James Workman Penny sale

[Peckris]

Some excellent coins in there. Wish my father did the same for me way back then, my son will hopefully appreciate the ones i buy for him 1 day. Never see any like that on ebay, he does say his father bought from there also.

Never seen nor heard of that dot on trident 1922 before

David

Here's my 1922 Dot....

Looks like a drop of solder ... I can do that!

Hello,

Hopefully I have attached a picture of my 1882 withou H,

Not forsale I'm affraid

Bernie, are you the same Bernie who had a permanent classified ad in Coin News some years ago asking for a London 1882 penny and various other rarities?

[VickySilver]

Wow, that certainly is one of the nicer 1882s that I have seen. Very nice indeed!

[1949threepence]

Hello,

Hopefully I have attached a picture of my 1882 withou H,

Not forsale I'm affraid

Wow, just wow

[Bernie]

Bernie, are you the same Bernie who had a permanent classified ad in Coin News some years ago asking for a London 1882 penny and various other rarities?

[azda]

Hello, You have a good memory! I advertised for a few years for various rarities but give up trying, not one single reply, even after offering, Your Price Paid, not one offer, not even anybody claiming to own one of the rarities with asking price one million pounds.

[Peckris]

"Bernie, are you the same Bernie who had a permanent classified ad in Coin News some years ago asking for a London 1882 penny and various other rarities?"

Hello, You have a good memory! I advertised for a few years for various rarities but give up trying, not one single reply, even after offering, Your Price Paid, not one offer, not even anybody claiming to own one of the rarities with asking price one million pounds.

Wow, that sucks - not even one? Mind you, those were damn rare items you were advertising for!

I've just had a look at Part 1 of the sale - some very very tasty items in there! (One reservation - CCC are pretty hopeless with their grading at anything below GEF - some VGs there listed as Fine, etc etc)

[davidrj]

Some excellent coins in there. Wish my father did the same for me way back then, my son will hopefully appreciate the ones i buy for him 1 day. Never see any like that on ebay, he does say his father bought from there also.

Never seen nor heard of that dot on trident 1922 before

David

Here's my 1922 Dot....

Thanks! I bet they are pretty impossible to spot in lower grades

David

[davidrj]

Hello,

Hopefully I have attached a picture of my 1882 withou H,

Not forsale I'm affraid

Wow, just wow

Double wow!

David

[Beebman]

Hello,

Hopefully I have attached a picture of my 1882 withou H,

Not forsale I'm affraid

Wow, just wow

Double wow!

David

Triple wow!

By the way what's the general opinion about the results of pennies in the London Coins sale on Sunday? (link here: http://www.londoncoins.co.uk/index.php?page=Pastresults) On the one hand rare stuff went for crazy prices (e.g. £3200 for a 1860 F8A 1*+A) but on the other some more common types went for rather low prices in spite of being UNC with lustre (e.g. only £48 for an 1885).

David

[azda]

Well this one went for

Penny 1897 Dot between O and N of PENNY Gouby BP1897B A/UNC with traces of lustre and a couple of small spots on the veil, very rare in this grade £380

And the same coin in the Workman sale lot 74, they want 2k start price hmmmmmmmmmmm

[Rob]

Well this one went for

Penny 1897 Dot between O and N of PENNY Gouby BP1897B A/UNC with traces of lustre and a couple of small spots on the veil, very rare in this grade £380

And the same coin in the Workman sale lot 74, they want 2k start price hmmmmmmmmmmm

This just confirms my belief that the question of small spurious dots is overhyped. A dot between two letters is clearly not part of the intended design and must be due to a random unintentional modification of the die for whatever reason. Noting and collecting dots as part of a die study is a different matter, but your average collector couldn't give a **** about that. Different punches can clearly give design variation as with the various obverse and reverse dies, but die degradation is surely just and only that.

Roll on the price ramping of coins with varying states of a die crack or for the person who wants everything, a 1967 penny in Fair - much, much rarer than the common BU's seen. (Sorry, slightly off topic)

[VickySilver]

I suppose if we were smart, we would hype up such bits also and sell them into this market but somehow can not get into these bits either. Something for everybody I suppose & let it clean the wallets of the competition out when it comes to the coins I am bidding on...

[Peckris]

By the way what's the general opinion about the results of pennies in the London Coins sale on Sunday? (link here: http://www.londoncoins.co.uk/index.php?page=Pastresults) On the one hand rare stuff went for crazy prices (e.g. £3200 for a 1860 F8A 1*+A) but on the other some more common types went for rather low prices in spite of being UNC with lustre (e.g. only £48 for an 1885).

David

Some absurdly low prices there. Is the penny bubble bursting, or were there just too many going at one time? Wish I'd been there to boost my own collection. A couple of nice 1865/3 in reasonable grades (GF and VF) both less than £100. An opportunity missed

By the way, did other people get caught out by their eccentric cataloguing? I was scrolling through wondering what the logic was, then I realised they catalogue in alphabetical order of denomination!

[Red Riley]

Some absurdly low prices there. Is the penny bubble bursting, or were there just too many going at one time? Wish I'd been there to boost my own collection. A couple of nice 1865/3 in reasonable grades (GF and VF) both less than £100. An opportunity missed

I was.

[Peckris]

Some absurdly low prices there. Is the penny bubble bursting, or were there just too many going at one time? Wish I'd been there to boost my own collection. A couple of nice 1865/3 in reasonable grades (GF and VF) both less than £100. An opportunity missed

I was.

Good for you, Derek. Unfortunately my disability rules out getting to London at all, but to be honest, who would have predicted those low prices?

[azda]

Some absurdly low prices there. Is the penny bubble bursting, or were there just too many going at one time? Wish I'd been there to boost my own collection. A couple of nice 1865/3 in reasonable grades (GF and VF) both less than £100. An opportunity missed

I was.

Is this where the 180 pennies came from?

[£400 for a Penny ?]

Some absurdly low prices there. Is the penny bubble bursting

Let us hope so....

[Red Riley]

Is this where the 180 pennies came from?

Yes, I bought three bulk lots. One I felt was an absolute steal, full of high grade 20th century stuff and a few odds and ends. I actually paid a fraction of its value. Of the other two, one was a broken but fixable coin cabinet (very useful) full of pennies, mostly high grade and once again I felt I had got a bargain. The third, frankly I wish I hadn't bothered...

The money will only go so far and I was not there for individual lots this time. Hence I missed the pennies going for a song, but generally pretty pleased with my day's work anyway.

[Bernie]

Also, what's going to be in part 2 ?

I was expecting to see the sale divided by dates, not the full spectrum from Victoria through to George. There is obviously a 'strategy' in play, what is it ?

I kinda want to know, in case I should be keeping my powder dry.

James is not holding anything back, the collection was split into two parts almost evenly based on lower estimated values. Varieties not in the first auction therefore are probably in the second.There are some duplicates of some pennies, five, I believe, of which includes another Freeman 32 which is a different die pair, a 1909 dot, a Freeman 22* central fishtail again a different die pair. The reason the collection was split into two is that the penny collecting world are generally reluctant to spend a lot of money on one event, so a break inbetween gives collectors chance to reload their guns. There is a list on this site of pennies that James has not got, so will not appear in Part 2

I have a small piece of advice. From my experience, most of the not so rare pennies will probably sell exactly on estimate. If you want one of these coins i advise you to bid early. The reason for this is that dealers may start mopping up the coins with no bids on the last day. If you bid after them you will probably have to bid one step higher.

On the subject of agreements not to bid against each other, this is fine, but I personally avoid getting into agreements if possible,this is why. I reluctently agreed not to bid on a certain rarity. The other collector was outbid and I didn't know if this bidder was going to drop another bid before the hammer went down. He didn't, I didn't know whether to bid or not, too late the hammer went down and niether of us got the coin....Great!!!

[Rob]

On the subject of agreements not to bid against each other, this is fine, but I personally avoid getting into agreements if possible,this is why. I reluctently agreed not to bid on a certain rarity. The other collector was outbid and I didn't know if this bidder was going to drop another bid before the hammer went down. He didn't, I didn't know whether to bid or not, too late the hammer went down and niether of us got the coin....Great!!!

Correct. Far better to ensure that at least one of you gets the coin as you can always apologise after the sale. Both losing out causes a lot more grief, particularly if one of the interested parties bids on something else in the interim and is consequently spent up unbeknown to the other person.

[1949threepence]

By the way what's the general opinion about the results of pennies in the London Coins sale on Sunday? (link here: http://www.londoncoins.co.uk/index.php?page=Pastresults) On the one hand rare stuff went for crazy prices (e.g. £3200 for a 1860 F8A 1*+A) but on the other some more common types went for rather low prices in spite of being UNC with lustre (e.g. only £48 for an 1885).

David

Some absurdly low prices there. Is the penny bubble bursting, or were there just too many going at one time? Wish I'd been there to boost my own collection. A couple of nice 1865/3 in reasonable grades (GF and VF) both less than £100. An opportunity missed

By the way, did other people get caught out by their eccentric cataloguing? I was scrolling through wondering what the logic was, then I realised they catalogue in alphabetical order of denomination!

Couldn't agree more, Peck. I went through almost wincing with the pain of great opportunity not even lost, but never known about in the first place !!!

Some amazing bargains there, or, is the bottom beginning to drop out of the market ?

[Peckris]

By the way what's the general opinion about the results of pennies in the London Coins sale on Sunday? (link here: http://www.londoncoins.co.uk/index.php?page=Pastresults) On the one hand rare stuff went for crazy prices (e.g. £3200 for a 1860 F8A 1*+A) but on the other some more common types went for rather low prices in spite of being UNC with lustre (e.g. only £48 for an 1885).

David

Some absurdly low prices there. Is the penny bubble bursting, or were there just too many going at one time? Wish I'd been there to boost my own collection. A couple of nice 1865/3 in reasonable grades (GF and VF) both less than £100. An opportunity missed

By the way, did other people get caught out by their eccentric cataloguing? I was scrolling through wondering what the logic was, then I realised they catalogue in alphabetical order of denomination!

Couldn't agree more, Peck. I went through almost wincing with the pain of great opportunity not even lost, but never known about in the first place !!!

Some amazing bargains there, or, is the bottom beginning to drop out of the market ?

Perhaps everyone was waiting for the Workman sale and saving their pennies? Um, pun intended.

[Red Riley]

Perhaps I'm being a miserable old git but I do find the photographs on both the website and in the catalogue too heavily 'shopped to be overly useful and one more thing, one or two coins are described something like this; 'full lustre, lightly toning'. So that's not full lustre then.

I know Colin Cooke's are a thoroughly professional outfit but I jut felt they could have done better in those areas.

[VickySilver]

Which of course brings up once again just what lustre is. I do not have a problem with a coin losing some of its "red" and still being full lustre as IMO this implies a fresh, minted surface with no abrasions. In fact, I would consider some entirely brown bits to be full lustre when they exhibit that silkiness of surface with no blemishes, scratches or other breaks.

[1949threepence]

Perhaps I'm being a miserable old git but I do find the photographs on both the website and in the catalogue too heavily 'shopped to be overly useful and one more thing, one or two coins are described something like this; 'full lustre, lightly toning'. So that's not full lustre then.

I know Colin Cooke's are a thoroughly professional outfit but I jut felt they could have done better in those areas.

I agree. Some have definitely been photoshopped. For example the cheaper of the 1881 pennies looks absolutely fantastic, but whether it would look as good in the hand is a different matter.