damian1986

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 was being sarcastic about Wings. The very existence of Wings is testament to the inadequacies of the TPGs in my opinion. I wouldn't buy a coin unless someone had stamped unc on it at one point, even though it could well be an ugly little thing with hairlines and allsorts. And I've bought slabbed coins pretty much on grade alone. Probably why I'm a bit of a cynical b* now. Technically Wings exist to validate the grade except there's this implicit "oh it's Wings so I'll buy it". It's all a bit impersonal. Putting coins that are 1000+ years old in a slab of plastic and then saying it's worth X is all a bit contrived for me. The rarities, the gems, yeah they're going to do even better in a slab but I do wonder if for many coins it's worth it. What is the point of reference for these guys? Sheldon's original scale says that any 'mint state' coin should so absolutely no signs of wear, but there are tonnes of mint state coins showing wear. And I mentioned that people will continually re-submit coins to the TPGs in the hope it comes back higher, so they're obviously not that consistent. You can't beat a good description I find some dealers will be honest in their descriptions, even if the photo doesn't reveal faults they may still mention them. Not always the case though, although if the coin actually makes it past CGS (I'm sure lots do) they aren't going to tell you that it looks a bit shit in hand or has an unsightly edge knock they they felt didn't detract.

The problem is that an independent view could be different from one day to the next so while you aren't wanting to bias their decision making there are no guarantees in any resultant analysis. This is why dealers are re-submitting an MS64 five times in the hope it comes back MS65. Probably often it does. It's all besides the point anyway.. And remember that all equally graded coins are not equal. What we really need is for CGS to form a relationship with WINGS so we can be sure that we're buying a coin we like. That CGS 85 just ain't doing it for me unless it's got a WINGS sticker on it mate. No. I'm learning. Nowadays I'd much rather get "A couple of minor weak areas but well centred and full flan, good very fine" than CGS 50. Together with a decent picture it's then just a matter of taste and whether the funds are available. And thereafter I don't really care; I made a personal investment. I'm pie-in-the-sky hoping that someone will be around to show the same level of appreciation for the coin if I ever do decide to sell it, in lieu of a magic quantifier having been assigned, but then it's not unreasonable to assume that the market will be receptive to the thing-in-itself. Incidentally starting a thread with "don't read this" ...

I guess that's a nice way to focus your spending. It feels like every coin I want now is inexpensive, so it will help to be more selective. Can't leave the penny token there in that case then can you!? I hope you treat us to the image in this forum if you do decide to keep it. I bought a couple of rare ones last month and so have put a halt on spending. It feels like much longer than a month though so your token must really be something. Interesting to hear that you used to collect by date, I started off in that vein a couple of years ago but I'm always refactoring. Time / knowledge sorts all this out I suppose. If you buy the more difficult ones as a priority do you put off smaller purchases then? See I collect some German and French coins and wouldn't mind picking up a whole bunch (prices mostly in the region £20 - £100) to 'complete' a modern type collection but then all the smaller purchases would add up to one or two really nice and more numismatically interesting coins so I've been holding off on buying them.

Thanks Brandon. I'm a mixed bag between ticking boxes and having interests that are too diverse (and funds too limited) so I'm always looking to rationalise what I collect without feeling compelled to buy something just to fill a gap. Except any rationalisation of goals inevitably leads to gaps. Or a coin doesn't "fit" so then I invent new goals. I have my eye on two tokens right now so it's figuring out how they'll fit in with what I have and then what to buy next. I guess I'm a bit odd! Certainly though the copper coins and token produced in the late 18th and early 19th century are awesome pieces of work. And with tokens you get some real bang for your buck. But I also have my eye on a couple of the Droz proofs right now, and Neil's farthing list just came out, and it's DNW in a month, and ... Deep breaths.

These tokens are becoming increasingly appealing to me. The scope for collecting is a little overwhelming though. Do you have any particular collecting goals Brandon or just whatever pieces take your fancy?

I love things like this. Can't get a pair of scissors like those out 'the pound shop. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28581597 Here is the original video by Shaun Bloodworth:

I'd expect to pay £65 for a gem but then the price curve to fall pretty sharply. e.g. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1929UNC-KING-GEORGE-V-BRONZE-PENNY-/400740606633?pt=UK_Coins_BritishMilled_RL&hash=item5d4e0062a9 is not a £50 coin even relative to Spink's £65 in my opinion.

Good point I didn't realise so many more were issued. The proportion is unknown to me. Maybe it is just a case of far fewer currency issues having survived in high grade then.

I was remarking on the quality of the hand-made ones compared to the mass-produced plastic-handled stuff you'd normally find down the local shops... the attention to detail, craftsmanship; by all accounts these guys were close to going out of business but the media coverage they've had lately has seen a big bump in sales which is good to see.

You mean you viewed it last night and it's now different? The video on the BBC website by following the link is a nice interview with some shots and then the embedded one was created as part of an art project documenting Sheffield.

I haven't seen many 2+A currency issues in any grade to be honest with you - I thought they only went out in the plastic sets so I assumed that there were actually fewer minted than the proofs.

The last 2+A currency example that I saw on the market was UNC with good lustre and sold for around £300. A full lustre example in the Oxford collection sold for £425 and this was some time ago... the proofs go for nearer the £100 mark in high grade. Each to their own but the proof will do the job for me just as an example of these dies.

Once a day whether I need it or not

Does seem harsh that. Did you think you'd done okay at £230? Why would anyone bother to send it off for someone to read the legend for them? The ten or twenty quid would be better spent buying a reading for dummies book. Double that and you could have the reference book for posterity. I suppose he meant he doesn't speak as an authority on the matter and would rather let the slab do the talking but it boils down to being able to ask a bit extra for the coin. On slabbing in general I'm currrently looking at an MS64 "WINGS APPROVED" coin. Tempted, but expect it will go too high. Anyway the WINGS guys have a slogan: "All equally graded world coins are not equal". This is silly.

Yeah he said he would until he could reattribute. Can't argue with the seller's response. I blame a lack of sleep and too much caffeine. See I'll pay more than whatever would be a commonly accepted value for a coin if it appeals to me, but the idea that a coin that came out of auction only a couple of months ago is now worth double by virtue of the magic shrine that is the slab just gets me ticking a bit. Some coins you could probably list at double the cost price and get a buyer no problem but this is a common one that was bought at the upper estimate. Yes Maximinus I. There are a few coins struck in the name of Maximus who was his son. It's not 531A as that is a sestertius rather than a denarius but it's the same design.

Heard back from the seller and I feel like a bit of a dick whining about such a piece. He actually sends them off to the TPGs to get the attribution so in this instance the whole process has fallen on its arse.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/236-238-AD-Maximus-Silver-Denarius-CGS-55-/331211751705?pt=UK_Coins_Ancient_RL&hash=item4d1dc24119 It's not Maximus... Misattributed by CGS so arguably not the seller's 'fault' but still. This came out of Lockdale's in March for £80 hammer, really wouldn't have bothered having it slabbed as £200 is silly. And 'finest known' is surely redundant as the vast majority of these aren't being entombed by the tpgs.

Thanks Peter, I'll readily buy the Rotographic publications hadn't seen this one. Easy too to get it sent straight to Kindle. I just bought The Brussels Hoard of 1908. There's an article in BNJ from 1912 but you wonder how much ground an article from 100 years ago is covering and what has changed since then but there's something to be said for tracing the development of classification / understanding of these things rather than just cross-referencing against Spink. It's all a work in progress.

I wish the time to edit posts was a little bit longer... the hEN and III is not an identifying factor for the monarch.

It's Henry III. You can make out hEN and later a III from the obverse. On Edward I long cross pennies the portrait has proper curls. The reverse looks to me like NICOLE ON LVND or thereabouts so it was minted by Nicole at London. There are quite a few obverse varieties with the sceptre, classes IV and V - I'd say this is class Va or Vb as the face is narrower and the eyes very round. I am waiting on a copy of Christopher Wren's book on Long Cross coinage identification. May be worth a look for in the region of £12. Actually I don't know what would be the best resource for these would guess probably North's hammered coinage but haven't found a copy of that at the right price yet.

It's a shame that St George is falling asleep on the 2012 piece and that 2005 was put together as a stick-and-paste job with a St George that looks like a mildly aggrieved Reg Holdsworth squinting after having lost his glasses ("al gi' thee a backhander lad who doest' think ya are wit' one wing 'n no belly?") Bringing the 1935 crown into the equation and the order would be 1871, 1935, 2012, 2005. There are some nice St. George and Dragon designs on the older German talers and some Italian and Hungarian coins which would make for a more difficult comparison but Pistrucci still wins this one for me. Everything he did seems to have attached a real sense of grandeur and his works were deeply rooted in the works of the ancient past. The modern pieces, whether aesthetically pleasing to you or not, completely lack substance.

Probably the only thing I regret about purchases I made in the last 6 months is shoehorning coins into my collection because they were available and ticked a box. So I had a think / whinge about how I could get what I want whilst still being "representative". Your goals give you a lot of flexibility but there's a risk of buying a coin because it's the only one that's within your per-coin budget just to meet the criteria of having got something for that particular monarch. Don't buy a coin for 3 months and you can have one of these http://www.predecimal.com/forum/topic/3664-coin-aquisition-of-the-week/?p=106621 (if you can find one this good). But then 3 months is a long time to wait... it's difficult. I find this useful. The problem is that these sidelines get cocky and before you know it... The first post I made here was about not buying coins in the best grades you can afford, because doing so means you can't cover as much ground as quickly. But then the more ground you want to cover you end up having to fork out the cash anyway and doing things quickly means you'll probably defer most of your research until you have the 24 coins sat in front of you. At which point you may only be happy with half a dozen of them and decide you want to change focus or upgrade the rest. I'm personally always trying to mitigate against that, and I guess you are too otherwise you wouldn't have asked the question. I think now: short term goals with a view to larger ones. This has meant buying things I didn't plan on collecting originally, but also not giving a shit about some coins I'd originally planned to buy.

Very likely. Looks to be a 9b of Edward I. Thanks Clive, I'm being a little harsh I know - keywords like "unresearched" will index better so he'll get more exposure in searches and I appreciate he needs to shift the coin I just get fed up with the marketing. Regarding Saxbys I don't think I could ever buy a coin from them now, even if it was something I really needed and everything seemed in order. Out of principle. I can't find the post we had recently with the nuked coin but what possessed him to respond to a bidder with "you're naive"? How about hold your hands up and admit to being found out. No one seems to do that nowadays. As if his reputation isn't tarnished enough as far as anybody who gives a shit is concerned - what is he actually defending? I know the attitude seems to be "let the buyer beware" and all that, which is fair enough to a point, but surely we're morally obliged to to act within the confines of what is fair and productive to society - he's not going to struggle to put bread on the table or have to fire his staff if he gets an honest price for something. It just makes people more defensive. "By directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention." -- I'm pretty sure this breaks down somewhere at doin' people out of a few quid

I presume he means unresearched in terms of king or class. But yes, I agree, there's clearly been some research done! Ah I just think seller is using 'unresearched' in lieu of 'low grade' or 'unidentifiable'. As a buyer I'd be more comfortable with 'unresearched' rather than 'hard to tell', but its misleading - he probably did his research but didn't get anywhere with it, which is different. Can you make out the king and class Clive?

Incidentally I like how this seller was able to identify the denomination and mint and assign a BIN price to this unresearched piece: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Unresearched-Silver-Hammered-Long-Cross-Penny-/360950798199?pt=UK_Coins_BritishHammered_RL&hash=item540a581777