Stuntman

Cheers Gary. In any case, I'm hoping the coin will dull down a bit over time.

I think a mark-up like he's asking is pretty reasonable. Certainly in comparison to what you will often see in the art world (dealers buying from auction and then selling in their gallery). Admittedly the art dealer has the costs of the gallery to cover which an online coin dealer will not, but from the customer's point of view the markups on coins are a lot more favourable than those on art. That 1926 ME cost him 78% of the current price he's asking. If you're buying the pictures or sculptures (or indeed the coins) just to enjoy rather than with half an eye on investment, this of course matters less.

About a minute I think. Make a cup of tea or pour yourself a nice dram of whisky ;-)

Cheers - I must have looked at his stock when I was up there in December but there were so many dealers here, I didn't really remember many of the names!

And you can zoom in to get a pretty decent look at the coins on the cover too!

The pictures of the individual coins aren't on the website, but the PDF for the January list can be downloaded from the homepage. http://www.colincooke.com/download/Cooke-List-January-2016-full.pdf

Not bad I reckon. I have a 1915, a 1930 and a 1945 but no others of the period you're currently collecting. Mine were all from dealers.

Slight thread hijack, but what long term effects does polishing have on a coin, assuming the polishing hasn't caused much, if any, field damage? Will the coin naturally tone/retone over time? The reason I ask is that I have an 1842 shilling that looks very shiny under artificial light. Perhaps it has also been polished. Coin grades as GVF and there doesn't appear to be any obvious hairlines or swirls - it's just rather bright and shiny (as opposed to lustrous) but is otherwise rather nice.

Can I ask why you sent it in the first place?

I'd hazard a guess at NEF.

Those Colin Cooke pennies are on the cover of the catalogue, in colour, which can be downloaded as a PDF from their website if anyone hasn't seen it already. They look lovely to me, which is easy to say as they are completely out of my league! Hope they find good homes.

Nice once again Non, I do like the ex Rob 1758 shilling, a lot better than mine from Colin Cooke about a year ago. Who is Ian and does he have a website? I'll probably get to the fair again in March.

Bit of a halfcrown theme going on there! How much was the 1930, dare I ask? The 1917 holds the most eye appeal for me. Are you intending to collect a date run then?

Bronze & Copper Collector's analysis appears extremely plausible to me as well. For what it's worth, I can understand why the TPG would reject the coin if they routinely reject ones that they think may have been cleaned in some way in the past. Whether this policy makes sense is another matter. Purely on subjective eye appeal based on your photos, I don't think that the current state of the coin is any less appealing - and therefore by extension to me, less valuable - than it was before submittal. If anything, it looks a bit nicer. I hope you continue to enjoy the coin.

That's lovely. I really like the W&M silver coins with that reverse design. I'm on the lookout for a 1693 normal date shilling.

The most important question is are you happy with all of them? Some might say you've overpaid slightly for the first two, but if you like them I wouldn't worry. I agree with you about the 1946 coin(s) - as I said in your other thread! I haven't posted any photos on the forum yet, mainly because my photography skills are very poor in comparison to the high standards here. But one day, one day...

I used to run for Yeovil Olympiads Athletic Club in the 1980s

I reckon you're about right on the grade. Reverse looks slightly better than the obverse to me. Nice coin for a tenner!

Those coins look perfectly nice to me, Frank, with plenty of eye appeal - and they haven't broken the bank. I'd be happy with them for the price you paid... If/when you get the Collectors Coins GB book, this contains mintage figures for each coin and each year, where figures were published. This will help give an idea of the coin's relative scarcity but doesn't necessarily correlate with how hard may be to find one in really top condition (older coins might have been melted down, or not kept as often, etc).

Good stuff. Looking forward to seeing the new acquisitions, and happy recycling

Happy New Year and may the coins be with you!

Hi Frank, Happy New Year and welcome. I'm relatively new around here too, having returned to collecting recently after a long lapse since boyhood. Sounds like you're already enjoying finding and buying interesting coins at sensible prices. £16 for a really nicely designed, 116 year old bit of silver in perfectly acceptable condition is a bit of a result, really. That said, I do agree with the advice others have already given about how it can be worth paying a bit more for one that's a fair bit nicer. I bought a 1900 halfcrown about 6 months ago from the colincooke.com site which was graded GEF by them and which to me looked absolutely lovely for the price being asked. As you might have seen in another thread in this area, I went to the Midland Coin Fair last month and would certainly recommend it as an experience in terms of getting to look at loads of coins, and asking questions. I met Rob there too, and bought a coin from him! Have fun collecting. I agree that there's no need to have a theme or anything, but I suspect that some denominations or monarchs will naturally appeal to you more than others. Personally, I wanted a decent grade example of every circulating predecimal denomination from the quarter-farthing to the crown, and a decent grade example of every monarch. Ideally I would like a decent example of every monarch's bust going back to say George I, but that's probably too ambitious for my coin cash flow! As a general rule for my coin cash and given the sort of collection I have, I would rather buy a better grade example of a relatively common date for a given type of coin, than a lower grade example of a rarer date. However, for any general rule there will inevitably be exceptions, especially if those exceptions appear to be available for a good value price in my opinion. As an example, I bought a 1905 shilling about a year ago from this very site. It's 'only' NF/AF but is a good honest coin which I'm delighted to have.

Very pretty, I like it too. And I loved my citybreak in Barcelona about 9 years ago now, although I was mostly looking at the Gaudi architecture and the Picasso museum.

Well I did make it to the coin fair today and enjoyed spending a couple of hours or so looking round, and talking to many of the dealers. I didn't try to sell my silver predecimal coins in the end, but would probably try to do so when/if I attend the fair again, now that I feel a bit more confident about it. As an experience, I was impressed by the breadth and variety of coins there - something for everyone, with prices ranging from a few pence to the tens of thousands of pounds! Every dealer that I spoke to was friendly, keen to show me the coins I wanted to see, and to offer advice. In the end I did make one predecimal purchase - a nice shilling from Rob (1739 Roses in aVF). I'm thinking about a couple of coins from the Colin Cooke dealers after chatting to Neil there today as well. I also couldn't resist buying two of the four Olympic 50ps I was missing (paid a pound for each) and a Rio Handover 2 pound coin (paid 3 pounds). They're all in decent enough grade (given they were in a tub) and I'm happy with these as additions to my decimals from circulation. So if any other beginners/lapsed collectors were thinking of going to a fair like this, I would thoroughly recommend it. Rob mentioned that he also saw jelida and Nonmortuus today, was anyone else there - and if so, how did you get on?

Rob, I agree. I would be happy with a price around melt for my common silver coins in average well-circulated grade. I don't need to keep them, and any value they have will be recycled into a coin purchase. The ones that are a bit better include shillings from 1816, 1826, 1834, 1879 and 1880. These are only Fair to NF but I'd expect these to be a bit better than melt, or is that wishful thinking? It'd be more of a shame to put those in the pot, IMO. Just hoping to find them a new home and release a bit of cash. Anyway - looking forward to attending the fair and seeing some proper coins, regardless!