scottishmoney

I have a feeling that his contemporaries would have rather depicted Charles I's bottom rather than his head on his coinage. They would have preferred display his head only on a platter.

Indeed, the Queen's whole body, likewise the 1977 Crown.

There were Dutch colonies in New York, but only until the Dutch lost the Third Anglo Dutch war of 1672-4, and ceded the colony to the English. Any coins dated after that time are preposterously alleged to be colonial coins.

If they circulated in the America's it would be a discovery. These coins were made for the Dutch East Indies, ie, their colonies in Indonesia etc.

I had one of those stupid sender trick occasions last year when someone sent me a gold Hungarian 100 Korona, a large coin, same way - just a flimsy holder in a lose poly envelope.

Now don't be in such a rush, they are still busy cranking out the 1970 LSD sets!

Last year I had a coin come over recorded/insured from the UK that was actually a fairly significant purchase that I wished I had just flown over to London to pick up.

Bloke mustna paid his bill for his host site and URL domain.

Nice to know the British posties are just as lazy as their American brethren. Must be something with handling mail or something. It causes mind drain.

I agree. It sounds as if postie is signing on your name which I don't think is legal. If your not in the item should be taken back to your nearest post office until you can go in and sign for it. I have caught the UPS guy doing that, signing my neighbours name, and leaving my neighbours package in our entry foyer. He was lucky the dog was out back, or he would have been shredded.

I think I would be knocking up your local postal office and finding out what the gives... maybe Mr. Postie needs a reminder of his responsibilities, he might be getting lazy.

Oh yes, I know. A relatives other relatives from Canada occasion to come over for various measures for health from time to time.

I know where I usually live in the USA that we have lots of Canadians coming over for on demand medical treatment, if the wait in Britain is bad, in Canada it can be egregious - in some cases fatal.

This one is the real McCoy as they say in the USA.

I know people collect stamps, and I did for a short time when I was a kid. Now I see stamps as something to mail the bills into the perfidious credit card companies. I don't care if they are 70 years old or whatever, they have a purpose and they are used for it.

I get 2009 dated 1 kopek and 25 kopek coins all the time here in Donets'k. In fact my first 2009 dated coin was back in February. I think they have to mint some of the coins like the 1 kopek because often they are discarded and you can find them littering the streets. They are practically worthless, like 14 kopeks to the British penny so people toss them. Why they bother to mint such worthless coins is beyond me.

As others prior to my entrance have occasioned, this particular piece is rather rough on the obverse(face) of the coin, the flan cracks and porosity are a bit of a turn off. Most of the Ryals from the 1566-1572 era were called in and counterstamped with the thistle to raise the value of the coin from 30/- to 36/9 in 1578, effectively realising that again inflation had once again eroded Scottish sterling. I suspect that your grandfather paid rather too much dosh for said piece if indeed it was purchased 50+ years ago, it's value now is subjective as others have pointed out. The catalogues for Scottish coinage are becoming rather dated and have never been in touch with reality pricewise. Choice, problem free material on the auction circuit advances considerably in price, and I myself have paid significantly more than a catalogue price for choice materiel, but most Scottish materiel circulated a long time and is not choice by any stretch. This piece appears to be in no better than a fine grade by my estimation, indeed it is worth a bit more than what was paid years ago, but only about 300-350 Quid or so.

Going way off beam here, but I've just spent an idle 20 minutes going through your excellent site. I hope you don't mind me saying, but your paintings section really ought to have something by Dante Gabriel Rosetti. Try Proserpine, Mona Vana or The Blessed Damozel. Incredibly his models were very similar to those used by John William Waterhouse, a contemporary of his. They must have had a thing for redheaded women, not that that is a bad thing!

Oh perish the perfidious of the notions that the none of us are dutiful banknote collectors: I love banknotes meself.

Technically speaking the persons you refer to above are allegory, and representative and not meant to portray a particular person. Since Lady Diana was on the crown in 1981, several commoners, notably Isambard Kingdom Brunel etc have appeared on commemoratives.

I am of the opinion, especially recently, that the grading companies are overly and overtly optimistic for their submitters. This takes form in over graded coins, and missattributions that bring about significant price differentials betwixt reality and what they state on their holder. I have a Queen Anne crown from 1707 that is testament to that above statement, not only was the E on the crown missed, the coin was overgraded by at least 10-12 points IMO - notice the lack of H. Needless to say, I liberated poor Queen Anne from her plastic tomb.

If said discussion was on the PCGS forum it would have been nuked pronto. That forum is bad that way, no criticism of any kind is tolerated there. Kind of like Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran, you are either with us, or you will be cut down.

Welcome aboard, I have collected predecimal pennies for years, and my favourites are the Aussies by far, there are so many varieties, mints etc. that it makes for a great series, even if it only ran for 52 years. I bought up a hoard of predecimal pennies from Australia several years ago, have found several varieties and earlys like the 1912's and 1914's etc.

I don't think they make a slab for a piece of grape shot like this: Lots of these seemingly ended their lives by being beaten to hell or used as disks to throw at each other or something. Despite the nearly 3 oz size, they were used in circulation for a bit, but then must have been used as weapons or something because most of the ones I have seen are in pretty bad shape. Incredibly they made trial strikes for a bronze sixpence, it was a veritable monster.

I have to admit slabs are something that do nothing for me, I am not impressed by what they say or do. If I keep a coin any bit of a while I liberate it from the plastic tomb. Slabs are something that brings out the militancy in many collectors, frankly I don't care for them. I do not believe they do anymore for circulated coins especially than good care away from toxins etc. There is something to be said for holding, carefully with dry hands of course, a 200+ piece of bronze and appreciating the heft of the piece. Slabs take that away. Flame away you tombers.