Tortoise

Hi,
Have you considered investing in a SIPP?  (A Self Invested Personal Pension Plan).
Very easy to set up.  You get tax relief on any investments into it.  (So £100 investment costs you £80, or £60 depending on whether you are a standard or higher rate tax payer.) 
On taking your pension, 25% is tax free.
I have one with Hargreaves Lansdown and can recommend them.  Have a look here : https://www.hl.co.uk/pensions/sipp
 
 

Hi,
Have you considered investing in a SIPP?  (A Self Invested Personal Pension Plan).
Very easy to set up.  You get tax relief on any investments into it.  (So £100 investment costs you £80, or £60 depending on whether you are a standard or higher rate tax payer.) 
On taking your pension, 25% is tax free.
I have one with Hargreaves Lansdown and can recommend them.  Have a look here : https://www.hl.co.uk/pensions/sipp
 
 

Hi,
Have you considered investing in a SIPP?  (A Self Invested Personal Pension Plan).
Very easy to set up.  You get tax relief on any investments into it.  (So £100 investment costs you £80, or £60 depending on whether you are a standard or higher rate tax payer.) 
On taking your pension, 25% is tax free.
I have one with Hargreaves Lansdown and can recommend them.  Have a look here : https://www.hl.co.uk/pensions/sipp
 
 

they managed to ruin the beauty and the charm of a coronation... i m spechless
what was wrong in just following the bloody tradition and issuing a coronation set like in the past?

or not yet

Finally, I have completed my 1oz QB set 😊

Thank goodness you said something!

Ooooooohhhh that sounds painful. Have several hours out in nature walking in the woods or along the coast instead 
TV, newspapers, radio, social media etc are all mood hoovers 

My 1st 1oz Gold coin and im blown away with it. Sadly its already hidden away and not on show.

Even buying 1/10 gold at 16-18% premium is still light years better than paying 20% vat and 15-20% dealer premium on silver.
I worked out even buying 1g of gold works out better (you retain more of your wealth)  than spending the equivalent money on a few silver 1oz coins. 

I feel like this one went under the radar, a wonderful proof like gillick sovereign
 
 

Today received a few tubes of coins but one tube out the box the stamping at the neck area is marked .
Each coin has the same stamping but next coin this mark drops down slightly etc till it fades out to the base of the neck line.
Quality control at RM 🙄
 
 

Good move.
An ounce of bullion gold is an ounce of gold regardless of whether Liz or Chas is on it.
The longer you keep it the more chance it will rise in value.

Good call.  I don’t by coins with male Monarchs.

I'll count up when I get closer to 1000 
I don't think they would look that good if they came out of the mint today to be honest

Big thanks to @QuantumStacker for another pair of 2023 his and hers Brits.

Sorry to go off on a quick tangent, but I see this misconception frequently.  I will answer your question more directly shortly, but I wanted to cover something first.
Focal length does not mean magnification.
If we are talking true macro lenses from proper lens companies, they are almost always tuned for a 1:1 ratio.  That means that, at their closest working distance, they will reproduce a (e.g.) 22mm sovereign to a 22mm image onto the sensor.  Since a full-frame camera sensor is just 24x36mm, that's a perfect fit and a big image.
It is completely logical to assume a longer lens will magnify more, because longer lenses make distant things closer.  However, the longer the lens, the further the minimum distance you can focus with it.  Therefore, the advantage you gain is lost when dealing with small objects at close range.
What is the most important stat for a macro lens?
The reproduction ratio.
Some specialist lenses, from specialist manufacturers, do higher ratios, typically 2:1 but sometimes as high as 5:1.  I would not recommend going higher than 1:1, unless you want to go down the photography rabbit hole.
Some companies will call something a 'macro lens' when it doesn't achieve 1:1.  It might be 1:2 or 1:3.  Watch out for this.  A lower magnification for the same focal length, means a longer minimum focus distance; see below.
So what does the focal length mean?
The focal length of a lens determines the closest working distance.  In other words, the minimum distance from the lens (or sensor) to the subject, and the subject still be in focus.
A 50mm macro may have a 10cm minimum working distance.  A 150mm macro may have a 30cm working distance.  They vary between lenses.
But at those distances, the image will be the same size/magnification.
What's the best focal length then?
Longer focal lengths (greater than 100mm) are typically used for wildlife, when the photographer doesn't want to disturb the subject.  e.g. photographing insects that may fly off.
Shorter focal lengths are better when you have limited space, and are taking static subjects that you can take time over.
Therefore, the obvious choice for coins is a shorter lens.  Especially if you are photographing down onto a table, a long lens will get very cumbersome because you need to suspend it so far above the coin with a tripod.
Are there any other differences?
For macro photography, the minimum working/focus distance is the only significant difference.
These lenses are useful for other purposes, and typically the longer macros make excellent portrait lenses.  More generally, there is a whole host of differences between focal lengths, which I'm not going to cover here.

I had a horrendous eBay experience where someone did actually send me the wrong coin.
It was supposed to be a proof sovereign in perfect condition, but I ended up recieving a completely different sovereign - it was the wrong year and had loads of marks on it.
Because he was convinced that he sent me the right coin, he basically called me a scammer from the outset when I politely explained the problem and asked whether he still had the correct year in his possession so it could be swapped.
Fortunately I had videoed the entire process of opening his parcel and testing it on a sigma device as soon as it arrived, and I'm jolly glad I did because when I opened an eBay return case he said I was a scammer and that I was going to return not just a different coin, but a fake coin!
I felt quite helpless at this point, as although I was going to return the coin he sent me, it would still be the wrong one as far as he was concerned. I do not like being falsely accused of being a scammer, even if eBay's buyer protection would ultimately cover me.
So to cover myself even further, I sought advice from the police and took another video of the same coin being tested (easily recognisable due to the marks on it), packaged, and dropped off at the post office - all in one continuous cut! Longest and most careful video I have ever shot, haha!
Unfortunately the seller then started sending me threatening photos and extremely abusive messages via multiple channels. Due to the nature of their content I was genuinely very scared by this point and called the police, who thankfully took it very seriously.
The police paid him a visit the next day as he had commited two separate crimes by sending those messages. After the visit, I was asked whether I wanted to have him prosecuted but I chose instead to have it resolved with a community resolution instead because it turned out that he was a "confused old man".
Wow, that was certainly a week I didn't enjoy much, all because some confused pensioner sent me the wrong coin.
 
 
 
 
 

Just do it in Scunthorpe.... Nobody will notice the difference 

I wonder if everyone here knows how members of the “unofficial caravan club of the Great Britain” strip wire?
Yup they just burn it…..works a treat but does create a lot of black smoke.  Which they seem to enjoy as the ones not so far from me seem to enjoy burning tyres in old oil drums.

Is it free postage?  

So I think I may have found (at least by percent of profit) the biggest rip off I've seen In this field.
 I was trying to get some capsules for soverigns, ideally the royal mint ones. They sell them for 15.99 for a box of 20 which is fine but they were out of stock. After a bit of looking I found the London coin company had them on sale for 17.95, result, don't mind paying an extra 2 quid. However the listing didn't have a box size and I wanted to be sure it was the same size of box and I emailed them. 
 In the email I joked that I was checking the box size as I wanted to be sure I wasn't buying the world's most expensive capsule. Imagine my surprise when they wrote back to tell me that yes, in fact you are only getting 1 capsule for that price....but it is very good quality. 18 quid for a single capsule!!!! How many people order that assuming it must be a box for that price? I've never bought anything from LCC and I damn sure won't going forward.
https://www.thelondoncoincompany.com/store

Good ol’ Charlie Boy. He doesn’t look too bad in this color 😜