Coinery

I often despair to find you cannot find a simple replacement part for anything! I think entire industries, even countries, are dependent upon the future supplies of, not individual replacement pieces, but entire units! I had an electric window unit fail a couple of month's back. I dropped it into the garage, being too busy (and possibly too lazy) to look into it myself, and the quote came back £150 + VAT! When I queried the problem, I was told 'the window motor's knackered,' to which I replied 'but I can hear it working'? He then replied 'it's something inside the unit, and that will cost you ????, they only supply the unit!' The short of it is I took the car home, pulled my sleeves up, and dismantled the unit (it had 4 screw, not moulded, so why no spares?). Issue: Just a failed but simple flat, plastic, component with a little hole, a notch, etc.....made one myself in 15 minutes! We need more people who can jump on a lathe in this country, and know their way around an old machine shop! Definitely a dying breed!

A distinct possibility, so protecting yourself from China will not be easy, and I think they will get the weights right eventually, and then... If we take the Northumberland XII, for example, a really high-profile fake, i wonder how many of those are now sat in expensive collections around the world! I would think there are very few people today who would comfortable hand over the big money without either some big-guns pawing over it or, perhaps, dare I say, a credible paper trail to go with it! I guess it's to each his own, but I'd say it's near-damned impossible to be an expert in all areas and, as I say, my florin's genuine enough but, if I was taking the big Victorian silver thing seriously, I would definitely look to upgrade it to a provenanced coin, and would likely do the same thing for any of the high-class fakes that broached my collection area (if I had one!)! On a slightly different, but related point, the florin discussed at the start of the thread was 0.5g underweight. It would be a very interesting thing to see the range of weights for theses fakes, as I guess they fluctuate (presumeably if they had the technology to achieve a consistent 10.8, they could achieve a consistent weight more in keeping with the genuine article), so are there random heavier coins too? Half a gram extra, spread over the disc-area of a florin, would barely make a decimal change on even the best micrometers!

I think that's fine if you have deep pockets. There's one occasionally posting member here who buys nothing but the very best examples of everything and of course, as such, they all have amazing provenances. But for the average collector on a budget, if you have the choice between a handful of provenanced coins or five or ten times as many, albeit in most cases slightly lesser coins, it's going to be difficult to resist buying the cheaper coins without the history. The additional problems as I see them are that there are many uninspiring coins that have nevertheless been part of a major collection. Is it better to buy a coin lacking eye appeal for the provenance over one without history but clearly nicer? Plus, although nowadays most coins tend to be illustrated in catalogues, more than 20 years ago, that wasn't the case. It's my experience that grading companies (and even some dealers) have not been good at retaining old tickets with coins. Without either a photograph or some other support, such as a ticket, it's very difficult to be certain about an individual coin's history. The vast majority of coins now on the market probably have little or no evidence of where they were before their last sale. Buying only coins with history will compound the challenge of finding an example for most collectors. What the answer might be, I'm not sure. I quite agree that the best answer is to only buy coins that can be trusted, which is those that have a history prior to any known fakes, from reputable sources. But modern (post 1800s or so) machine made coins are by their very nature much more alike than the earlier, cruder, efforts. Making distinguishing between one made in 1869 and 2009 very difficult. And of course, it's not just milled. Most of us here know of the run of replica coins that were on ebay a little while back. I myself nearly bought two of them, one believing it was the coin from Rob's website until it dawned on me that I'd seen that particular coin too many times for it to be true. Fakes are a real pain. I'm not suggesting for a second that everyone should go out and buy only provenanced coins. I do however think, for example, that if you wanted to collect Victorian silver, you could do far worse than to 'cover' yourself with a bit of provenance on a Gothic Florin, given the recent discussions. I've got an example that I'm totally happy is genuine, but I would now consider it a valid upgrade to have one sat on provenance, if only to get the best value out of it in the future, when either I or my family come to rehome it. So, I guess I'd look at it as an upgrade, and probably a financially astute move should the trust fall out of the G.Florin market, as it could very well do!

Unfortunately not all coins that people collect come with logbooks Stuart, so as is always said, know you area of collecting extremely well But you see, Dave, the point is, it doesn't matter how confident you may be that your coin is genuine, you have to convince someone else of that if you want it to remain an investment! I can't off the top of my head think of a single coin that couldn't potentially be bought with a history! It will make them even more of a rarity, but great, makes for an exciting new challenge, I'd certainly be looking at it if I was buying certain types for a long-standing collection, the Godless now being one of them!

Get your long-provenanced coins now, why they are still affordable. For every known Chinese fake that arrives, get out and get yourself the first genuine example with a logbook that you can find! Rim nicks and dings will be king soon, happily existing as evidence to link a coin to an old catalogue photograph!

You can check the right coin is in the right slab on the websites, but how do you know it's not a duplicate slab with the same number as the genuine one that's sat in Lord Gotitall's collection in the Isle of Man? Until all the TPGC's insist on QUALITY online images, we are all as helpless as one another buying slabs!

definitely prefer the little-guys other Elizabeth coin!

Still nothing back from the 1578/7/6 ebay feedback links, yet, but another one ruled out at least! http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Die-alter-Tudor-Elizabeth-1st-hammered-silver-sixpence-metal-detecting-detector-/271016390248?_trksid=p5197.m1992&_trkparms=aid%3D111000%26algo%3DREC.CURRENT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D14%26meid%3D692517180695700122%26pid%3D100015%26prg%3D1006%26rk%3D1%26 Something I've newly noted on my overdate coin is the double-centre in the bottom loop of the eight and speculated 6...still pointing in the right direction!

If it's for details like a dot below the I, then you can understand why TPGC's don't release their findings to the general public! Especially when you consider they may have this information whilst the dies are still active. One would presume, with the TPGC's financial investment in not slabbing a fake, that the last thing they'd be doing is saying 'hey me old China, you need to do something with that little hole in the field of yer obverse die, or you'll not be selling any more forty-niners!' Great work so far Rob and Seuk, been burning some midnight oil I see!

Then everybody will start playing safe and begin buying up all the old farthings and hammered! Prices will rocket but you won't be able to afford to buy any more!

He forgot to mention it was the 3 lions to date!

Will certainly give mine a count tomorrow, could be telling!

Cripes! The only thing is, though, it's still all speculation! I guess the only thing is to buy one dead on the nail weight-wise, with everything else 'right' of course! Where could you buy a genuine top-class Chinese fake of the godless? (without the obvious! )

My two 49's are 11.31 and 11.30, my gothic 11.34! Does anyone have a poor/fine example to hand that they could weigh? I don't think it would be too hard to knock 1/2 a gram or so off a well circulated example! Would certainly be interesting! I did weigh dozens of florins a couple of years ago as part of an exercise in buying scrap silver on eBay! Poor to good fine averaged out at 10.40g-11.25g so I'd guess a 10.80g coin would need to look around fine or less?

Hi Gary, I can't really make very much out from the image quality, apart from the obvious 'patchy tone'! Any more information to go with it? If you click on the link you will see the Ebay listing on the german Ebay. It is from a chinese seller and the description is in english. A Buy It now price of €79. The listing has now ended with no takers A shame though that we can't see it close up and paw over it for the reassurance of all!

what's the weight of your's Dave?

Wouldn't there be slight die variations anyway?

Hi Gary, I can't really make very much out from the image quality, apart from the obvious 'patchy tone'! Any more information to go with it?

With images like that Rodney!

The underlying stress-lines created, by what are immense forces, run deep into the metal of a coin! I know within the last year someone had the images of another coin (I think that may have been a penny too) up on the forum which had suffered the same fate...the underlying stress-lines of the border teeth were the subject of some interesting discussions, as I recall. Would be worth digging it out for a read! It was mine: Ah, there you go bagerap! Damn good forum, this!

The underlying stress-lines created, by what are immense forces, run deep into the metal of a coin! I know within the last year someone had the images of another coin (I think that may have been a penny too) up on the forum which had suffered the same fate...the underlying stress-lines of the border teeth were the subject of some interesting discussions, as I recall. Would be worth digging it out for a read!

I never noticed that! Perhaps that was the point of the bath, some hope of retrieving the underlying 3, such a waste

Looks like a regular penny that's had a long good soak in acid to me!

Ha, ha! He/she wouldn't be able to convince me in a million years that that coin was bent according to his write-up! Nice grade though, if it was cheaper I'd start wondering about chancing two bits of wood and a vice ;-) ! I'm not sure you'd impress too many women today by bending a micro-thin penny!

I'm starting to rather like these myself!