Read this first if new here.

[Half Penny Jon]

I always find that Bronze coins don't usually achieve their Spink prices on Ebay.

[Master Jmd]

I always find that Bronze coins don't usually achieve their Spink prices on Ebay.

that is the same with proof/unc sets, so far the highest i have seen a 1970 proof set sell for is £13, it is valued in spink for £20...

[Half Penny Jon]

Exactly. Maybe the Spink prices are too ambitious for Ebay?

[william]

Exactly. Maybe the Spink prices are too ambitious for Ebay?

Spink prices are quite high compared to other books...

[Half Penny Jon]

It does seem so yes. I also notice that with Spink, they just add a certain amount to each coin each year. For example. Late victorian shillings: just add £25!

[william]

You heard it here first! You lot are the first to know, so keep this under your hats for the time being.

The news that I was just itching to tell you will indeed involve you all (if you want to play a part) and I hope you share in the excitement I feel about this project.

In a nut shell, I will soon own Rotographic publishing, the publisher of Collectors Coins GB 2004 and most of the other books I offer on the website. Any of you that already have any of these books will know that they are basically sound books, if a little out of date in some respects and slightly lacking on the actual printed quality.

The current owners are 78 and 61 years old, and they feel it's about time someone younger took the reigns and left them in peace!

The best part is that the books are already sold in large numbers, and have plenty of scope for improvement. Another bonus is that I will be having them printed here in East Germany to cut costs and sending them to the UK suppliers myself, which among others include WHSmith and Waterstone.

I have to arrange a few things financially, and my first job after that (in fact I've started it already) will be to create a swanky rotographic website (rotographic.co.uk). Your first job will be to give me feedback on that website! (rotographic.co.uk is currently setup to point at predecimal.com)

The next Collectors Coins Great Britain book (2005) is due to be worked on soon, for its September/October initial print run, and I would like to get the next major issue under my belt before I make any major changes to the content/layout etc of the most important title. So, the 2005 edition will be written by R J Marles like usual and then edited by me, before it is printed here in Germany.

What I would like you people to do is help me with the research for the coin prices in the not too distant future. I would really like to, as one of the first priorities, update the Collectors George III coins, which hasn't been worked on since 1998.

I'm afraid I cannot offer you hard cash or anything like that (believe me, it's expensive enough already!), but anyone agreeing to help out with the research into a particular coin type or date range will of course get mentioned as a researcher in the book, and will receive free copies of all 5 of the publications that I will be taking control of.

This is a wonderful business opportunity for me, and I really think there is potential for a steady increase in the sales of these titles, especially if the quality and consistancy can be improved.

Please do tell me what you think.

Would we help with this every year?

[Half Penny Jon]

I hope so. After all we are collectors and collectors know how much they are willing to pay for a particular coin.

[Master Jmd]

and we are lucky, not many young collectors like us usualy have a chance of helping in a coin book

[Half Penny Jon]

I know. I'm glad Chris has asked for our help.

[Chris Perkins]

Yes, I thought you'd appreciate it, who knows it could launch you into a job as numismatic journalist or author in the future.

I will of course be checking everything thoroughly like an editor, but I think it may be too much for me to do it all myself, so it certainly looks like it may be an annual thing at the moment. We'll have to see how it goes.

[Half Penny Jon]

Sound's good to me!

[Master Jmd]

when will the rotographic site be ready?

[Half Penny Jon]

I expect Chris is working on it at the moment.

[Emperor Oli]

He said a basic version by the end of the day

[Half Penny Jon]

I'll have to look at it later.

[custard1966]

Thankyou for your support, both of you.

To answer your Question Oli, on a good year 20,000 of the books are sold. Perhaps it averages 13,000 or something of the main title (I think it's more than the Coin yearbook!) I'm not sure about the others, I would imagine they are fractions of that.

My own sales show that I could sell 350-400 CCGB2004's on predecimal.com in 1 year (using my 7 mth figures). In a year I should personally sell 150-200 Collectors Irish and Collectors Banknotes and perhaps close to 150 Collectors Roman.

So using my results as an average, the other books should come to a good few 1000 altogther anually.

Other places to monitor prices would include any website that offer coins for sale. I suppose the asking price is all very well, but really we are concerned with the actual selling prices. Perhaps we could ask for the record of sales from Colin Cooke, myself of course, and any other online dealers. As well as subscribing to lists etc (at my expense, I'm not expecting you to shell out).

I've been thinking about the pros & cons of the collectors guide vs Spink

Pros

price - as a penny collector I feel most of the £18 I shell out for Spink is wasted because it's irrelevant.

portability - of vital importance when attending fairs

Cons

prices - are somewhat out of date IMHO

breadown - if you collect copper pennies you need both the George III guide and the 1820 onwards. This tends to offset the cons.

If the cons could be addressed then I for one wouldn't bother with Spink. There are other reference works available for identification which don't need frequent updating & what I want from the Collectors Guide is up to date prices.

[Chris Perkins]

Custard,

I'm pleased you addressed those points, they are basically the same pros and cons that I came up with, and the possible solutions were:

Make the prices right! (with help of forum member researchers and me)

Add a few more pages and extend the date range, perhaps to at least 1797 to cover basically all modern milled. The extra paper would put the price up a little, but it would absolutely be cheaper than £18

After that, the books will have no cons. I think a major thing that also needs addressing is the image quality.

[Geoff T]

Chris, you're absolutely right when you say the prices in CC need updating. Most of them are markedly too low, which means that CC isn't always as helpful as it should be if you take it along to a fair. It's also extremely frustrating that it starts with George IV, which means you miss the first four post-recoinage years. I'd be grateful for it to be backdated at least to 1816, even if that meant a small overlap with a separate George III volume.

Another thing I find frustrating is that CC doesn't cover gold. Would you consider expanding it so that it did? I too don't want to cart around a very heavy Spink, most of which is irrelevant to my preferences anyway.

Another point - I've freelanced as a professionally journalist (albeit in music) for nearly 25 years and I currently edit my own professional journal, so could I be of any use there?

[Master Jmd]

why cant the george III book combine with the cc book?

[Chris Perkins]

Geoff,

Points accepted, 1821 is a funny date to start on, it makes perfect sense historically, but little sense numismatically. Perhaps I'll be able to stretch it back, cut out decimal (apart from perhaps a quick mention) and still use the same number of pages.

Does anyone think it's of paramount importance to include decimal?

If the inclusion of gold would lead to more sales then I'm sure I can squeeze it in, in the future. I do think that most of the collectors that buy the book are probably not collectors of gold coins.

I'm sure you can help out somehow Geoff, when I know in more detail waht is needed.

[custard1966]

Custard,

I'm pleased you addressed those points, they are basically the same pros and cons that I came up with, and the possible solutions were:

Make the prices right! (with help of forum member researchers and me)

Add a few more pages and extend the date range, perhaps to at least 1797 to cover basically all modern milled. The extra paper would put the price up a little, but it would absolutely be cheaper than £18

After that, the books will have no cons. I think a major thing that also needs addressing is the image quality.

That sounds great Chris.

I think the issue of images is an interesting one and I can only speak from the point of view of a specialist penny collector. The way the guide is at the moment the images are pretty pointless (and all other catalogues are just as bad) and I'd be prepared to lose them as a trade for having more varieties listed (see my next point). The real value of images is if there are enough to provide a (reasonably) complete identification guide. This requires a lot of images and that the images be of a suitable size & quality This would, I think be very diffcult to do at all and probably be beyond the scope/cost for this publication.

Beyond that I suppose (again from the point of view of a penny collector) the other thing to sort out is which 'varieties' to include. There are lots that are described in reference works but not typically listed in catalogues.

I guess there's a trade off between pages (& hence cost) and completeness. But as a specialist collector I'd certainly be prepared to shell out a few pennies more for the most complete list and I think this would be a very worthwhile 'unique selling point' for people like me.

[Emperor Oli]

I couldn't care less about decimal personally.

[william]

Neither do I, shall we just leave decimal alone?

[Chris Perkins]

Neither do I, shall we just leave decimal alone?

I may mention just general price ranges for unc decimal coins, and probably mention the rarer varieties, the 1983 'New Pence' etc. Perhaps show a few pictures of the different pound coins, and the yearly 'Queen takes dog for a walk' commemorative types!

I think it's a good idea to show pictures of the main types (mainly just the different monarchs and reverses), the book would be boring without the odd picture to aid new collectors I feel. Although in the current issue there is, for example a picture of a GVI halfpenny reverse, and also a picture of a EII Halfpenny reverse. To save space I will illustrate it once and state somewhere 'EII reverse as GVI reverse'.

I will probably make this members only area a little more exclusive too, so that I can be sure new members can't come in and nose around what is none of their business. I'll look into upgrading all you lot somehow and creating an even more private area for this kind of thing.

[custard1966]

Another thing I think would be very useful is to add Peck/Freeman catalogue numbers (Peck for copper, Freeman for bronze).