Peckris

Hi Penguin, welcome to the forum! With reference to your original question, I never upload pics here, rather I link to my Photobucket pics, you can do the same with all similar online photo sites, many of which are free I believe ... Do you specialise in any particular area? And sorry to be ignorant but what or who was HB?? Thankyou Paulus,no specialist area it used to be gin and tonic!HB is a grade of pencil when i started school if you had one you were classed as rich!I have afair few british coins that need a proper appraisal lots of pennys so i try and concentrate on mistakes flaws of which i have a fair few.I also have amixture of euro coins my oldest being a 1877 dos centavo peru coin no gold but plenty of silver.My oldest penny 1899 wide date haven,t checked with mr freeman on the details but its one of the widest 9,s i,ve seen!I will endevour to get some photo,s posted don,t expect wonders with my coins but you decide!Look forward to hearing your area cheers mate! Where on earth did you go to school? I remember HB as the bog standard grade they handed out! If they were B or BB etc, they smudged like crazy and were really only for artists; if they were H or HH etc, they didn't smudge at all but got progressively fainter to see though they would sharpen to a very fine point (I think they were for mathematicians). H stood for 'Hard', while B stood for 'Soft'. No, I never understood that either...

It took me a few years of contact before I got Spink to recognise the 1920-1926 obverse as a new obverse, and to include the 1946 die flaw penny. And even then, it took a reproduced Coin News article and photographic evidence for the former (they still got it wrong!), and a scan of Gouby for the latter. I believe they will act, but it could be a long slow process for which you will need persistence.

Hi Penguin, welcome to the forum! With reference to your original question, I never upload pics here, rather I link to my Photobucket pics, you can do the same with all similar online photo sites, many of which are free I believe ... Do you specialise in any particular area? And sorry to be ignorant but what or who was HB?? I don't wish to confirm Dave's impression of my antiquity but I think HB refers to a pencil - in other words Penguin is admitting to being someone unused to "this 'ere modern technology" (my apologies if I've read it wrong, Penguin!)

Don't you mean "peanuts for penguins", Peter? Oh wait, they eat fish

Do you mean uploading, here? You only get 150k per post, so either edit the size, resolution and compression of your photo to make it fit within that, or use a photo hosting web service such as photobucket or image shack and post the links instead. You can always post your obverse and reverse in separate posts to keep within the '150k per post' limit. I tend to find that making my pictures around 600x600 pixels in size, no more than 72dpi resolution, and using a compression just under halfway between lowest and highest quality, my pictures are less than 150k (or if they are a bit bigger, the forum software will cut them down to size anyway).

Traditionally guides have printed a '-' under grades where a coin doesn't have a value above bullion, which I've always thought was fair enough. It's coins that have a numismatic value where a problem creeps in - ideally one would like to see "BV * 2" (for example), but the market doesn't seem to work that way. Obviously the numismatic value will always be above BV, but by how much? In a rising gold market, collectors wouldn't necessarily see that as a reason to pay a vastly increased price just because the BV has gone up, especially as they will know that the gold price can drop again just as sharply. As a working example - let's say BV starts as X and goes up to X*4 over a few years; a coin's listing might start out as : F £(X*2) VF £(X*4) EF £(X*10) UNC £(X*18) How should it be a few years later when X has increased 4 times? Would a collector pay £(X*8) for a specimen in merely Fine? I doubt it. £(X*4+) would be more realistic. And VF perhaps £(X*6). EF certainly not £(X*40) when the original EF price was purely based on 'scarce numismatic' value and not BV. I think BV does skew the market, but when a coin acquires a purely numismatic value, it's less affected by that, but one would see a 'compression' occurring, with the lower grades rising to reflect BV more than higher grades. And that effect would reverse if and when BV dropped.

Wouldn't it be better to wait for 6.to ?

Yes, it does look a bit rough, like a casting. He also has a 1700 crown that has the same problem methinks. It could just be the photo but with coins of that price I wouldn't want to take a chance TBH.

Very well-written article - compelling reading. Does make you wonder though, if he planned to give it to the nation, why hadn't he already given the collection to a museum with the proviso of unlimited access for himself?

...

Welcome to the forums Sword You obviously have a good eye - those are two lovely crowns. And better, in my opinion, to have two like that, rather than a dozen in VF or less. (Post-1816, I mean - early milled is a different kettle of fish, for which you'd need VERY deep pockets! )

I guess with this provenance one has to presume fake until proven innocent! It may just be the angle of the photograph but, if you look at the reverse beads at 2 O'Clock and 12 O'clock, there appears to be quite a significant variation in gap between them and the rim? The photo looks straight-on enough that I wouldn't expect it to be quite so much of an illusion? Who knows? And you can have a chioce of dates I do love a date chocice

That's odd, you can't move for Muffins these days

Would you post pictures please? (150k per post, so you may need to use two posts, one for the obverse, one for the reverse; alternatively you can use a photo hosting site and link directly to your pictures of the coin). It's not really possible to comment without seeing what you describe.

She's a seller after your own heart Dave - "I have to of these" I sent her a message saying it's what "we in the trade call a washer" and that even her starting price of 99p overvalues it Lol, i emailed and asked if she'd give ME a quid two Take it off her hands :-D

She's a seller after your own heart Dave - "I have to of these" I sent her a message saying it's what "we in the trade call a washer" and that even her starting price of 99p overvalues it

The problem is, some of the Chinese fakes are so good, the only way to spot a particular one is when two coins turn up with EXACTLY the same blemishes/minor spots, etc. The first would fool an expert. The second, side by side with the first, would show they are both fakes taken from the same original. There's no way to cover those, and they are the biggest menace, in my book. What makes it more dangerous these days is that the original Chinese fakes have now been sold on two or three times since which results in a lack of alarm bells ringing when these forgeries come up for sale. And when the original comes up, what then? It's such a can of worms.

Just a box-standard, most common of all the Elizabeth sixpences (lot 396)! Also, I can't stop returning to look at the threepence (399), still haven't decided about that one, even now! The sixpence isn't really a better grade, it's just a little more 'balanced,' I'm just not certain about that obverse tone, so I'm trusting in poor white balance on this occasion. Ah, hammered. I really cannot get any enthusiasm for the medieval period, except those late finework coins which someone posted pictures of. I wouldn't know what a bog-standard Liz sixpence was if it jumped up and bit me!

I don't know if you ever watch Bargain Hunt on BBC? Some of those auctions feature internet bidders. They are treated just like floor bidders, except as has been noted, competing floor bidders will get the main auctioneer attention (but think about it - if you were there in person and two people were slugging it out, you would wait until EITHER they passed your maximum OR one dropped out, at which point you would jump in; so with the internet). As for not getting noticed, if only one bidder is left on the floor, the auctioneer will always glance towards the phones/computers before hammering - he will want to be sure there are no more competing bids. The only problem would be if you suffered an internet dropout, or there was a server delay; but there's nothing you can do about those situations anyway. So don't worry! Thanks, Chris! I guess it was not having the picture in my mind about how things worked in the room, it's getting there! It's not as if I'm looking to set the world on fire today, I'm just looking to slightly upgrade a coin, that will be sold if I'm successful. I bought the current one less than half price, so I can bid quite strongly on the replacement, and still not be out of pocket, hopefully! Just out of interest, what's the coin you're looking to upgrade?

The problem is, some of the Chinese fakes are so good, the only way to spot a particular one is when two coins turn up with EXACTLY the same blemishes/minor spots, etc. The first would fool an expert. The second, side by side with the first, would show they are both fakes taken from the same original. There's no way to cover those, and they are the biggest menace, in my book.

I don't know if you ever watch Bargain Hunt on BBC? Some of those auctions feature internet bidders. They are treated just like floor bidders, except as has been noted, competing floor bidders will get the main auctioneer attention (but think about it - if you were there in person and two people were slugging it out, you would wait until EITHER they passed your maximum OR one dropped out, at which point you would jump in; so with the internet). As for not getting noticed, if only one bidder is left on the floor, the auctioneer will always glance towards the phones/computers before hammering - he will want to be sure there are no more competing bids. The only problem would be if you suffered an internet dropout, or there was a server delay; but there's nothing you can do about those situations anyway. So don't worry!

Or, it could be a serious misstrike. Yes, the diameter is crucial, as the design looks as though it's been struck on a larger flan, but this would only be clear once we knew how it compares to a kosher 5p of the day. The overall appearance is of a coin that's been machined in some way. It does look weird. Hi, it is 25mm in diameter, just got hold of 1970 5 new pence to compare it. it is only 22mm in diameter so it could be the crushed idea. Thank you for your input. Ray. Not a straightforward thing at all. The obverse looks exactly as if the entire coin was crushed, e.g. by a steamhammer or something. However, when you look at the reverse, it's totally different. The design is preserved as it was, and only the part outside of the beaded circle has been extended. That's not to rule out extreme pressure, but something has protected the reverse design.

That's true. However, the advantage of a made-to-measure solution is that you start with all the fields you identify as what you need, and can add to it as you go along without difficulty. The initial effort will repay dividends in the long run. I have now taken the plunge and bought the Exact Change Software, via download. It will obviously take a little practice but my first impressions are positive, it is easy to customise which is very important, so I could add a value item in £s (has standard $ values of course) and a field for Peck numbers very easily. The UK coverage looks pretty good and where there are important series missing such as patterns these seem to be easy to add as well. I have not tried adding my photos in yet but will do in the coming months. Setting up is very easy so for example if you want to record all the Edward Viii farthings you can do this in one operation and then simply go back and add specific details such as grade for each coin. I have ordered some ebooks which cross reference to the coins and am looking forward to seeing how this works when they arive on CD. One important thing is I could delete all the US standard series that you start with a setup and then just add the GB series I wanted. It would be possible to just have one series such as Farthings and not clutter yourself with all the other denominations in the files. So so far so good. Ah, this is a personal collection software combined with a complete database of a national currency? Yes, I can see how it would be useful to have EVERY coin there, that you can add your own acquisition details per individual coin to. However, I still like to have my bespoke system of related files, which is unique to my own collecting themes and interests.

There's always room for humour! Glad you've found a theme.

Thanks coppers! Us iPhoners, eh? Can I see a 'replica' stamp on the rim between the H and R of CHRISTO? Does Safari on the iPhone not allow you to create links? You'll be telling me next it doesn't have tabbed browsing!