Tag Archives: rare coins

Gold £2 Coin 1995 End of WW2 Reverse

A New Day, and the Same Old Phone Calls

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Gibraltar £20 Coin 2016

I worked today because I’m having tomorrow off to go to the Urology Department. I look forward to these visits more than I do the dentist but less than most other things. Tomorrow is unlikely to rate higher than “Could Do Better” in the Great Book of Life.

Today wasn’t an outstandingly successful day either, though it beats having to take your trousers down for the doctor.

Dylan Thomas £5 coin Alderney

We had an above average number of calls about “rare” coins. None of them qualified for that description, apart from a Maundy set.  Unfortunately, the set had been badly treated in life, finally ending up at a recycling facility.  This is one of the worst sets we have ever had, and comes with one of the strangest stories. That’s really what coin collecting is about – the stories. As four bits of metal a Maundy set is quite dull. Add the story of Royal Maundy and it starts to come to life. Then throw in the story about it being retrieved from a bin and it almost becomes an epic . . .

OK, maybe “epic” is overdoing it.

Coin of Cabinda

I have found the contact details for the Numismatic Society in Peterborough (definitely the one in Cambridgeshire rather than Ontario) so I will have something to do when we move. Julia, for some reason, doesn’t seem as keen on joining as I am. I may have to buy her a cross-stitch kit so she has something to do while I’m out. The devil makes work for idle hands and if I leave her too long she is bound to move something and I won’t be able to find it next time I need it. Edit – I seem to have originally written “ideal hands”. 

Penguins on Falklands 50p coin

 

A Busy Day

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Somewhere along the line I have lost a post. In fact, I have lost an entire evening. I’m really not sure how I managed that.

The shop was full most of the day. We had people in as we opened (by appointment), Someone rang to make an appointment for 10.30, but I pushed them on till 11.00, which was good, as someone wandered in at just after 10.30, thinking they had an appointment. They had spoken to the owner lat night and he hadn’t bothered to tell us. Then one of the regulars turned up, And another.

So, despite my supposed planning we still ended up crowded. We had several people call in the afternoon too. One of them had coins worth 85 pence. This isn’t quite the record for the week – someone else brought coins worth 65 pence earlier in the week and someone emailed for a valuation on coins which said “New Pence” on them. All coins had that on them at one time, as that’s what they were called. They became “Pence” about ten years after decimalisation. I suppose they were no longer new by then.

In 1983 the Royal mint made a mistake and made a batch of coins which had “New pence” instead of pence, but they only went into sets, not into general circulation. The sets are probably worth £1,500. Coins from circulation dated between 1971 and 1981 with “New Pence” are very common and are worth face value.

We frequently get people enquiring, thinking they have a fortune in their hand, just to find out they have pennies. It shows the power of one inaccurate newspaper article.

We once sold some 1983 year sets to someone who obviously thought that all year sets had the rare coin in. They don’t. Most of them have the ordinary coin in. He was very upset and claimed we had cheated him. Why he thought professional coin dealers would be selling sets worth £1,500 for just £12, I don’t know.

Kew Gardens – expensive coin

The Kew Gardens 50p is a rare coin you might still find in your change. They only minted 210,000 of them instead of the millions they did for other years. No, I don’t know why. This article is a reasonable guide to rarities, but note the prices are mainly for true “Uncirculated” coins, not ones out of your pocket.  Note the general downward trend of the prices as coin collecting is less popular now – people don’t use coins as much since lockdown.

The header picture is one we often get calls about – the 2007 £2 with the “upside down” writing on the edge. It’s not true. The coins are fed into a machine and 50% of them end up with the edge inscription “upside down”. I have wasted hours on the phone telling people this, thanks to idiot journalists.

Day 32

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Just a quick visit. The shop was very cold today, the heating is poor, and by mid afternoon, when I realised I was cold, it was too late to do anything about it. I was frozen to he core, shaking, and looking forward to getting home. When I did, I sat in front of the fire under a heap of clothing and, over the course of three hours, thawed out.

This is a brief trip to the dining room to clatter out a few words on the computer before going back to the warmth of the living room. The back of the house faces north and is a bit draughty, which isn’t what I want right now.

I was intending having a night off from writing anyway, so it has just fallen right.

Tomorrow, I will check on submission windows for February and will start again.

We had constant phone calls today. Every time I tried to use sellotape, or was halfway through licking stamps, someone rang. Rare £2 coins, rare 50p coins, a coin bought in a Charity Shop . . .

I also made three appointments for people to come and sell us stuff. It would be better if they wanted to buy, but there you go. That’s how it always is in a shop. It’s easy to buy junk, hard to buy quality and even harder to sell anything. Now that people are used to buying on bay and places like that they don’t come into shops. They still want us for information, but, with rare exceptions, nobody buys in coin shops these days.

Somebody offered us £1,400 for a gold coin. We have it on at £1,950. So we declined. He came back with an offer of £1,500. We ignored it. Time is money and we are getting fed up of wasting time on people who are basically

picking our pockets.

We frequently get offers of less than the bullion price. My favourite ones say “I’d be happy to pay £X for this.” or variations on that theme, when X is less than we paid for it. I really want to write back and say “So would I.” but the boss won’t let me.

If I were to write a song about today I would call it The Shopkeeper’s Lament.

An enamelled crown of 1887. An under-dressed St George slays a dragon. Frankly, I don’t think boots and a cloak are the right kit for the job. I’d want a decent pair of trousers too – even if you don’t get your bits and pieces singed by dragon fire, they need protecting from chafing. And a lance would be handy too.

An Interesting Day

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Tonight, I beat an Oxford College on University Challenge. I can’t remember which one it was, but it was one of the proper old ones. They had a shocker tonight and managed to get down to zero after interrupting with wrong answers several times. I, on the other hand, hit a good run of questions and my one aging brain defeated the four fresh young brains. It was a moment to treasure. Pardon my glee, but some nights I watch it I don’t even understand the questions. I didn’t actually understand them all tonight, to be honest.

We had a good day in the shop and bought in a nice modern collection. It has some very rare coins in it. This is unusual, because despite what you may read in the papers or on the internet, there are not many rare modern coins. The seller walked out with slightly surprised expression. It’s always nice when you can surprise someone with more money than they were expecting.

I continued my research on the silver prize medallion we found in one of the trays. It had been there for years – a prize for the Mediterranean Fleet Water Polo Championships in 1934. IT is named on the edge and I have been able to put together an interesting, though sad, story. The officer in question was decorated with the DSC for his part in the Battle of Narvik, serving aboard HMS Havock. The battle took place in the middle of a snow storm and the leader, Captain Warburton-Lee, was awarded the first VC of the war. Lieutenant Bruce, the recipient of the water polo medal, would go on to gain three Mentions in Despatches, the final one being posthumous when HMS Somali broke up whilst under tow after a torpedo attack whilst escorting a convoy to Murmansk. According to a newspaper report he refused rescue until his men had been taken off the life raft he was on, and died when his raft capsized.

In a world where the word “hero” is often used rather loosely it is good to see it used properly

I love my job, and I do enjoy the research, but there are some terribly sad stories out there.

Seals, Solstices and Slimming

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First, and last, day back at work after Christmas. I’ve been given Monday and Tuesday off, so I don’t return to work until next year.

I just had a look at the weekly seal update from Donna Nook, as we have failed to get there so far this year, and the news is not good. Numbers decreased by 90% over the previous week, so I suspect they will all be gone by now. With various things, we just couldn’t get to the coast this year. This included being asked to change days at work, meetings for Julia, and floods. It seems like everything stacked up to prevent us going.

I will use some of last year’s pictures with this post to give a flavour of what might have been.

The day was hectic, with 16 parcels to get to the Post Office before it closed at 12.30 and a constant stream of customers and phone calls. Most of the calls were about selling gold or silver but a few were about the perennial favourites – “rare” coins and “valuable” minting errors. They mainly occurred when I was already using both hands for wrapping packages.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Last year’s seal at Donna Nook

We just got everything packed in time. Saturdays are always a bit of a rush, due to the Post Office closing at 12.30.

All the people who rang about selling gold and silver came in and sold us the stuff, as did a couple of other people who turned up on spec. We also had a group of regulars in, so things got quite busy.

Just one more Bank Holiday to work round then we can get on with work again.

Finally, after returning home in what appeared to be almost daylight compared to recent weeks (it’s the solstice effect – day length is actually only two minutes and eighteen seconds longer than it was a week ago) I found a leaflet from Slimmers World through the letter box. I’m sure it wasn’t meant personally but I do have a growing feeling that the whole world is having a laugh at my expense.

The Halo Slips…

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You may recall that I’ve trying to stay calm this week.

Well, my resolve has been well and truly pushed today. What sort of person rings a coin shop about a “rare coin” and doesn’t even know what it is? How do you know it’s rare?

We’ve had several old favourites this week – the worn out Victorian pennies, the “old pennies” from 1912 and the ones” in good condition – you can see all the letters”. The ability to see all the letters on a coin doesn’t mean it’s in collectable condition.

Often, when asked about specific details, the seller doesn’t have it to hand and has to go to another room to find it, leaving me hanging on the phone when I have work to do.

We have had some “rare” Charles Dickens £2 coins offered this week after a newspaper story and some eBay idiocy.  The trouble is that newspapers report coins as “sold” on eBay when they are merely for sale on eBay. Any idiot can put a coin on eBay with a massive price on it. Judging by what I’ve just seen several idiots are doing it.

To cap it all, as I was trying to get things loaded before we went home, two people rang in the last ten minutes. One had a “rare” decimal penny and one had a “rare” £2 coin.

I came close to snapping.

What sort of person, having found us on the web, presumably with our opening hours, decides to ring ten minutes before closing time?

The prize moment of the day, however was the offer of a rare £2 coin with a picture of the White House on it. I didn’t take that call, I just heard one of my workmates say: “I think you’ll find that the 2005 £2 coin actually has St Paul’s Cathedral on it.”

Image result for st pauls £2 coin