Prax

I hear banks are being hammered and that bullion is key at the mo. So am I right in assuming that you are shorting HSBC and going long on Energy/Mining stocks? In the last week or so I have been looking to source pre 1920 silver taking into account the silver to gold ratio is widening considerably. I have done it in the past, when the ratio hits over 1:70, and will do so this time too. Happy hunting and a nice Sunday eve.

Picked up my 1897 pennies and compared around 40 low grade dot pennies and observed the variations in the positioning of the dot. In most specimens the flaws are as shown in the bottom 2 specimens (circular and away from the teeth). But in a few specimens as shown in the first 2 pics the flaw is not circular and almost in contact with the teeth. Has anyone observed a non dot flaw with the 1897 pennies? Would love to hear from you.

Rich, Just spotted my 5+D ONF. Apologies for the delay

I am with you on this M. It is a obv 2 taking into account the colon's (after gra) pointing to a tooth and being equidistant to both the A of GRA and B of BRITT. It's just that the positioning of the 'I' of BRITT seemed slightly out of place.

High res pic. Now it looks like a Hollow Neck. Aghhh!

Morning All, I Acquired a 1913 penny today and I am not too sure if it is a normal penny or the hollow neck. I've spent 30 mins on it and I have given up. The 'I' of BRITT seems to point to a tooth. Yet when I draw a straight line from the base of 'I', as shown in lower right hand side pic, the line cuts the tooth slightly towards the left. When I draw a line from the base of 'I' parallel to the outer rim of 'I', as shown in the bottom right area, then the cuts the tooth slightly towards the right. In most hollow necks that I have seen we get the 'I' either pointing directly to a space or a tooth. This one is tough. I wish it were a Hollow Neck but my money's on the normal 1913. Your comments please?

Very good point.

I can't do shares because I am not allowed to indulge in gambling or speculative trading. But if I had 100k to spare (and more importantly the time) I would buy 400 acres of land in Eastern Senegal and lease it to a reputed mining corporation like RAND. Eastern Senegal has a lot of untapped gold reserves and the Chinese are setting up camp there. One of my mates from Biz school is buying-up chunks of land there and setting up small mining companies. I hear you can rake-up 18% profit on your investment (every month not annually) after expenses if you are gritty. It wont be easy work for individuals - with the militia, corrupt officials, lack of infrastructure etc, so leasing is a good option but the returns will be meager. If you are not that adventurous then for 100k you can start your own scrap company. Eastern Pakistan and Western India are known as the ship's graveyard, where ships are stripped to threads. All you have to do so setup shop in Portsmouth or Plymouth, hire tow boats and make sure ships reach their graveyard. You get paid 40% over the costs to move the ships from international waters to the graveyard. If that was not enough whatever you salvage from the ship is gravy. So why do ships go to Western India and Pakistan to be broken down? International regulations, health and safety rules (especially concerning asbestos) and humanitarian and ecological concerns inhibit the setting up of salvaging yards in most countries; however 7 Countries including Pakistan, Bangladesh and India do not mind any of these things. Legal but not ethical in my opinion, but if that's what you want to do then 100k will become a million in no time.

Speaking to Davies it looked like Boothy booked it. We don't know who the buyer was, but Davies was definitely the under-bidder I was sat next to him with Semra on the phone. If I remember correctly Steve mentioned "this is off to Scotland then". PM me if you know who the buyer was. Good luck with the Els collection. Anything that you really fancy?

Having been active both in 2002 and in 2013 I think I can paint a picture of what the penny market was like about 15 years back. As I have mentioned previously the market then was very buoyant. The reason for this is simple you had far too many buyers with deep pockets then. We still have many buyers but I am of the opinion that they are not as many nuts (penny freaks) as there used to be in the early 2000s especially the ones that did not care too much about splashing out. Tony C put together an impressive collection in less than a decade and he could not have done it if he were bargain hunting. Crocker, Broothy, Workman, Bamford, Davies, Morgan and Charlie were just some of the names associated with pennies in those days. So, few people bought the lot, the rest had to keep looking. Let me give you an example when (a forum member’s) 1933 penny came up for sale I was among the many buyers trying to raise the 50k that was the initial asking price. I went to my bank to have my house re mortgaged to raise the 50k and by the time I had an agreement (within days) the asking price was 75k because the seller had offers in that region. I was not even in touch with the seller then, the news was through secondary sources. I am still in touch with the veterans, Davies in particular, but they have all got a pretty complete set (in high grades apart from the obvious 1933, 1952, 1954 or 1864 crosslet in unc) so many of these buyers are hardly interested in what comes to the market these days. If one of those true rarities comes to the market then I am sure we will witness carnage. Further in the last 10 years many major penny collections have come to the market (Alderney, Workman, Crocker, Bamford, Forest Park, ….). There is enough material for the second tier collector to be interested but nothing for the big boys. The last big penny to hit the market was the 1827 CGS 80 coin acquired by Boothy(?); and Davies who has a better specimen was the under-bidder. I also feel that we will not see another collection like the Gerald Jackson collection - mules in MS 64 RB, 1882 no H in 64 RB. That was a once in a lifetime opportunity that hardly any of us were interested in due to the poor quality of photographs. Re the Els collection I am hoping the seller gets a fair price but I am not too sure the current penny market is in the bull region.

Thanks.

Same dia Pete!

Rich, Thanks for responding. Glad you’ve got the coin. It makes it easy to discuss the important bits. I want to know if you have some good pics of your coin. Further do you know if your coin is a copper or bronze penny?

Morning All, I wanted to have something going about the bay 1967 heavy flan penny. Firstly the coin was sold by Lockdales of Ipswich. Next the coin weighs around 13-14 grams. I also noted that though the coin was strongly struck there are minor scruffs on Liz’s neck and shoulder. These are post strike marks which could have happened as a result of using a softer flan. The flan is Copper in my opinion and not bronze. I have not tested the flan’s metallic composition but the colour and scruffs (extremely soft nature of the metal) point to Copper. Finally there is a tiny extra bit of metal around the strike area. This could be because a slightly larger flan than intended was used. I have seen a lot of this on the early Vicky penny bronzes especially on the 1860 beaded borders. Does anyone know who purchased this lot http://londoncoins.co.uk/?page=Pastresults&auc=142&searchlot=1714&searchtype=2? I would be interested to carry out a comparative study. I would also like to hear from people what they think of this coin - Lockdales, pattern, copper, heavy flan, strong strike etc all interesting points to consider. Look forward to your replies and have a smashing weekend.

Thanks. By all means!

Added today http://i.imgur.com/yyptDFf.png

Words of wisdom. 7% annually is a very good investment, though I have not seen coins as an investment. If I told my wife it was then she would start with how great an investment paintings are.

Could you upload a pic Vicky. That's very harsh in my opinion. Flan (minor) faults are generally ignored in my opinion.

Nice vid. Golan Heights is officially Israeli territory now

I had posted the pic to this forum before but I can't recall the thread. Here it is anyway http://i.imgur.com/kZoei6r.jpg Don't set your expectation too high. UNC by American standards Graded ANACS 62 RB. As shown on the image there are scratches on the holder by the date. I will try to re-holder or have it re-graded by PCGS sometime.

Couldn't agree more.

The new thread is called Markets

Too many people have asked me about the slender 3 and why I exited the market only to re-enter a few years later. Here's my story between 2003 and 2011. Collecting coins was always a hobby of mine. But only in 2003, after moving to Cardiff, did I take it seriously. I used to buy silver and gold coins in bulk from scrap traders and jewelers only to separate the half decent coins and sell the rest on as scrap. This way I began to build a decent collection by only paying slightly over bullion value for coins. Slowly by 2004 I started to buy non bullion coins as well. Within a year I acquired a few very rare pennies, including an UNC 1903 open 3; and became more interested in pennies. In those days the demand for pennies was stratospheric (I am of the opinion that the market for coins is subdued at the mo). On ebay you had people like C Morgan, Tony C, L Bamford, M Platt, C Davies, G Schindler, F Fiona etc who'd snap anything of interest and the selling price for pennies in auction-houses wwas pretty steep too. If you recall in 2003 a decent sovereign was selling for £45 - 60, yet at the same time a cleaned 1875 H specimen penny from the Adams sale was going for about £960 (https://spink.com/lot-description.aspx?id=3011262). I still retain this coin (The same coin will perhaps sell for around £1500 today but a sov is selling for around £200). So I decided to sell my pennies and invest in silver. By 2009 a mate and I had about 300 kgs in silver and we started a refining business in Birmingham producing 990 silver for big names to put their stamp on. By 2012 the metals market nosedived and I exited the business after taking a 30% cut on my investment. However rather than taking my share as cash, I took just over 90 kgs in pre 1920s silver. Again I sold all the 1911-9 coins and damaged coins for scrap and I still retain over 30 kgs of at least clear date pre 1911 silver, which have not been checked for variants. I have stocked this in an bank vault and I intend to use this for my retirement project. Must be fun sorting through each coin using an ESC book, some of which are from the mid 1600s. Since 2013 I have returned to pennies and have started rebuilding. Coming to your other question 19k was pretty good but considering the demand at that time I'd say it wasn't unexpected. I had a cash offer of 13k for the slender 3 and 5k for my 1903 open 3. I gave the coin to LCA on the condition that I would take 13k+ (after commission) or not pay the commission if the coin did not sell. The die number 5 penny, which sold a year prior, went for more than the slender 3. The pattern 1933 sold for over 30k during the same time. The market then was very buoyant. In my opinion (adjusted for inflation) collectibles' prices are low at the moment. Property is on the up (but I believe it might have peaked) and this is precisely why I created a tread called markets in the "everything goes" section

US TPG companies don't bother about verdigris or carbon spots. That said carbon spots are not taken seriously by CGS either. Carbon spots do not harm the coin they just diminish the eye appeal. Verdigris on the other hand is a problem that can harm the coin and US TPGs will ignore it until recently. Lately PCGS and NGC (if I am not mistaken) have offered the option to conserve coins that they have graded. http://news.coinupdate.com/pcgs-adds-new-and-simpler-services-raises-fees-1733/ This means they now acknowledge verdigris as being a nuisance and will have it removed for a fee. However they state clearly that they will only do this to coins that can be conserved and not to coins that are beyond help. I did speak to NGC as well and they did not seem to think verdigis was a serious problem. I know of many CGS coins that have had verdigris and have still been graded. The 1863 slender 3 that I sold had enough verdigris on it to be classed corroded. Look around the A of Victoria and the N of Penny. http://www.londoncoins.co.uk/?page=Pastresults&auc=126&searchlot=1643&searchtype=2 The fact that you are not able to search by UIN is worrying. Would you kindly send an example please with pictures of the slab and coin if possible and I will investigate it for you by speaking to my contacts in NGC and PCGS.

Indeed upside down reverse. I have seen 2 F762s and both had upside down reverses. Have you come across any specimens with a normal reverse alignment?