pokal02

The Vigo crown's only £70,000 more than I paid for mine (I will admit theirs is better!!)

There are some strange crowns out there after a bit of a lull - a distinctly fake-looking 1844 that someone wants £3,000 for, another 1844 (from a different seller) graded B Unc which is little better than Fine, and a 1703 at the bargain price of... £70,200.

I remember the old penny falls and looking to see if there were any old ones ready to fall. I remember spotting an 1895 (when I was trying to complete a date set 1860-1967) and spending about 2/- before it finally fell. It's the only coin from my very early phase of collecting (I was about seven years old) that I still have. Also trying for an 1883 a couple of years later, running out of money, and getting it by putting a lolly stick into the slot. (Hope the statute of limitations has expired on that!)

Just two pre-47s in the 80s for me - 1940 & 1946 shillings, both in surprisingly good nick suggesting that they hadn't circulated for all that time. Remember getting G V silver in abundance in the late 60's/early 70s, only ever got one pre-1920 (Edw VII 6d, date unreadable).

Rarity holds its value too - look at the recent price for the Ashby groat which wasn't even Fine - I guess quality is just a different sort of rarity (to me, paying £29k or so for a 1726 Crown is madness but if it's one of only 2 or 3 in that grade, I can see why some would go for it).

Yes, a few prices seemed 'over the top' to me - I'm glad I virtually completed this series some years ago, as there are a few I could never afford now.

I'm also running out of space - I might have a closer look at a cabinet - for now I've moved half my collection to a secure facility elsewhere (this also spreads the risk - I'd rather have a 1% chance of losing half the collection due to fire/burglary etc than a 0.5% chance of losing all of it).

ebay's gone a bit haywire recently. Some joker wants £85,000 for a St Peter penny and another wants over £39,000 for an 1839 crown. I don't care how rare they are or how much 'eye appeal ' they've got, this is just silly.

Was outbid on both that I went for, £3k was more than enough for the halfpound, £1.3k fairly reasonable for the Ceolwulf I 1d - less than it sold for last time - (didn't want to go too much over book for such a moderate specimen). Prices generally weren't quite as high as I would have guessed.

I'd also say the top end of GVF, would expect 50% of collectors (and 99% of dealers ) to grade it NEF or AEF though.

The Ashby groat was too hot for me, going for 10 times estimate. This was the one strand of my collection that I had hopes of completing (crowns being barred by 1674, shillings by Henry VII and pennies by Beorthric among others) - but no longer, especially as that was the worse of the two known specimens. I'll just have to start collecting double-florins...

It's the way things are going nowadays - if I had £12k to spare (alas, I don't) I'd rather have 20 different early milled in, say, GF than one in EF but know I'm in the minority. Having said that, the estimate looks very low (assuming it's a proper EF - DNW are a tad lenient I think).

I've bought a few times from him and am always satisfied. He seems to turn up more rare/unusual hammered stuff than most.

DNW was a bit strange altogether yesterday - I was watching the Tudor hammered silver, which was mostly fair to middling grade-wise - some was going well under estimate and some well over - got the lot I wanted though.

The trick is to pay more for the 'right' coins and keep patient. I'm still irked that I paid £400 a few years ago for a 1662 Crown then worth half that (it was one of the rarer edge varieties but another one at a more reasonable price would no doubt have turned up). On the other hand I've paid double book price for some rarities which have proved a good investment in the long run. I find that many of the less rare coins I'm looking for only turn up in good or bad condition whereas I'm really looking for middling - e.g. it's easy to find a 1645 groat at either £200 or £1000+ but I'd be looking at say £500 - nothing doing!. So have to keep my discipline!

Definitely agree that VF grade now is lower than 30 years ago - the big divide then was F to VF, now it's VF to EF (although EF has also come down a bit from what it used to be).

Spink's 2018 catalogue has finally dropped the (non-existent, I think) 1845 star stop crowns.

The problem with proofs and patterns, especially the latter, is what to put in and what to omit (I like the idea of a separate volume as they could then include everything, although a lot of the prices would be meaningless). At present they include for example the Briot pattern halfgroat of Charles I - why this and and not some of the other Briot patterns and the Edward Greene groat? Why a Reddite crown but not the (much less rare) Garter 1804 dollar? A minor gripe as a crown collector is that 1551-53 are the only dates not listed separately (1553 I would say being about 20% pricier that 1551) although 1642 & 1643 Oxford (S2946 & S2946A), which have always been given the same price, are split. Another inconsistency is that the Exeter crowns alone are differentiated by mint mark - why not then the Tower issues (and James I & 1551 Y & tun) which would have as much/more rarity/price variation. .

Yes, wouldn't argue with either Fine or GF

I think they'd be better off hiving the proofs and patterns to another book like they've done with the decimals. I tend to agree listing coins like the Petition crown is a bit silly, the few collectors who are thinking of spending six-figure sums on a coin are unlikely to be influenced by ESC anyway.

I'm fairly new to Roman and for now am concentrating on London Mint issues - Spink describes them as 'billon' up to Maximian & 'AE' thereafter. I've seen various items described as 'billon', copper' and bronze in dealers lists. It's my understanding that all the London Mint folles/nummi/'AE3's contained some silver, starting with about 4% and gradually reducing to nearer 2% - is this correct? (The later coins of Constantine I/Crispus seem to turn up silvered more often). Does a coin need a certain amount of silver to be described as billon rather than bronze, or are some dealers just deciding that if a coin looks bronze/copper they'll describe it that way? .

Baldwin's Winter Price List has quite a decent one at £9,995. I have one in about F and slightly bent - don't think I'll ever be able to upgrade!

I think the green box is perhaps twice as rare as the burgundy (I've never seen a blue one), do others agree?

..and they're selling Charles II & William III Crowns in Fine for £395 and £325 as part of their 'Historic' range - it's starting to look like Coincraft.

I paid £50 for a real one, so £26 for a copy's pushing it. (I also dabble in 50p's - can't bring myself to pay the £60 odd being asked for a 2009 Shield - why are they so expensive?) I'll occasionally have a copy of a coin I'll never afford, eg the Petition & 1644 Oxford crowns (paid £10 for the first & 70 for the second). Was outbid on the copy H7 testoons at Stewartby - would never pay £3-400 even if an original is £40k.