPO Robert, thank you. I'm fluent in ass kicking ...and wiping

I didn't know you'd found your own Turkish Delight Dave! I don't know the Turkish for "Salaam mw'allykom", but I bet she does! didnt realise peckris that you were fluent in jock.............. And it's improved greatly since King Kenny returned to the fold

ARRRRRASS-waip

How would a Greek bankruptcy affect them, being next door neighbours etc, etc ? Did you really call that nasty man an arsewipe ? They probably have very little exposure to Greece as i) they aren't in the EC, and ii) they hate each others guts. How Turkish banks get round the Islamic ban on charging interest, I don't know, perhaps they just call it something else. And, yes he did. LOL. They're hardly the most Islamist of nations are they! I get the feeling the descendants of Ataturk would rather be entering the Eurovision Song Contest than getting their own Ayatollah.

Gold in top grade with no wear and only a couple of tiny marks will win hands down unless the lower grade piece is an acknowledged rarity whose supply is far outstripped by demand. Spink prices them reasonably similarly as a couple of hundred either way is not really here or there, but 1832 is flagged up as a date for counterfeits, so do some homework before you buy. PS. Why do you wink your wife in public, or is it a coded message? Just because Dave missed an "O" I think it must be a Scottish thing...what with battered mars bars,men wearing skirts,big ginger men,tossing the caber...funny race really. And don't forget dancing on the cutlery, losing their purse when it's their round, thrashing a sphere of rubber bands around the countryside with sticks, and having free care for their disabled and elderly .... WAIT! I'm off up there...

So let's see, what have we got to look forward to... More riots Hunger strikes in Ireland Another pointless war a Miner's strike the Battle of the Beanfield (Dale Farm?) Deregulation of the Financial Industry More riots a nuclear disaster Stock market crash the disintegration of a superpower and the Poll Tax to wrap up the decade... I think it was Mark Twain who said History doesn't repeat itself, but it always rhymes. Do we have a closet FT reader here? Erm, weren't his initials MT ?

If you look at Nick's post above (19th August) he gives reference to 2 Dutch websites which may give more information? (You will need to use Google Translate, unless you're a fluent Dutch speaker - I'm only conversant with Double Dutch myself )

So let's see, what have we got to look forward to... More riots Hunger strikes in Ireland Another pointless war a Miner's strike the Battle of the Beanfield (Dale Farm?) Deregulation of the Financial Industry More riots a nuclear disaster Stock market crash the disintegration of a superpower and the Poll Tax to wrap up the decade... I think it was Mark Twain who said History doesn't repeat itself, but it always rhymes. What I can't understand is the the powers that be not banning all these loan firms,ambulance chasing,miss selling etc and actually spin doctoring UK products. Everything is being produced in Asia from computors to pencils and shipped into the UK in vast containers.The French would be blocking the ports. Even Dr Martens and Dyson cleaners are being manufactured in the far east. There will be more riots because the masses are envying their neighbours. The financial industry is bent but this has always been the case its a natural human trait. OK lets bring back the 80's.In the early 80's I was single,no £ pressure,Ipswich Town were Englands best team .I had lads holidays I had a motorbike,I could abuse my body and still get down the pub the next lunchtime....it wasn't all bad. I'm afraid the powers that be ARE the loan firms, insurance companies, manufacturers and importers, and the masses are farmed for their envy and subsequently, their debt. The masses are of no use to the PTB unless they are consuming, preferably on borrowed money. Government is merely the legislative arm of the financial industry. Thank the Lord we still have - in theory - an independent judiciary.

The ruler was very helpful - from the rim, it was either going to be a 1797 'Cartwheel' penny or twopence copper coin. From the dimensions, I can tell you that it's the penny. In that condition (just about as bad as it could be!) it is only worth copper value. But the story behind them is of interest : No regal base metal coins were struck after 1775 and there was a dire shortage of small change. To get round this, copper tokens were struck by different manufacturers and companies, mostly for the value of a halfpenny, though there are some pennies, farthings and other values. Some of these tokens were struck by Matthew Boulton using machinery he'd developed with James Watt. These were of superior quality and he eventually won a government contract to strike the 1797 regal base metal coins. However, they had to contain their own value of copper, hence the size and why they became known as Cartwheels - the raised rim makes them very distinctive. As copper increased in price, so later strikings (halfpennies, farthings 1799; pennies, halfpennies, farthings 1806-7) reduced in size. Eventually - in the Great Recoinage of 1816 it was decreed that the coinage would be 'token', i.e. didn't have to contain its own value of metal. From 1820 (again, no base metal coins between 1807-1820), a standard size for coppers was introduced and persisted until the change-over to bronze in 1860. My avatar is the reverse of a 1797 twopence, rather dramatised - including inverting - in Photoshop!

LOL. If one of them was much scarcer than the other, THEN I'd be interested - that's my pathology! (It's why 1937 micro-varieties leave me entirely cold)