Removal of Accessories
As of April 2017 the predecimal.com range of coin collecting accessories on offer has been drastically reduced to just a handful of basic essentials so that I can concentrate on the most successful aspect of my business at the moment, which is the publication of coin related price-guides and reference books through my Coin Publications imprint. The coins on offer here are not affected and I hope to add more soon!
When I started selling accessories about 15 years ago there were very few websites offering the same quality products and the few that did were hard to use and very expensive. From within Germany I was able to source quality German made products, offer them at excellent prices and send them direct to buyers in the UK. It was hugely successful for a number of years, but things have changed since then, the most significant factor is probably the exchange rate. I sell things in British Pounds and buy them in Euros. A few years ago 80 Euros retail price in Germany would have been about £56.00 on the website. Right now the same 80 Euros worth of accessories equates to £69.00 (and at one stage it was well over £70.00)! I tried to resist at first, but have had to put prices up a couple of times in recent years.
The unavoidable hike in prices due to the weak GBP has made me less competitive and there are now people within the UK offering great prices on quality coin collecting accessories (often exactly the same products from the same suppliers) on a much larger scale and with the advantage of cheaper postage costs and much quicker delivery than I could ever achieve from here.
The world has also become more global and there are large amounts of Chinese made accessories available on large websites. Lots of people seem to want the cheapest product available without any emphasis on quality, longevity or even if the products are safe for long term contact with coins. People after cheap low quality products can now order direct from China.
Rest assured, predecimal.com is here to stay – with the focus on the numismatic world asset that is the huge forum packed with answers and answerers to almost anything UK coin related that you could imagine as well as the efficient sale and purchase of British pre-decimal coins with honesty and integrity.
