ColonialCoinsUK

Congratulations on your new coin as mintages may not always be a guide to rarity. I just picked up a 1814M 15 soldi for my Napoleon collection and this has a mintage of just 371 however the 1809M issue is much rarer even though the reported mintage is much higher at 14,858. I suppose the 1809M got a lot of use as it was struck early on and the 1814M coins were saved as Napoleon's empire was in collapse at the time.

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.

This has been a very interesting thread - although this is quite common for race horses, personally the only 'collective' investments I have are in real estate as I could only afford the deposit to buy a single property which increased the risk dramatically compared to spreading theinvestment out over 30 or so selected properties - plus this generates an income. There are several US platforms that allow this type of investment but only one decent one in the UK A few years ago, here in the UK, Stanley Gibbons tried this for rare stamps and coins - having not heard anything for a while I guess it hasn't been very successful. Hopefully I am allowed to add links?? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/8582410/Investors-warned-off-stamp-collectors-promise-of-rich-returns.html (most of the above link is behind a paywall but there is enough to get the idea) https://intelligent-partnership.com/AiR/reports/rare-stamps-and-coins-2015/rare-stamps-and-coins-2015/assets/common/downloads/Rare Stamps and Coins 2015.pdf This is download of a PDF file which is interesting reading anyway concerning alternative investments. You can also do something similar with whisky - personally I drink the stuff https://www.whiskyinvestdirect.com/#

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!

I am relieved it is not just me I have also noted duplicate entries in the population reports. For world coins PCGS do seem to be better at adding well established variety information to the label though. I too usually start with Heritage before moving on to Coinarchives, Sixbid, NumisBids, acsearch, specific auction houses etc. One lot I am currently considering states 'the second known example' and I know I have seen at least three!

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.

As a collector of world coins, and it appears therefore I am in the minority , I have coins in both holders although more NGC. The main reason I use the NGC Registry is it is a convienent way to keep track of some of my collection although all the standard varieties etc are not always included, or recognised, in the Registry Set which is why for some things I have several sets. I think the PCGS World registry (apart from very select sets) is not as logical, complete or consistent as NGC is at the moment. Compared to the NGC census I find some of the PCGS population reports extremely difficult to use as the entries are completely random with everything mixed up so you have to go through the whole lot to see what the population is for the coin you are interested in or even whether there are any graded example at all (for example Spanish coins, I could easily be using this wrong!).

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.

It is good practice that auction houses cite references for the lots they are selling however, and it may just be me, but this can sometimes make research difficult for a number of reasons. 1) What is the actual reference? Fortunately, some, but not all, auction houses list the references used but do not always state which one the abbreviation used in the lot description corresponds to. For example, using ‘P’ and then citing several books with titles/authors/publishers that could all be the mystery ‘P’ is not very helpful, it would also be nice if everyone used the same abbreviation. 2) Using a reference that is prohibitively expensive. 3) Using a reference that is out-of-print that no one can get hold of! For most of my areas of interest Option 3 seems to be the situation that I am usually faced with and that can be very frustrating. As a result, this Journal Entry was prompted by the eventual acquisition of a copy of the two volume ‘Histoire Monetaire et Numismatique Contemporaine’ by Jean Mazard published in 1965 which corresponds to the ‘MAZ’ references sometimes seen in auction listings (or M, or Mazard, or MZ). Once acquired I always find it interesting to compare these older tomes to the more recent references as this not only highlights discoveries made since publication but that they often also contain more detailed and useful information – it also highlights that the citation used for some lots is wrong It is often said to ‘buy the book before the coin’ and I totally agree where this is easy to do – Gadoury and Le Franc publish regular price guides for French coinage largely negating the need for MAZ however it is nice to now be able to add this to my collection of books. I expect many of us are searching for ‘missing’ texts for our libraries and, once found, it is just as satisfying as tracking down that elusive coin – well almost.

Whilst trawling a dealers inventory, looking for something else, I was very pleased to come across a 1809W 10 centimes (PCGS AU55 – main image), and I immediately bought this coin for my Napoleon collection as I was lacking an example from the Lille mint for this denomination. Why the instant decision? Having, decided to assemble a graded set of 10 centimes in 2012 I later reviewed the population reports (2017, included in the introductory text to my Registry Set) which not only highlighted that this would be a real challenge but that there were no graded examples of the 1809W issue at either service, plus the few examples that I was aware of were in VF at best and usually much worse even though it has one of the higher mintages in the series at 1,160,351. My journal article in January ‘If you wait long enough ….’ highlighted that I had been fortunate to acquire a newly graded 1808I example of the 10 centimes (the first at NGC, MS65 – there were already two at PCGS, both MS63). These two new discoveries prompted me to update my records for the Napoleon 10 centimes and this led to some interesting findings. In less than 3 years the number of 10 centimes graded, across all dates (1808-1810) and mints, has not only risen by 32% (65 to 86, almost equally split between NGC and PCGS) but the first examples of 1808B and 1809W have been added to the population reports – the latter being my new acquisition. It is no surprise that the most common issue, 1808A, has seen the largest increase with 9 mint state examples being added! I have included a more detailed examination as an update in the introductory text to my Registry Set. Although this study is only a miniscule, or even smaller, snapshot of the vast arena that is world coin collecting, the quality, ungraded coins appear to be out there waiting to be discovered. This surprising increase in graded examples coupled with the now routine appearance of graded world coins at auctions across the globe means that I am more than happy with my decision to transition my collection to this format.

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!

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

Unfortunately, things have not changed since my Journal Entry last month - How difficult can placing a bid be? In that never-ending challenge of trying to fill gaps in my collection several more very nice examples of coins, ungraded and possibly the finest available for the issue, have appeared and passed me by yet again. Typically, there were multiple bidders and they achieved 4x the top estimate and as the prices kept rising, I just couldn’t bring myself to bid again. As a result I thought I would take the opportunity to expand my library as some interesting books also appeared in the auction lists, one of which, although expensive, is still available brand new from the publisher and as this was the first time I had ever seen a second hand copy for sale I rearranged my plans and followed the auction online with the intention of finally securing myself a copy. I was very surprised when it hammered at 25% more than the cost of a new one! Having recovered from my disbelief I thought I can take a hint and ordered a new copy instead – ‘your purchase will not be shipped until September due to COVID-19 restrictions’.

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

With an ongoing interest in far too many coin series there is usually something suitable at most auctions for filling a gap in my sets with a quality coin however I have bought almost nothing for months. Even with some outstanding top-grade minors appearing I just do not seem to be able to press the ‘bid’ button one more time to try and secure these elusive examples for my collection and in some cases I am already regretting it. I think some possibilities for this, subconsciously or not, are:- 1) The COVID-19 crisis is causing me to cut back on spending in case cash is needed due to an enforced change in job, health etc 2) I have been on the lookout for two particular coins for a long time, both of which have surfaced over the last year for the first time in decades. The first was in a sale which also included one of my other ‘holy grail coins’ so, with limited funds, I had to make choice. The one that got away subsequently appeared on a dealer’s list for 3x the hammer price and, and as it is still there, I hope that it may re-appear at auction at a more realistic valuation. The second is almost completely missing from the auction records and attracted lots of bidders and sailed way past what I thought was an already high estimate causing me to just stare at the screen in disbelief. I expect reality is probably a little of both, although I would like to think with more of the second option. Although both of these coins are very rare the auction results would suggest that they are now really beyond my budget and spending a few hundred dollars on a coin now may not actually make any difference – although restricting the family to beans on toast for the foreseeable future would . There are some auctions this month that will, yet again, test me so will I miss out on some excellent coins or hope that one (and not both ) of my key targets appear at the major sales in November and January?

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

The situation probably applies to most European coinage apart from gold and selected crowns - including those from the German States. I tend to focus on France, Spain and Italy which seem to have a large collector base but still seem to be lacking in detailed information. Mintages are very variable and often very low - apart from the Paris mint even some Napoleonic issues are only in the hundreds - for example I have a AN13Q gold 20 Franc with a mintage of 516 (Le Franc). Good luck with your pillar minors - fortunately the Napoleonic period is mainly Ferdinand VII which are much more available, particularly the final issues!

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!