Paddy

First cartoon to make me laugh out loud in a while:

I decided to splash out on a few coins last week and ended winning lots at two different auction houses: Auction One on Thursday (I will not reveal the name for fear of being accused of libel): I won two lots totalling £265 before commission, Commission 30% including VAT Confirmation of lots won received same day but with requirement to create account at auctionet, so I did that. Links to invoices received next day (Friday) - two separate invoices. Logged into auctionet to request postage. Could only be done separately for each lot. Total £39 for two tiny coins. Spoke to auction house - had to email auctionet to get the invoices combined, so did that. Received reply Monday - complicated explanation as to how to request combined invoice through the auctionet website. For this they would give me a "generous" discount of 30% on the postage, bringing it down to £27.30. Oh, and they would post within the next 1 to 3 weeks. At this point I cancelled shipping requests and paid the total for the coins and commission. That had to be done as two separate transactions on my card and required me to log out of auctionet between transactions before the second transaction would process. I have now arranged a friend to pick up the coins in the next few weeks and I will get them when we next meet up. Auction two on Saturday (The Coinery - happy to reveal their name as service was impeccable): I won 5 lots totalling £585 before commission, Commission 19.2% including VAT Invoice for all lots combined, including postage, received a couple of hours after the auction finished. Postage £13.15 plus VAT, Paid that evening by bank transfer. Confirmation of receipt of payment and postage received first thing Monday morning. Coins received by Special delivery, all correct, Tuesday Lunchtime. Needless to say, Auction house One is now off my favoured list! The Coinery I will happily use again and recommend to anyone.

I think I'd like to wait until I have my coins safely in my hands before I insult them directly.

Auction One gets worse and worse! Automated emails from them last night - If I do not collect by Friday they will charge £5 per coin per day storage fees! Unbelievable. My point about the difference in buyers commission was more about the expectation that with such high commission levels they should be geared up for great customer service. The reverse seems to be true. If anyone is desperate to find out which auction house I am talking about, please PM me. PS: Have now spoken to them and they assure me they will not be making the above charges. If so, why have their computer send out such annoying emails?

"I wish I could gnash my teeth at you..."

Yes, the first auction house was quite a large one - long established and holding posh sales roughly monthly as well as clearance sales fortnightly. Until fairly recently they were family owned but I believe they have been bought out and this maybe why auctionet has entered the scene. They only do coin auctions once a year - I hope they have got themselves sorted out before the next one.

Lots of great comments about The Coinery - I have sent them a link to this topic for their information. No comment on the appalling experience with Auction One - do I take it that this form of poor customer service and over-charging is taken as normal?

The auctioneer introduced himself as Richard something, but I cannot remember what surname he gave. I just assumed both Richard and Guy are involved in the operation.

Yes - Guy is the chap running The Coinery auction. The bank transfer was to his account. I have no idea if Guy is on here somewhere.

I see @The Coinery last visited in 2017, so even if they are related to the auction house, they are unlikely to notice the comments here!

I don't know - I hope so.

Going back through my penny collection I came across this one identified as 1* and B - therefore F8B. I can't remember how or when I came to that conclusion as I am not usually too attentive to varieties, and it may have been discussed on this forum before. Is that correct? If it is, I would have thought it would be imaged on rarestpennies, but I can't see it there. If it is wanted there, please feel free to add it.

Thanks for that! I will amend my notes accordingly. If you want it on Rarest pennies, feel free.

Bought and received - all great, thank you.

I think I'd like to go for that - I have 174, 176 and 177 so that fits in neatly. I'll PM you.

I came across this lurking amongst my random collection of bits and pieces. Anyone know much about Fred Jeffries? I see he was mentioned briefly in another thread about 4 years ago. It has to go, and before I throw it in with another job lot, I thought I would offer it here in case anyone remembers him. First sensible offer (does not need to be much!) to include postage gets it.

Great link @Sword. The drawing from the OP appears about half way down and the debate is whether it is Elizabeth I or Mary I. I don't think Mary Queen of Scots is suggested.

Is this group any use to anyone here? PM a reasonable offer to include postage.

Well with a bunch of other tokens and bits, the whole lot went for £14 hammer. Someone got a bargain I think!

I see this example on Numista: https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces378246.html As noted there, extremely rare and should be gold. As such, quite a high chance of being a replica or fake. Picture of the other side is what we need first along with some idea of how it was discovered. If it proves to be genuine, you might have quite a valuable piece there!

Could we see the other side please? Also, can you crop the picture so we can see it better? First thought is that the letters look to be in the Greek alphabet.

Listing has now been ended by the seller. I messaged them yesterday again pointing out it was an obvious fake - I don't know if this had any effect.

Ah well, they have now all gone off to auction as part of a job lot. Anyone belatedly interested, let me know and I can tell you which auction and lot number - comes up Friday 10th November, so after that you are too late! 🙂

Sorting through the rest of the farthings I bought on Monday I noticed that I now have two 1860 F496 farthings with very different die cracks. Just thought I would post them for interest:

I am not the slightest bothered if anyone wants to declare another micro-variety on this. I would point out though that of the two I posted, the one that differs from the standard as posted on the aboutfarthings.co.uk website, is the first one, for which the condition is pretty good.