ColonialCoinsUK

I expect we all do this to some extent, even if we don't realise it, and documenting it is surprisingly difficult so congratulations on your article in the Clarion (which I had to look up ).

We are a bit short of numismatic publications here in the UK which is more or less now limited to 'Coin News' which does a great job of trying to cover everything from ancients to new paper money releases.

Many congratulations on a "Best In-Practice Paper" award as this means people in the field believe and trust what you have done - you can rightly be very proud of this and it is also testament to your graduate supervisor.

One interesting outcome of lockdown has been that some colleagues have realised that their whole life has been work - even if they are married with children. As a result some have embraced new hobbies (no new coin collectors though) whereas others seem to have an increased focus on more awards, committee roles and so on, personally I am trying to work out how to retire in 10 years and not 20!

20 hours ago, Iceman said:

I know what you mean about having to look at the coin in hand to determent the grade from photo and it can be very difficult. I got rather good at it over the past 17 years of searching on ebay and other sites as long as the seller has good photos . what I hate is when these auction houses in Europe post pictures of coins using some kind of photo technique that hide the luster of the coin...they almost look like a animation of the coin and can be very deceiving.. I guess they do this on purpose in order to hind the true appearance of the coin. What kind of coins are you looking for ...The U.S..  auction houses like Heritage and Stacks has great amount of foreign coins that come up for auction. I would give them a try.

My focus now tends to be the Napoleonic period which impacted a large proportion of the world so coins could be from anywhere - although I occasionally still can't pass on a British/British colonial piece. I buy lots from Heritage, Stacks, Goldberg and Stephen Album in the US and across Europe, I even bought a coin in the UK last week which was a first for quite a while - it was NGC graded already though!

I agree that the photos from auction houses vary dramatically, and alot of auction houses do not mention hairlines which are not usual evident from the photo either but are extremely obvious with the coin in-hand.

On 9/11/2020 at 2:08 PM, Iceman said:

Why do you have to go to another country to see the coin's you are looking for ...that must be really hard or expensive to do. 

 

Many many years ago when I lived in London, and only collected British coins, there were plenty of places to go and spend time going through coins before selecting a coin for my collection. Now that I live a very long way from London and my collecting is now mainly world coins this is no longer possible as the availability of world coins in the UK is extremely limited, so if I want to spend a few hours looking through coins this tends to only be possible at dealers, usually on trips to France, Spain and Italy.

As a result I tend to now buy only at auction, typically overseas, and graded coins or ones that are only available in lower grades as I find it extremely difficult to determine whether a raw coin is MS64 to MS67 from a photo - this is much easier by hand when you can view it at different angles and the lustre is easy to see.

I suppose I could just go back to collecting British coins

Fantastic results - how many coins do you have to go through before you find the ones you submit?

I ask as it has been years since I got to see raw coins in the flesh before purchasing and the nearest place is in another country!

In my case I expect coins are much much less than a quarter of purchases - here in the UK Ebay seems to be the main/only source for the various bits and pieces you can no longer get in the shops, such as a new heating element for the oven and some fence posts!

Some things you can also get on Amazon but they are usually more expensive - so Amazon totals one purchase in the last few years and that was a book.

16 hours ago, Jaggy said:

Thanks. Still have some key gaps and key upgrades to find. I'd like to complete the type set and complete Victoria. The problem is threefold. That the coins become available, that the quality is there and what they cost. Rather than die numbers, I have tended to go for varieties (per Davies). But that does explain your different Victoria sets. Don't know much about Napoleon other than Waterloo. Doing a bit of George V collecting at the moment.  When I was growing up it was quite common to have George V coins in our change so, in my early days of collecting, I tended to ignore his reign as too 'modern'.

Couldn't agree more, I also started trying to put a variety set together for 1816 to 1970, usually in VF, trying to upgrade the Victorian and earlier examples has proved extremely expensive and difficult, graded versions even more so. Although MS63 seems possible for most of the issues, I know I should have had the 1893JH many years ago instead of more die numbers but I couldn't help myself!

2 hours ago, Revenant said:

We have gotten take-out one on 4 months - but we've been more extreme to protect the baby.

My company was kicking in the 20% to the furloughed people to keep them at 100% pay.

It is best to take care - COVID-19 is affecting everyone differently, the after effects can be much more serious than the initial infection.

1 hour ago, Jaggy said:

Put simply, I have been spending a lot less these last few months (restaurants, travel, etc.) and that has freed up some funds for purchases. That said, I take a long view of prices and value. Having started collecting in the 1980s, some of my 'expensive' purchases then are worth a lot more now; not that I have any intention of selling.

The other problem is that I don't have too many gaps left so, when desirable coins become available, I'm more inclined to 'splash the cash'. The same is true of key upgrades. Looking to expand my collection into a couple of other areas and have my eye on a type set and plan to 'raid' an auction or two for that one.

Your sixpence collection is much more complete than mine, I am sure you will complete it - I got distracted by die numbers and then Napoleon

There has been a little benefit for us as we have certainly spent less on transport but this has gone on getting jobs done around the house - lots of people seem to have been doing this, in our case household bills have also gone up as everyone is now at home. If you had been furloughed at 80% of your normal pay then you would have less income anyway. Eating out has been replaced by home delivery now that this seems to be working again, it certainly has here!

Extra money seems to have been a US thing? Having said that the UK has rent/mortgage holidays so people feel like they have more money available even though the back rent/mortgage will still need to be paid at some point. People are still prepared to pay for quality coins and the pandemic does not seem to have changed that at all - they are just rapidly moving out of my price range, even for some of the minors that I collect. At the top end of the market (which I can only dream about) it wouldn't surprise me if there was a bit of asset reallocation going on!

It would be great to know whether they realised they were counterstamping a forgery or not, and whether they knowingly acquired it at the low silver content and then sold at full value due to the counterstamp. Is there comparable data for other examples? Although I collect Napoleonic coinage of the era my original British collection started in 1816!

Nice coins - I only have the Series 1 lunar set, every now and then I consider sending them for grading and then never get around to it.

My worry would be getting a mixture of 69's and 70's and then not having a matched set, which would mean I would then have to find more coins and then the labels wouldn't match either!

A lot of coins I was the underbidder on seem to appear later on dealer sites - seems to happen alot with one dealer in particular .

I actually picked up a coin at the Goldberg sale yesterday - I was the only bidder so got it below estimate . Although it was a more common issue* this will be my first mint state example and already graded too. I also think that there are a number of die varieties/pairs for this issue and it will be an upgrade for whichever of my existing examples it matches!

I just need to avoid the Sincona and Kunker auctions now or I really risk not having the funds should one of the real targets appear.

* The references class it as R1

Good luck with the grades - you seem to have an eye for quality in these coins!

Great pictures - I think quality of photography is critical to this hobby and attracting new collectors. It is also essential for accurate recording of information for reference purposes - and as a collector of the smaller denominations to make up for my eyesight

I am still trying to make a choice on a camera/lens etc and due to the costs ideally the same one for video and stills?????

@Revenant 'One thing I’ve been noticing lately is that, as I narrow in on the end, each new purchase feels a lot more satisfying than they did in the beginning.'

I would agree with this as I have several Napoleon typesets nearly complete - however this is purely from an NGC perspective! For example the dates on the Napoleon 'barehead' issues are either the revolutionary calender (e.g. AN13) or the Gregorian calender (e.g. 1807). As a result my typeset has more slots

Even when complete there is the option of upgrading each entry which is much more likely in a typeset unless you already have the top grade of the key date for each denomination. All my other sets are so far from completion that each new entry still means the sets still have the air of 'impossible' about them, and as my sets tend to be date runs including all of the varieties (I probably have some psychological reason for this) I hope my (great) grandchildren get the satisfaction of completing them!

On 4/20/2020 at 7:57 PM, deposito said:

I have not been able to resist bidding still while this has been going on, and it appears that nobody else has either.  I have att least three coins locked down in Europe till further notice, awaiting clearance under the stupid memorandum of understanding. I have not noticed a softness in the World and Ancient gold I am looking at. However, I did feel like the prices at the Japanese Auction World auction this past weekend offered some deals I could not take advantage of. It depended on the coin though.  I think somebody got a great deal on the Ptolemy II gold tetradrachm that sold for under $4,000.

I too am in desperate need of a dedicated office. I used to have one, a whole bedroom with a closet and everything. But that my kid got that. Now I have more of a Nook, which is insufficient.

If you build it they will come.  Meaning the local police of course

I know what you mean - we had a 2-bed place which meant I had an office, No1 child arrived - lost office. Moved to a 3-bed place which meant I had an office, No2 child arrived - lost office. We both refused to move to a 4-bed place .

I also got a coin at Auction World - no invoice yet though and I too thought there were some deals going through until the lots I was interested in appeared. That seems to be happening alot lately, I have decided it is because I have good taste or as my Dad would say 'champagne taste and beer pockets'. I did pick out 3 coins at Heritage Central States that I thought were possible and was outbid on them all - spectacularly in one case!

On 4/20/2020 at 8:32 PM, Revenant said:

You don't get to dedicate large amounts of time to breaking stuff out and doing careful, focused, organized work when you have a 4 year old and a 1 year old. I'm lucky in that I do have a dedicated office space - the only reason I actually get to do my job these days.

Teenagers are no better Work have said they will upgrade my IT in September - can't get deliveries of the required items until then .

@MIKE BYRNE Heritage weekly sales seem to have lots of British tokens at the moment. Davissons are also a good source and, to me, it appears that the quality is much higher in the US than we see here in the UK.

One of the reasons suggested for die numbers on British victorian coinage was to document die wear and one of my goals was trying to track this by monitoring the development of die cracks on the obverse however I thought I would share my example of the Napoleonic Italian 10 cents which has some major die cracks on the obverse, see pics! The quality of production from the Italian mints was very low compared to the French coinage with serious issues across all denominations seemingly due to poor quality dies compounded by extensive repeated die use (e.g. lots of overstruck digits and mint marks such as 0/1, V/M and B/M). It should be noted that the Milan 10 cents are a different design to those of the various French mints and are much more fragile, apparently these were not at all liked by the people and are therefore a very limited series. Even with the extensive die deterioration my example is probably by far the finest known example of the key date in the series, graded or otherwise, and as such is a very welcome addition to my collection.

5 hours ago, Revenant said:

I actually work as the sole US-based consultant for a small Scotland-based engineering company. It's always a bit fun getting emails from them at 3 or 4 AM and me responding when the kids wake me up at 6 AM. They tend to be surprised by how early I reply sometimes but the kids aren't very good conversationalists yet. Always fun having my morning coffee while talking to someone that just got back from lunch.

It's a shame that there aren't George VI Sovereigns.

Although based in the UK we tend to work with groups all over the globe so I can be up at anytime of the day - coordinating joint UK, US and Australian projects is a challenge!

For George VI sovereigns you are left with the 1937 proofs and the prices of those have sky rocketed over the last few years - the upside is that they do appear very regularly at auction.

Great addition to your set - congratulations!

A few years ago I decided that I just had to pay up for some coins and because I planned to hold for a long time the few extra £/$s now would more than work out in the end and even seem a bargain in the future. This became more obvious as coins that I couldn't bring myself to pay for years ago are now priced way beyond my reach!

Once again many congratulations

Finding varieties is usually not that difficult as overdates, one mintmark over another, overstamped letters in the legend can be quite common and are often the result of re-using dies and yet are not always recorded, particularly for the smaller denominations. This particular variety I find more interesting as a deliberate decision was made to have two different numbers of stars, another such example is the 1787 British sixpence and shilling where one variety has a semee of hearts in the Hanovarian shield and one does not, it would be great to know the reasons behind all these changes!

Given I was outbid, sometimes dramatically, on a number of lots at the Aureo & Calico auction yesterday I think my estimate of £450 per coin for such sets was a bit low

As a collector of world coins I am familiar with Peace Dollars but not the proofs, and therefore your Journal Entry was extremely interesting as it contains much valuable information to collectors - many thanks!

I find that the TPG certificate numbers are great for keeping track of individual coins unfortunately most world coins are still in a raw state and collectors are thus reliant on quality pictures (usually lacking ). More world coins do some to be making their way into TPG holders though which does make the process easier.

You need to feed the little lad

I hope you get the coin you are after - that will be one more down!

18 hours ago, Revenant said:

One of the things that tends to frustrate me with my Netherlands 10G set is that NGC includes a separate slot for the 1879/7 variety. That coin seems to be fairly rare. It's hard enough just trying to get mintstate examples of some of the 1880s issues, but getting that variety? I would be thrilled just to have a complete 10-coin date set. Sure, I'd love to get that variety if I ever get the chance. But I am NOT holding my breath for that to happen any time soon. 

I am very familiar with such a situation! Over the years of searching for varieties I have found that auction houses quite often miss them and now that the photos of the lots are quite good it makes it possible to realise this and bid accordingly  - unfortunately sometimes other collectors also notice and some lots go for way over their estimate to the apparent surprise of the auction house! The same applies to coins in TPG holders where the TPG does not yet highlight the variety on the label, they have only recently started doing this for British sovereigns where the varieties are extremely well documented and have been for a long time so I am sure they will eventually for all world coins. My next Journal entry was to be on just such an example however getting the pics to make the difference easy to see is proving problematic - as I spent the money on coins I still haven't got a decent camera etc 

It may therefore be worth keeping a close eye on all the 1879 10G's irrespective of what the actual auction listing says - I hope you find one.

[Edited to add: Heritage Auctions Europe 12th November 2019 had four 1879/7s lots 204 to 207 which hammered at 240 to 280 euros each so they are out there!]