Peckris

If the size requirements for posting pictures 'direct' to the forum wasn't so stringent, it wouldn't be necessary to use an external host. That, and the fact that the photos appear only as thumbnails which then need to be opened, rather than directly in the post. This makes reading of threads far less comfortable. Ideally, the forum software would 'grab' any images from external sources and save them locally. This would prevent them disappearing in future should they be removed, or their source site disappear. 1. If people would actually follow my advice, or Chris would listen to my plea to post it as a 'Sticky', then the size limit wouldn't seem half so restrictive. 2. I find that far preferable to being directed to an external site, as this forum for some reason insists on using THIS tab when you click, instead of opening the link in a new tab. Showing the external picture directly in the post, as most people do, is the best solution, but the poster has to be a registered member of the other site with all the hassle that involves, plus having to go off there to fetch the link each time. I have no problems with clicking on a thumbnail, then Esc when I've done. With a DSLR camera in A mode, shutter speed will depend on how much light you have. You can also increase the ISO to get a faster shutter speed and a lens/camera that has Vibration Reduction will help as well. Bad wording on my part - what I meant to say is that in A mode, if you choose a small aperture, the CAMERA will select a slow shutter speed.

You're photographing through a slab or a capsule. You need to take the coin out where possible, to get a decent photo (not possible with slabs unfortunately, unless you 'crack it out'). The camera's autofocus will 'see' any mark on the slab/capsule and zero in on that (though the 1903 reverse the camera got it right). The only way around that is to use Aperture Priority (A mode) and choose the largest number you can to get good depth of field (f5.6 - f8 on a compact or superzoom, f11 - f16 on a DSLR). You'll need a tripod as this method will necessitate a slow shutter speed.

You have a short memory. In the late 90s and for a few years after, gold prices collapsed and you could pick up sovereigns for around £50 each. Now it's recovered again, but there will be another cycle. Please, believe me, there is no such thing as a continuously expanding market (meaning - "you can't stay ahead of inflation, without peaks and troughs"). Currently it's the worst time to buy, the market is soaring, people panic that they have to buy NOW or they will get left behind. Classic recipe for financial doom, whatever the commodity.

Yes, I'm assuming someone with a military connection brought it back from India. We Brits were the people that put the Princes in power, so presumably had a fair amount of contact. Although it's not terribly clear, the coin even says XXV (25) CAH (in blundered script) on it so the English could see what it is. Or a civil servant, or an engineer, or a transport expert, or a missionary, or a teacher, or a scientist, etc etc. We really had a finger in every pie!

And going to that external site was a complete waste of fecking time . Your picture was much much smaller than you would even get here if you followed the advice I gave above. What's worse, I had to use the Goback button about 12 times before I could get back to here. What you need is advice on how to post the image to Photobucket with a link so it appears HERE without our having to leave this site. That's what Dave does, maybe he will explain how to do it? That's what I do too, simply click on the 'IMG code' entry the CTRL + 'v' or right-click paste in here, eh viola! [Mr Punch voice] : "That's the way to do it!"

Agree on the cleaning. On further thought, that probably brings the value down and makes it overpriced. I bought mine (Elizabeth I - Milled coinage; large bust, cross fourchèe, small rose, mm.star) at auction (many years ago) and it was graded at VF+then. While it is always hard to tell from a photo, I thought mine was just a bit better than the ebay one hence why I felt that one might be a VF. Maybe mine is conservatively graded. What do others think? Should it be graded under hammered standards, or early milled, or somewhere in between?! Could we see a pic of your Jaggy? I'm no fan of hammered (post-Saxon) but that one is gorgeous - like an early milled coin and beautifully toned. In fact, if you hadn't referred to it as hammered I would have sworn it was milled. (Oh wait - I just read the description - it IS milled ).

And going to that external site was a complete waste of fecking time . Your picture was much much smaller than you would even get here if you followed the advice I gave above. What's worse, I had to use the Goback button about 12 times before I could get back to here. What you need is advice on how to post the image to Photobucket with a link so it appears HERE without our having to leave this site. That's what Dave does, maybe he will explain how to do it?

That's certainly true of scarce quality items, such as early milled or earlier. Unfortunately, modern coinage is subject to the whims of a capricious market which the guides simply mirror. As for Spink, their catalogue has gone up continuously, but when it was produced by Seaby, it had flatlined for years. They were far too conservative and slow to react while Spink are the opposite. Both unreliable in their own way. Take it from me, there's no such thing as a "continuously increasing market". Just ask Goldman Sachs, Northern Rock, Lehmanns, Lloyds TSB, HBOS, and all the other scoundrels who couldn't believe their luck from 1997 to 2008. ALL bubbles burst.

OMG - I opened up and read your post, had a look at the time on my computer, and it said !8:26:48 !!! (Good job I am not interested in Lizzy 1 coins )

Probably not unique - here's one on eBay with a BIN of £25.

Wait another 16 years and you will be all set Mind you, by then some of us will be too old to care...

Wow, thank you for the quick reply. How this obscure Indian coin made it to the grounds of small village church is anyone's guess? Rather than solving a mystery, you may have made an even bigger one for us. This certainly gives me more to read up about. Thanks again for the information! Perhaps less of a mystery when you realise the British ruled India until 1948.

Very instructive video. Incredible that you actually see rainbow toned coins slabbed by the big TPGs (though not by CGS, to my knowledge). Avoid at all cost! Hear hear.

This is a standard FoB crown with the original box. Perfect condition, £10 max though probably less. sorry rod the ch/unc was ment for the trial n the pcgs cant get a guess on the price of that one Sorry shane - we do insist on English here

Welcome to the forum, jaggy. Always nice to have another sixpence enthusiast on board. An 1868 in UNC is definitely something to cherish, 1868 is certainly in the top 10 rarest years for Victorian sixpences. Many thanks for the welcome. I built up a small collection of sixpences in the 1980s and early 1990s. Then career and work intervened. I was transferred to New York but my coins didn't follow me until I retired two years ago. So now my plan is to resume building the collection. Of course, social media, message boards, online photos and internet auctions didn't exist when I was last active in this hobby so there is a new environment to get used to. Just seeing if I can make this photo thing work. Sorry for any double posts. But at least you get to see the coin Your second post worked just fine - I could see decent size pictures right here (The first post took me to the Image Shack site and that was rubbish - the zoom icon didn't do a thing so your pictures remained tiny)

Open your picture in Photoshop or any image editor. Reduce the resolution to 72 ppi Reduce the size to somewhere between 600 and 800 pixels square. Save as a JPEG and choose a fairly high compression (5 or 7 out of 12 in Photoshop, or just under "Medium" in others). Then upload here as an attachment. You should be within even the miserly 150k limit.

What in - Eddie the Optimist's price guide? £10 BU in CCGB 2010. May i draw your attention to the small fact that we're now in 2013 Peck. No womder we never see any recent purchases by you if you're bidding on Coins with outdated prices. I'm not saying it will be fantastically risen, but you need to update your Library a little, maybe Buy CCGB 2013 at the very least (scrooge) We may be (just) in 2013, but a 150% price increase in just months is going to bring nothing but grief to anyone who takes it seriously. I remember the late 60s, and I can tell you, the fall after that lasted for 30 years (for coins of that age, I mean).

LOL - I thought exactly the same! I couldn't put my finger on exactly why, perhaps it was my male intuition

Now why did I read that as "nurse" the first time?

Damn right. Peter Viola spotted a fair share of dodgy pieces, and he was probably the only person they took any notice of. Even then, they'd only say something when the lot came up so b*gger all use to postal commission bidders.

Yes, but everybody's different, and most people set their own personal parameters when it comes to collections. I doubt there are many who have every single example/die combination in the bunhead run. But it's their decision to what extent they go, and not up for criticism ~ any more than I would criticise you for your coin collecting/selling choices. You came across so strong in your two posts last night, that I wondered if you had some sort of vested interest in that particular coin. Did you ? I have to confess myself, and I feel that I can, in view of the fact I'm going to be sidestepping the forum for a while, that I can easily relate to a decision to stick to high-grades only, in view of the fact that for most people there is no need to spend large sums on washers, when there is mostly still a number of 'affordable' high-grade coins to accumulate, and I reckon most of us fall into that category! However, when/if a time ever arrives for us humbles, where we have nothing left to spend our money on to complete a collection, then I guess the mega-expensive, low-grade, filler would be a hurdle we would all have to face, and very few of us could honestly predict their actions in that situation. It must surely always seem like a mad concept to any collector to sit a Poor coin in a Top-Flight collection, when there are still numerous other coins to collect in the series? I can only speculate, but gap-filled high-class collections must still irk nearly as much as the original gap? Surely most collectors must set out having psychologically prepared themselves for the fact that a 1933 penny is not going to grace their collection in ANY grade, and equivically, surely a great many others must have done something similar with the other major rarities and, fortunately, have never stressed about it? I for one would not feel niggled at a tray of pennies that numbered 1932, 1934, I would never have attempted the series otherwise! This is a really interesting discussion, and there's no reason for it to be heated or emotionally charged in any way. After all it's just a hobby for most of us, and we come on here to relax I think you've almost hit the nail on the head for me Stuart. I do have some low grade rarities in my collection but, short of the fact that I have them, they provide little visual satisfaction. If really good examples of rare coins appear I'll empty the piggy bank but otherwise I'm probably happier filling in the less-rare gaps with top grade examples than shelling out on washers. The 1882 in question was worn but it was the nasty pock-marks that did it for me. It just didn't excite, no matter how rare. And that's the issue in a nutshell. When you've got a low-grade ultra rarity, the ONLY pleasure comes from saying to yourself "it's very very rare!" - there can be none from looking at it. After all, an 1882 washer with no H looks no different from any other bun penny washer, even an 1882 where the H has worn away. What you'd see is a washer, and you'd just have to keep telling yourself "It's rare!"

What in - Eddie the Optimist's price guide? £10 BU in CCGB 2010.

I don't quite know why, but metal detecting seems quite frivolous to juxtapose with Nazi concentration camps. Yet, if it was done for purely historical reasons, it should not be so. Your problem is that the sores are still too raw.

In the UK you have a mix of letters and numerals. They kept the prefix M exclusively for replacement notes.

Not at all. Apart from the (supposedly) scarce in UNC date 1938, all G6 shillings are pretty easy. That's a weird price, and there are no varieties even.