Mynki

Yep, 1887 must surely be the most common. I've only found one 1850 for sale, not that I've tried hard to look. It's in poor condition and still out of my price range! Even if it wasn't I'm not sure I could justify the cost to myself. I appreciate they're very rare, but it's still just a Vicky shilling. Does anyone feel the same? I can see the attraction if it were in a high grade, but with so much detail gone it doesn't scream buy me... There is a CGS 82 graded 1859 on fleabay, the seller wants £510 for it. He quotes last years Spink quotation of £525 (They're £625 this year) but rather bemusingly, if you enter the UIN in CGS it values the coin at just £350, whilst the Rotagraphic book of collectors coins states £300 so I think he'll struggle to sell that. LC have an 85 graded 1859 shilling available at £450 too.

LC have a couple of '52's in stock now rated 82 and 85 but no pictures yet for either.

I know, chump change, but as it's a coin forum... What do you think about silver? Prices have plummeted in recent times but now also seem to be recovering.

Physical gold has done very well this last week or so. I regret not buying 4 x 2012 UNC and sealed sovereigns for £780 the other day when I had change! I'm considering a small investment via bullionvault the website I mentioned, it looks very easy to use, particularly if you're familiar with the Betfair Exchange and seems safe enough too. Glencore have had a good day today rising over 8% so far. Not convinced they're down and out just yet. I still think bank shares are cheap. With oil prices and interest rates down they're bing hit very hard and as we approach annual announcements next week I think it will be ointeresting to hear their forecasts for the coming year, but as interest rates and oil prices won't remain this low forever I think they're worth a punt just now.

As per my other thread really. Hypothetical question, of which I do have an interest though... If you were wanting to start a collection of victorian shillings, which years would be :- The most reasonable in terms of price? The easiest to find? The most desirable? Finally, how common are these in gEF and UNC?

Hypothetical question, of which I do have an interest though... If you were wanting to start a collection of gothic florins, which years would be :- The most reasonable in terms of price? The easiest to find? The most desirable? Finally, how common are these in gEF and UNC?

I've been taking a look, some have real eye appeal. I'm not a penny collector as such, I think I only have around 6, but I'm tempted to bid on some I like the look of. There are a few very nice gothic florins in the upcoming DNW auction. As I'm sure you already know.

So I gather, I've been looking at both upcoming auctions that you mention and it's interesting to see the very large percentage of coins offered with Heritage are all slabbed by NGC or PCGS. I was thinking about having a couple of mine slabbed with CGS, but after some research I have to agree that PCGS does look far more appealing from a pure investment point of view.

So, if you had 100k to invest in now, who would you look at buying? What do you think about UK bank shares right now? Also, has anyone on here ever used bullionvault for gold and silver investments? I took a long look at their product the other week and it does look quite good, certainly elimintaing a lot of issues faced by small investors.

Have you ever looked at the CGS owners league table? I do wonder if those members with many thousands of points are indeed London Coins accounts.

Indeed. That's all factored into the share price right now though, is it not? They've bombed to less than a third of what they were last june. Perhaps we should all create a £100k virtual portfolio on here and see how we all fair?

Well, just piled into HSBA (HSBC ordinary shares). They looked cheap this morning at 440.35p and the dividend looks generous to me. As a result february is looking bleak on the coin front, hopefully I'll have some funds in time for the next DNW auction as there are a couple of pieces I have my eye on. Barclays, Lloyds and even Glencore don't look unnatractive right now.

I believe there call center is located in the Phillipines Rob. We've done over 100,000 transactions through them now, so as you can appreciate we have had our fair share of issues. Just last week two of our three accounts had charge backs initiated against them. The same person had purchased goods from two separate ebay shops and is claiming they did not use their credit card to place both orders. I've tracked down the person on facebook, and taken a look at their pictures. They feature the hobby our shops caters to and they're from Romania initially. Funnily enough many of these cases are from people who seem to originate there....

The real problem was that the other snipers had much deeper pockets than me! The seller is a guy called Ezen, he has a huge gold coin collection featuring some exceptional examples. He owns numerous 'best known' coins graded by PCGS. This was one of his cast offs along with almost 30 other coins. He auctions them through ebay regularly with 99p starting bids. I'm sure some of his would do better at Baldwins and DNW etc, but it must work for him... It was quite a nice example that he sold. His pictures on Facebook of said coin are better than those on ebay but you need to be a member of his private group to view.

So, just missed out on this beauty.... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281919190826?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT I did win a very nice half sovereign at a good price, but not much compensation really! It sat at £760 up until 12 seconds before the auction end, then a flurry of bids all came in right at the end. I'll not post my exact words...

Not being dense. There is a story to this, but it's not really suitable for a public forum. None of the three people you mention were involved. The chap who examined the coin just gave it a once over and then gave his opinion. To be fair he then explained how and why they grade at length and explained that for an accurate score to be given he'd need to consult "the computer" and also have it assesed by two of his peers. I hope that makes sense?

He was a thoroughly nice chap. He stated 78 or 80 on a good day... It's not my coin and won't be in the future.

Photojoiner.net test post.....

No varieties according to Marsh.

Today around £178 to £180 with the big bullion dealers. You will achieve more via ebay, but you have the fees on top, which I think are 10% from memory.

I'd agree it's not in good condition at all. You may realise more by selling it through one of Facebook sovereign / bullion groups. You should get more than the jewellers and bullion dealers pay and there's no fees as there is with ebay etc. On the plus side, gold prices have increased well over the last few weeks from five year lows.

OK, first of all I don't own this coin, but I did take the pics. The red marks appear to be miniscule fibres. At the Wakefield coin fair, one of the official CGS grading chaps had a look and offered his unofficial opinion on grade, I have to stress he did say it needed to be scored by three graders and so this was only his opinion. Anyone care to guess the magic number he suggested?

The 1888 inverted 1 double florin. Though I've read recently that the 'inverted 1' is in fact a damaged 'I'. Under the loupe there appears to be some minute red fibres on the coin. Not overly happy with these pictures. They don't show the level of detail the coin has in hand. In particular on the reverse, there is more detail in the lions faces and the St George cross in the middle is more recessed than appears on the image. Anyway, both will be sent to CGS in due course.

OK, so here's the 1845 shilling ex Cheshire collection that I picked up. The pictures were taken on a windowsill using just natural light. In hand the coin looks much darker.

I'll have to introduce myself next time.