Peckris

Great story Matt - Welcome to the forums I too love pennies and before I became a type collector I had a date run of bronze pennies going back to 1889. Actually I still have them, but now it is mostly EF or better Having said that, my 19KN is only Fine so you're better than me already there!, but I do have a weak (hair) strike 19H in GEF and a BU 12H. There are some mega rare varieties, but you will learn in time where to draw the line : for me, the line is (sadly) drawn just below the 1922-with-1927-reverse, but I've got many other rarities such as "Gouby X" and "1903 open 3", which will engage you in time if not already! Looking forward to hearing your adventures in collecting.

What's more, if you keep an eye on Spink, the price of them rarely moves from year to year.

Ah, the good old days of 70s curries - everything was chocolate brown unless it had Tandoori or Tikka in the name, in which case it was bright bright red For anybody going back to the 70s in Manchester, the Plaza cafe on Upper Brook Street should bring back memories- some good, some bad. Choice of 4 curries, mild, medium, hot or suicide, differing only in the amount of red oil on the surface. Ended up in hospital once after 4 curries there in a single dysfunctional weekend. The one for Sunday breakfast was a bit hard going. OMG - Sunday brekkie in a curry house? That's taking things a bit too far

Counterfeit shilling (or sixpence) in brass, for my money.

Ah, the good old days of 70s curries - everything was chocolate brown unless it had Tandoori or Tikka in the name, in which case it was bright bright red

In the first place, please let me disabuse you of an urban myth - 1988 £1 coins aren't rare! Pre-eBay, no-one cared two hoots about them, and that's not surprising given that over 7 million were struck (that's over twice as many as the seriously underrated 1981 10 pence). By comparison, the 1985 50 pence is scarce at 600,000 minted, and 1992 50p even scarcer at little more than 100,000. The market for decimals is still in its infancy really, so no-one can give you considered advice about the long-term future of it. However, looking for scarcities in your change is not at all a bad idea, as each only costs you its face value. By comparison, the Royal Mint charges quite ridiculous premiums for its modern commemorative issues and proofs, most of which can be picked up later at a huge reduction, e.g. provincial auctions and eBay. As for predecimals, yes why not start a casual collection? The only thing is, as nothing is circulating anymore, do you have any idea at all where you would like to begin? You could, for example, put together a complete collection of Elizabeth II predecimals in EF condition, and it would only cost a modest amount (EF is the grade below Uncirculated, but few coins after 1937 cost much in that grade - only the scarcer George VI brass 3ds and the 1952 sixpence come to mind; the 1954 florin - very scarce in UNC and costing £40 or £50 - could be got for less than a tenner in EF.) Let us know your thoughts and we'd be happy to advise. (LOL yes, I forgot the 1950 and 1951 pennies! Not surprisingly. )

Just out of interest, how do you bury something in a shadow?? Does the buried stuff move around along with the sun?

The best part is I have both the picture and the unsullied original coin. Yeh, ok up to a point. How do you get the colour off the spare? Sorry, I should have said that I have TWO pictures (one unsullied), and the unsullied original coin

The best part is I have both the picture and the unsullied original coin.

Just as an added note - the Mint charges a ridiculously high premium for new issues; proof sets regularly appear a few years after their issue at a vastly reduced price on what's called the 'secondary market'. If you were interested in getting older sets, e.g. 1970 - 2005, you could buy them at auction for maybe half book price or even less.

The problem is, our penny goes back to the Roman denarius, so it's 2,000 years old. Unlike the pound which as a coin is not much more than 200 years old. Having said that, our bronze coins are worth less in real terms than farthings were in 1960 when they were demonetised. So my vote would be get rid of our useless bronze coins, they're more trouble than they're worth rename another coin as the 'penny' - candidates for that...?

I concur - looks classic acid attack (thin, lightweight, super-blurred shallow detail).

OK - here's a simply gorgeous Anne shilling, which has iridescent hues of blue, magenta and gold, gradually acquired from years of toning in Adobe's labs

But I already HAVE eBay as a bookmark! As I said, it takes me to My eBay - the sign in page. As my bookmarks bar is full, with Pinterest, my blog, Library Thing, MacWorld, Audible, another forum, a writers' social network, iPlayer, Artwiculate, another forum, TV guide, Twitter, Facebook, here, a Writers' forum, Apple, Google Maps, YouTube, Wikipedia, another forum... why would I want TWO eBay bookmarks and where would I fit them????????

ROFL. I've just thought of the way I could "enjoy" the best of both worlds : take photos of my entire collection, then run each photo through Photoshop applying vast amounts of the Hue / Saturation filter to selected parts, while leaving the original coin untouched!! I'll try and remember to make a start tomorrow and show you the first attempt

If you're happy to be a 'type collector' rather than go for date runs, you might find that copper from 1800 - 1900 meets your requirements; start with the 1799 halfpenny (or 1797 cartwheel penny, though in VF that might cost you £25 - £35), and work through pennies, halfpennies and farthings of each major type and each reign. You're looking at a total collection of around 25 - 30 coins from 1797-1900.

You could just paste it directly into the eBay home page, you don't have to sign in.It's a real pain for iPhone uses, as eBay will not let you take a link! It's possible to add links for just about every other webpage you come across, just not the eBay pages for some reason! Really sorry about that, Peck, it does rely on others kindly adding the link, which I myself always do for others if I'm on a PC and have viewed the eBay item in question! It's a nightmare, don't be cross with us poor smartphone users! I still want to join in! Then I'd have to have the steps : 3. type 'eBay.co.uk' into Google 4. click the eBay page in the list of Google links on page 1 You see, my bookmark, unsurprisingly, takes me to MY eBay where I have to sign in - if I didn't want to go to my eBay, I'd have to search for eBay in Google. Makes sense, right? Thanks Paulus. I don't a have a permanent tab open for eBay (it would just add to Safari's bloat, along with iPlayer, TV Guide, two other forums, Facebook - I try to keep the number of open tabs to the minimum possible, but I still have to quit Safari and relaunch sometimes when my RAM is nearly all used up.) I rarely go to eBay except for what you guys post in this forum, or the once-in-a-blue-moon that I buy some household item.

This is the only AT Morgan I want:

Link Click on link, get taken by browser directly to webpage. key Command-[ when done, to go back.No link move mouse to beginning of eBay item number, drag through to end and then click Command-C to copy key Command-T to open new tab in browser click eBay button in browser's bookmark bar sign in to 'My eBay' (which is where the button takes me) click in eBay Search field, then key Command-V to paste eBay item number click Search key Command-[ 2 or 3 times when done, to go back.

Yes, there were an encouraging number of posts that dissed the whole AT phenomenon, and I'm sure they weren't all Brits! For me, only "Icy Perfection" looked 100% natural, though "Blue Suede" and "Salamander" could have been too.

Ended What has? There's no link

There's one question we haven't discussed. What was so significant about the date 1839 that it was used on proof sets for such a long period? Victoria's accession was 1837 so that couldn't be anything to do with it.

Very interesting to read of your British connections, Arthur. Yes, you're right that a scarce coin needs to be in a higher grade to be worth anything much. However, there are exceptionally rare varieties of some Victorian bun pennies that would fetch literally a few thousand $ even in the grade of your 1864. But as only a few of each exist, the chances of finding one are ... remote, to say the least!

The Lion and Key is a classic English note: And a lovely Britannia: Thanks for that. Yes, I treasure mine. It's sobering to think they were circulating when I was a little boy, but I don't ever remember seeing one (but then, why would I!). My earliest 'fiver' memory is of the blue fivers that came immediately after these. Though why they replaced such a beautiful design...

Vastly overrated at that sort of price IMO Perhaps so Peck, but lets not forget that it was actually for sale at 12k so Platt had to put out in a fair chunk to pull out a profit, lets not assume he got this privately as we know he mostly buys from auctions and scours the internet worldwide like the Rest of us do. He would have paid a nice price for this. If you had the money Peck, would you have turned it down saying its overpriced? Would you have offered him half his 12k only for him to laugh at you?Yes. Because I could get some wonderful early milled for that kind of money, and no doubt an EF 1905 for a couple of grand if I really wanted. Or an underrated Unc 1908 or 1909 for less than a grand.