sound

"Completist can be a bit of an obsession!!!" Dave, every collector should frame that. LOL. Let's face it, it's a nurdy hobby/obsession. But then so is soccer. By the way anybody collect 'flags of the world' or 'American civil war cards' when they were a kid? M

I think that's a good point. There are several reasons why I switched to type collecting, one of the main ones being that once I had some high grade examples with eye appeal I completely lost interest in looking at (even owning) the lower grade coins, and there was no way I was ever going to afford a high grade example of every date. Much happier striving for 1 cracking example from each series

Peter,You need to get out more. Theres life outside copper and bronze. LOL Mark

Peck, With regard to the 'criminally underrated' 1960 2/6. Do you think its as rare as the 1958 and 1959? M

Ozjohn, For the reasons you state I think they are becoming increasingly interesting from a collectors point of view. They are relatively hard in high grade. Mind you we have seen that before, what was considered uncollectable by contemporaries, only to be sought after in a later period. M

I think the thing about rare/scarce Liz Cupro-nickel is that it's not finding the coins but getting them in genuinely high grade. Hence the point of the thread. The point is made by comparing the prices of the scarcer high grade coins with EF, huge disparity. M

When Dave raised the question about good grade Liz silver on another thread it got me thinking about scarcity. Why is that the 1959, 1958,1957 & 1954 Florins, in high grade, are so scarce? The same could be said about the 1959, 1958, 1954 Half-crown's. Obviously lower mintages are a factor but its hardly as if only a few thousand were struck. There were over 33,000,000 of the 1957 Florins. Thoughts? Mark

Tom/Rob, I don't think anyone can reasonably disagree with the sentiment of your posts. I think it's a hangover of an educational system that has held the view that the professional is respected and the amateur is tolerated. I was reading 'studies in early medieval coinage' earlier today. The language is so often couched to be 'impressive', but I can't think for whom it is meant. They are just coins that have been found in the ground for goodness sake. I was at a meeting of the Ipswich numismatic society where a talk was given this week on recent finds in Norfolk. It was refreshingly in plain English by someone who was a master of his subject but didn't feel the need to speak down to his audience. Tom I appreciate I may have appeared to wonder off your original topic but actually think it's all part of the same problem. Regards Mark

Asda sell it for £1.00 a small bottle in their pharmacy section. Ask at the counter. Mark

Chris, The two books that Peckris mentioned are a must. They are hard to find fault with. The good news is they are not expensive. You can by then online and download them to your tablet or smart phone. You might want to also consider Spink's Coins of England, produced every year. It's prices are way out perticularly for most milled coins (generalist comment I know) however as a catalogue it is superb. You can download this from ITunes if you don't want a hard copy. After the above you are going to find coin books expensive. Regards Mark

For what?

And of course anyone buying high grade over the last ten years, selectively, will have done very nicely as an investment. Just look at how prices have increased. Some of these 'nut doctor patients' are laughing all the way to the bank. LOL. Mark

I think that is true unless you throw in silver threepence. Yet I can't be the only one with a nostalgic view of sixpence's. My mum used to count them out when me and my brother went to the Saturday morning flics. "Sixpence for the bus, sixpence to get in and sixpence to spend. Boy we were hard up. Now I can afford it I should buy a few. LOL. Mark

Shillings or hammeredI'd say halfcrowns, crowns, sovereigns, shillings. In that order. I concurInteresting that Florins do not get a mention. Arguably, with the gothic obverse and Britannia standing, albeit in different periods, you have the most attractive of all coins? Mark

Perhaps it was the way I started the thread, but every now seems to collect Halfpennies. LOL. Does anyone collect Florins or Half-crowns. Are there any dedicated silver Threepence collectors? If you were to put money on it outside copper and bronze what would you say is the most collected denomination? Mark

Bernie, What denomination do you collect? M

Well of course they do. I suspect more collect pennies. But thinking about this just wondered by denomination right down to threepences what is collected most? I thought the range of views on here would be interesting. I think there may be a bias toward pennies. Any thoughts? Mark

1920 & 1921 are the two most difficult years to find in high grade outside the the rarer GV silver. Poor metal mix didn't help either.

Rob, I get the brain, eyes and heart bit. But in fairness to CGS I don't think they have told us we must like it. Isn't the whole idea to present a consistent numerical grading system. Now that's where I think it falls down in terms of eye appeal etc. For my liking it's just a little to clinical. I would like to know do others think it's working? In other words are three graders or whatever achieving the consistency they are aiming for? Mark

I see it slightly differently, unless I have misunderstood. There is only a conflict of interest if they don't declare it, which they do, a bit like MP's. When I determine what I think the value of a coin should be, I first look at Rob's website, consider what Azda said he paid fot it, then ask Peck what the value should be. Armed with that priceless information I can trawl through auctions archives etc and see what mistakes others have made with their purchases. So when it comes to London coins estimates, CGS pricing and along with Spink's catalogue I'm in a position to studiously ignore them. Simple really. Mark LOL

Peck, Do you have any decimal coins in your collection? Mark I do indeed! Many of the proof sets, some of the scarcer pre-BU-set items, and quite a few of the official issues (snapped up for bargain prices at auction ) However, I think you missed my little Welsh joke. I did indeed. LOL. You are much too subtle for me. I find decimal coinage to be just too manufactured. I wonder did anyone say that about Gothic florins. However the Edinburgh £1.00's did appeal as they ticked the potential rarity boxes. Mark

Peck, Do you have any decimal coins in your collection? Mark

Cartwheel, At times the comments can seem a bit harsh on here, but they really do attempt to be factual. You don't seem to have overpaid. You might want to upgrade in the future. Mark

These are low mintages for circulated coins. High grade will be hard to come by. I contacted the mint under the freedom of information act with regard to the 2011 Edinburgh £1. Someone tipped me off they were scarce. Managed to pick a few up in in uncirculated. Mark

Here's a link http://blog.royalmint.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ROYAL-MINT-WALL-CHART-small.jpg