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Beginner Shilling & Sixpence Collector...Need Advice, Please


JohnA

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Hi. I am beginning to collect silver shillings and sixpence, also other British coins, but mostly those.    

I am buying before learning and I want to put on the brakes a bit. I'll show a few coins I got on eBay. Maybe someone can help me judge the grade and also how to look for fakes, if that is a big problem with shillings. Maybe I should buy at large dealers, but it's hard to find in the US. Can someone steer me to a photo coin grading site? Like this one PCGS has, except for Brit coins https://www.pcgs.com/photograde/   Also some sites I can learn what to look for.    

Here are the pictures. I think the coin in the center looks way too bright for 130 years old. Has it been cleaned, maybe? Also I found out that they look different by the camera's eye than mine. The flaws come out better. Like the scratches on the face of the coin on the right.    

Thanks.  

 

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What he said ^^

Rotographic have a book called The Standard Guide to Grading British Coins, it's a guide to grading British coins.

I've not read it but the geeks on the Predecimal forum swear by it.

As for fakes, I've never come across fake shillings or sixpences but that's not to say there aren't any. You can often tell by the weight of the coins.

 

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Numistacker did a video recently where he showcased a lot of sixpences that had been sent to be graded by NGC. They belonged to SilverTanner who is a member here. i take it SilverTanner is an 'expert' so might be able to give you are few tips.

 

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6 hours ago, shortstack68 said:

These Jubilee coins can be found in abundance in higher grades, they don't cost the earth either. The middle one has been cleaned, the first is around Good Fine grade and the last (also possibly cleaned) VF at best

Ok...I'll take VF for an eBay coin. I guess I should save for an AU or BU. I don't think I'll be buying graded coins. Maybe, but not right away.   

I was thinking of getting nice examples of every 1887 coin...except the Sov :) And collect some other shilling , sixpence and threepence too.

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10 hours ago, CarlosSilver said:

Rotographic have a book called The Standard Guide to Grading British Coins, it's a guide to grading British coins.

I've not read it but the geeks on the Predecimal forum swear by it

It is a good book and indispensable until you gain lots of experience with these coins. Even then, it's worth keeping as a reference; I still dip into it occasionally for grading some coins I don't deal with so often. It's only drawback is the omission of some of the older gold coins which the author was unable to source in the required variety of grades.

Profile picture with thanks to Carl Vernon

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8 hours ago, JohnAnsink said:

I was thinking of getting nice examples of every 1887 coin...except the Sov :) 

In general, the 1887 coins are the easiest and cheapest to source as there are so many of them around and in good condition.

You will want to get the sovs as well at some point;)

Profile picture with thanks to Carl Vernon

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1 hour ago, sovereignsteve said:

In general, the 1887 coins are the easiest and cheapest to source as there are so many of them around and in good condition.

 

That's good. I am looking through a lot of graded coins on eBay and other places. So I get an idea of  condition.

1887 appeals to me because of A Study in Scarlet.   

I wonder if there is a 1987 coin that commemorates Holmes? Or 1937 for 50th anniversary.

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Great area to collect - but then I would say that:D

The book ' The Standard Guide to Grading British Coins' that has been mentioned is certainly worth a read and very useful if you are just starting out.

I would decide what you want to collect (date runs, typesets, monarchs etc) and as shortstack68 has said what your timeframe is and what your reason is - numismatic, pure collecting or investment or a combination of all. It is also worth looking at your budget - for whatever you decide to collect get a price guide and add up the total in VF and the total in UNC and it will be easy to tell whether it will be possible within your budget or not, this has certainly stopped me collecting in some areas that would have made really great collections.

With sixpences and shillings I started with trying to put a complete date run together and spent time looking for minor varieties and identifying new ones - purely numismatic interest. This meant I ended up with lots of coins in F/VF/EF which have gone up in value over time, but not significantly, but you learn alot! About 15 years ago 'investment' also started to become an important consideration which meant buying coins in high grade and/or trying to get the rare dates etc - as I intend to hold for at least another 20 years my plan now is a complete post 1816 date run (selling all my hammered and early milled coins) and I tend to generally only buy slabbed coins now for this reason although the slabbed populations of non-USA coins are really quite low and you may have to get many raw coins slabbed - thankyou Numistacker!

Apart from sixpences my other collecting areas are all typesets rather than complete date runs as the key date in some series can be almost impossible to get, either from a pure rarity perspective or the actual price requires a lottery win:lol:, so for me, a typeset is more practical and gives a much better chance of completing it but I am finding it very difficult to reduce the sixpences to a typeset as I am only missing a single rare coin which I have resisted buying in only Fine condition on the odd occasion it has appeared over the years as I would like a VF example:unsure:. You may not want to collect any specific thing at all - I have a good friend who just collects anything he likes the look of and has examples from pre-Roman all the way through to modern times, including ancients, hammered, early milled, milled, medals, artefacts from the UK and across the world although he has a great story behind all of them as he is a bit of a history buff.

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3 hours ago, SilverTanner said:

I would decide what you want to collect (date runs, typesets, monarchs etc) and as shortstack68 has said what your timeframe is and what your reason is - numismatic, pure collecting or investment or a combination of all. It is also worth looking at your budget - for whatever you decide to collect get a price guide and add up the total in VF and the total in UNC and it will be easy to tell whether it will be possible within your budget or not, this has certainly stopped me collecting in some areas that would have made really great collections.

 

Good advice.   

I am an impulse buyer at heart. So that's why I said I want to put on the brakes and do just what you said. Decide what I want, check my budget, and learn grades.   

I'll admit I paid $15 for the one in the middle, the one on the left was $18 and the one on the right that I like best came in a lot of 3 other coins for $18...so maybe $10 for that.

I'l probably now resell those other 2 and take a loss, but learn a lesson, hopefully. 

Will I be able to buy coins from  forum members here since I live in the US? Would  shipping be prohibitive on silver coins? I guess buying and selling gold coins it wouldn't matter as much.

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The standard guide to grading British coins is also available as a kindle book for less than a fiver.  I have a copy on my cloud reader that I use if I'm buying something online I am not too familiar with.

For later dates you may be as well buying them as scrap in a bulk lot as even uncirculated/mint george V and VI can usually be found in scrap lots and at the very least you'll fill out your collection of dates quickly to start with.  You can start concentrating on less common dates or higher quality examples.

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On 26/08/2017 at 11:06, CarlosSilver said:

What he said ^^

Rotographic have a book called The Standard Guide to Grading British Coins, it's a guide to grading British coins.

I've not read it but the geeks on the Predecimal forum swear by it.

As for fakes, I've never come across fake shillings or sixpences but that's not to say there aren't any. You can often tell by the weight of the coins.

 

I believe there are shilling fakes/forgeries even though most of the fakes I've seen have been of larger denominations like halfcrowns.  The 1905 shilling has been faked I think.

I guess with modern fakes any rarer coin that is likely to sell might be copied in China.  Older forgeries tended to be copies that were going to be passed of as working currency so tended to be halfcrowns to guineas and the date didn't matter.

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1 hour ago, Murph said:

The standard guide to grading British coins is also available as a kindle book for less than a fiver.     

Yeah...I saw that on Amazon. I was thinking that on my Kindle Fire the pictures would be too small to be helpful. But I forgot that there was an APP for PC. That will help me a lot. And be a fun read anyway, it looks. I'll sort out the app and get it later on.

I took the free look  inside and I can almost just use the cover as a grading guide :D  

https://www.amazon.com/Standard-Guide-Grading-British-Coins-ebook/dp/B00HHZO6GU/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

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15 hours ago, JohnAnsink said:

Good advice.   

I am an impulse buyer at heart. So that's why I said I want to put on the brakes and do just what you said. Decide what I want, check my budget, and learn grades.   

I'll admit I paid $15 for the one in the middle, the one on the left was $18 and the one on the right that I like best came in a lot of 3 other coins for $18...so maybe $10 for that.

I'l probably now resell those other 2 and take a loss, but learn a lesson, hopefully. 

Will I be able to buy coins from  forum members here since I live in the US? Would  shipping be prohibitive on silver coins? I guess buying and selling gold coins it wouldn't matter as much.

Being state-side myself, I've bought from our friends across the pond and had no issues whatsoever. In fact, I'd rather buy from Forum members over any other outlet/platform. If you see something you'd like to pick up, just ask them if additional shipping is needed for a journey our way. Shipping most often isn't prohibitive because we cut each other slack with shipping fees (really depends on the seller). But I wouldn't hesitate to buy again from an established overseas Forum member.

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5 hours ago, Jester said:

Being state-side myself, I've bought from our friends across the pond and had no issues whatsoever. In fact, I'd rather buy from Forum members over any other outlet/platform. If you see something you'd like to pick up, just ask them if additional shipping is needed for a journey our way. Shipping most often isn't prohibitive because we cut each other slack with shipping fees (really depends on the seller). But I wouldn't hesitate to buy again from an established overseas Forum member.

Ok...I really never looked up the prices. But if this is accurate then it's not much more than sending within the US. Unless VAT is applied on silver, etc.
I'm mailing stuff tomorrow, so I'll ask while I'm there.
https://www.usps.com/business/prices.htm

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I downloaded the Book...not really helpful for me.

Only like 3 pages had to do with my year and only EF --- Fair grading examples. It's much better for me to search on google or in PCGS or NGC of graded coins in slabs. I get better pictures.

But it's good for a collector of a wide range, I guess.   

EDIT   I wanna update this...I started reading from the beginning. it seems like it's a good all-around book on grading. Very interesting. And I will be curious if they go into the history of British coins. I'd like that. 

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