Stuntman

I certainly wasn't intending the post to appear boastful, so I apologise if it came across that way. And the car's perhaps only NVF given its considerable circulation, or maybe 'Bold VF for issue'... In any case, I am out of work at the moment so any funds are being used extremely sparingly until I start earning again. No coins, no cars, no art... and only a little bit of whisky

I have one of these - an 06-plate Cayman S that I've had from new since March 06. Nearly 90k on the clock now and I still love driving it. Much like coins - quality is indeed the key. I've never regretted pushing the boat out for the Cayman, even when it's thrown me the odd big bill. Sorry for the thread hijack Non. I love your halfcrowns. When funds allow, I'm aiming for similar ones too!

After searching on here in regard to conserving/improving coins, I've been immersing a few of my relatively low value silver and bronze coins in olive oil. All such coins have shown improvement after 2 weeks immersion followed by a rinse in de-ionised water. The best results have been on 1920-1946 silver where there had previously been light, green (verd?) deposits. I've tried it on two coins with much more entrenched green deposits and these have both improved to a decent degree as well after 3 weeks immersion. I have also just immersed 3 George V farthings in olive oil and again, this has done the trick in removing heavier (but still not too bad) traces of green deposits after two weeks immersion and some light prodding with a softened and blunted cocktail stick. So I'm now experimenting on two nickel-brass threepences from 1943 and 1954. These are F to GF grade (came from family members 35+ years ago) and they don't have any green deposits but they do have a brownish colour to them which appears to be a deposit or similar, rather than just wear and toning. The reason I'm asking for advice is because I have a 1946 and a 1949 threepence, both of which I also picked up about 35 years ago in the rummage box of a coin shop for something like 50p each. The 1946 is perhaps GF+ or NVF if you're being generous, the 1949 is F to GF. Both coins have a bit of this brownish colour/deposit to them and ideally I'd like to improve them a bit. So - any tips for conserving/improving nickel-brass coins if olive oil doesn't make a difference? Thanks in advance!

Update: after 8 days of immersion in olive oil plus some light prodding with the softened and blunted cocktail stick, there has been a significant reduction in the amount of brownish deposits on the two threepences, but I think the general eye appeal might be a little worse. This is because there are now a few patches of lighter colour (being the underlying alloy colouration, I think) which makes it look as if the coins have been cleaned/scraped a bit. I don't think I've done that with the cocktail stick. The George VI coin seemed to get a bit darker in overall tone (which made it look worse to me), whereas the Elizabeth II coin seemed not to change in overall tone. So overall, I don't see it as an improvement so I'm not going to do a similar thing with my 1946 and 1949 coins. I might just give these a gentle wash with detergent and de-ionised water and then carefully pat dry. They're nice enough as they are: fairly good honest coins.

's fair enough Colin Cooke had an 1841 Halfcrown up for sale earlier this year - graded as EF, looked pretty nice from their pictures, and was up at £5500.

As per my olive oil thread, I've found that 2 weeks immersion in olive oil clears up quite a lot of that verdigris on the .500 silver. Certainly worth a try in the first instance if you haven't got any acetone handy, like me.

What's the forum consensus on grade? I would say Obv GVF, Rev NVF, no idea what this would translate into as a CGS number...

How exciting. It looks OK to me, keeping my fingers crossed for you too!

Cheers chaps. I'll continue to experiment, wash and dry accordingly!

I've just been reading hazelman's thread "Using acetone to clean coins" which answers my questions above!

Thanks copper123. How long should the coin stay in the acetone, as a general rule of thumb? And where can I buy acetone - is it easy to find on the high street or do you need to go somewhere a bit more specialist? I'll experiment on another family-sourced nickel-brass threepence...

Cheers Vicky ​ I do dry the coins afterwards using kitchen towelling paper rather than high quality cotton towelling. Should I go back and use detergent on the coins that I have previously immersed and then rinsed in de-ionised water? I was under the impression that leaving a thin film of olive oil on the coins would do no harm, but I'm very happy to be corrected.

As another relative novice, I agree wholeheartedly with TomGoodheart's last paragraph. Before buying anything I looked through thousands of photographs of coins on dealers' websites to get an idea of price versus eye appeal and the particular dealer's attribution of grade. I sometimes go to my local provincial saleroom as they sometimes have general lots of coins. If I like these coins I have sometimes tried to buy these very cheaply by bidding no more than 50% of what I think a dealer would price it to sell, but have not secured anything so far using this tactic. I would bid higher if it was a coin that I particularly wanted. If nothing else, it allows me to see more coins in hand and get an idea of what they look like in a variety of grades. Welcome!

Many thanks guys. I will continue to enjoy the journey! Having seem some of your wordpress sites, I might try and do the same...​

Hello! I've been lurking here since January but only just started posting. I'm so impressed by the knowledge and passion here! I'm Dan and I live in Cheltenham. I was interested in coins as a youngster which probably stemmed from being given a silver jubilee crown when I was at primary school. Elderly family relatives then gave me their pre-decimal coins that they had kept (mostly bog standard bits and bobs that they had just kept from change as curiosities, nothing particularly rare or in particularly good condition) and I would then spend my pocket money from time to time in a coin shop in Bristol, mostly on pre-1920 shillings in about F grade if I was lucky. My parents bought me 3 coins during this time as birthday and Christmas presents (a cartwheel twopence in GVF to NEF, an 1838 three-halfpence which is about EF and an 1889 double florin in GF) which were the absolute highlight of my collection then. My interest then lay relatively dormant apart from the odd commemorative crown or Royal Mint pack for about 25 years. I then won a sovereign as first prize in a 10k race. I was so pleased with this that I did the same race for the next 3 years and successfully won 3 more! There was also another 10k race with the same sponsor, but this was much harder to win and I only managed it once in 4 attempts. So I have two 2005 sovereigns... Roll forward another 5 years or so and the Olympic 50ps piqued my interest. I managed to find 25 of the 29 in change and then I bought the Royal mint set with the folder and completer medallion. This then led me towards the 2013 and 2014 £20 silver coins, and the commemorative coin proof sets (I know, I know... but I like most of the coin designs especially the £2s). At this point I then decided that I'd rather spend any further money on coins by acquiring some proper predecimal coins. I dusted off my old schoolboy collection, and while it still gave me a lot of pleasure I was slightly dismayed by the quality of it, with most of it being in the Fair to VF range. Plenty of scope for upgrading and adding different denominations or types. So then onwards to the slippery slope of the online coin dealers! Wow, what lovely coins there are out there, and this is how I came across this site and its fantastic forum. I bought a small number of coins from here in January, although since then have bought mainly from other dealers who seem to have more stock and a more regular flow of new items. I do still check here regularly though... I now wanted to acquire a decent-ish example of a coin in every circulating denomination and also a decent-ish example of every obverse design of each monarch's head (if that makes sense). By decent-ish I mean GVF and above, ideally GEF if I could afford it. So these last 9 months have been a lot of fun trying to find nice examples of different coins with good visual appeal for reasonable money at dealer prices. Given that I'm collecting for pleasure rather than investment, I've probably overpaid on a few occasions but overall I'm very pleased with what I've found and now have what to me at least is an interesting little collection! I'm not sure where I'll go next: I do still like shillings and might upgrade a few more, or go back in time a bit further (earliest I have is a William III 1700 plain in angles). Equally, I think halfcrowns are particularly lovely coins and I might go back further on these (earliest I have is an 1885 YH Victoria). Anyway - hello! And thanks for reading.

Thanks chaps, it's all good to hear. I agree about the fantastic coins in many of your collections. I'm trying to keep my spend reasonably modest at the moment while I'm still learning. I tend to weigh up the eye appeal versus the price and make a decision accordingly and have found that a pleasing-to-me GVF (as graded by the relevant dealer) is often the sweet spot. That said, I have pushed the boat out once or twice for uncommon or just plain nice pieces. The most 'serious' coin that I how have is a 1930 wreath crown graded EF by the dealer, which I think is lovely. Peter - I've usually got a few single malts from Scotland on the go, with occasional forays into other countries such as Japan & Sweden. I haven't found an Irish Whiskey yet that really floats my boat but people say good things about the Midleton distillery. Happy dramming and I hope the dry spell doesn't last too much longer!

Thanks gents. I might well get myself up to the Midland coin fair at some point.

Cheer chaps. I've probably always had the collecting gene, it just surfaces in different places from time to time (the house is fairly full of car magazines, the walls have quite a lot of paintings on them, and some of the furniture has sculptures on the top of it.) I can stop, honest... ​

Cheers - and yes, I agree entirely regarding the shillings. I've enjoyed looking at the pictures of some of the hammered coins you've put up. The most I've spent on a shilling is comfortably under £100 so yes, going back any further than what I've currently got would require a deep breath! I thought about the 1693 W&M shilling up that was up at £175 on Colin Cooke's website until very recently (now gone) but will bide my time and save up for something slightly better. Currently I think halfpennies represent good value from an initial purchase price viewpoint (and I appreciate that they probably don't have the same 'value' from an investment viewpoint unless there is a sea-change in their popularity) so who knows, perhaps I might end up with a few more of those, especially the copper ones of 1799-1859.

It means llareggub to me, as Dylan might have said...