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Charliemouse

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Everything posted by Charliemouse

  1. I went over the faces with the microscope, as I'm used to returning coins from RM. It's actually pretty spotless. Maybe the odd pin hole of frosting here and there. Certainly nothing major. It was only when I took it out of the capsule to photograph that I noticed the rim. I am loathed to keep handling it, as I don't want to break the edge. Weighs 7.816g.
  2. 2024 1/4oz Proof Gold - Six decades of 007 - 1980's Thought I'd been lucky to get clean coins at the first time of asking from RM. Might have been even luckier with an error coin. I didn't notice until I took it out of the capsule to photograph. The obverse is fine, but the reverse is more like a pastry cutter...
  3. St George's face. Again, which you prefer is subjective. There is definitely not the same obvious quality drop that there was with the full sovereigns in the other thread. The 1980 again is coarser, but the figure is 'rounder' and more 3 dimensional (curved in relief). The 2021 has obviously been redesigned to be flatter, fewer curves, but with finer grain.
  4. I got the big guns out to continue the comparison series. Both are PF69, and are the furthest apart (41 years) that I own. The newer coin has a much finer 'frost' effect, but also shows evidence of a shifting die and some missing frosting in the typical places. The 1980 is coarser but without fault.
  5. I was surprised the price spread was so high. Yesterday CotR sold three PF69s for around £1200, and yet PF70s are selling for £1800. That's a ridiculous price gap for an almost imperceptible difference. For £600 it is definitely worth cutting them out of the slab and resubmitting. I bet half of them come back 70s.
  6. 2020 James Bond series - 1/2oz Silver Proof Thanks to @trp for this nice set.
  7. 2017 Fiji (Scottsdale Mint) 1oz Silver: Hokusai - The Great Wave Freed from the OMP and capsule, this looks so much better. You can really see the various textures, and is a great advert for photographing coins outside of capsules if at all possible. I have included two different lighting setups. I prefer the first, but the second almost looks like a different coin.
  8. Go to the photography section. Sounds like you would have a lot of great experience to share.
  9. @Silverlocks and @CazLikesCoins . Hate to be that guy, but you know there's a whole section for discussing coin photography, and this isn't it. We're spamming lots of people's feeds here.
  10. I think it was a typo. "a lot of photography" If it wasn't, I haven't heard of it.
  11. 2017 Fiji (Scottsdale Mint) 1oz Silver: Hokusai - The Great Wave Always loved this design. Difficult to photograph in the capsule, it is actually still in OMP. I might have to break it out in order to get a better picture.
  12. 2024 Samoa Year of the Dragon 2oz Silver Another Samoan dragon. I left it in the capsule as I think I would need to break it open.
  13. I guess technically it should be "The Queen's Beasts". Cool idea. Love the idea of 3D printing, but never pulled the trigger.
  14. Had some Scottsdale silver arrive via @Silverlocks. Mainly dragons...
  15. Just for interest, the quarter uses a font called Albertus (Identifont - Albertus). It has a stem on the capital U, which does make it look lower case.
  16. Perhaps this version... (It's not real. But I'd buy it if it was.)
  17. This is what I mean by number 2 above. It has nothing to do with 'faults', which is number 3. It is about depth and intricacy of the design. Every individual coin for each year will be about the same.
  18. In an effort to get this thread back on track, and move the 'quality' discussion somewhere else...
  19. People mean lots of different things when they talk about quality. Probably not an exhaustive list, but here is how I would break it down. Intricacy and fineness of the design. This is a factor of the time and skill invested into the design and 'mastering'. Constant across all individual coins of the same design. Depth and detail in the coin. This is a factor of the capability of the machines, and the ambition of the design. Could vary between first and last strike. Chance of individual coins having acceptable levels of faults. This is a factor of the quality and maintenance of the machines and raw materials, the quality of handling, the ability and willingness of the QC process to find issues. Varies coin to coin. Number 1 is going to be very subjective. RM release a lot more designs each year than they used to, and whether one is better than another varies with personal opinion. Number 2, the relief and detail inherent in the designs, have clearly worsened. e.g. In bullion, it is obvious to see the newer sovereigns are flatter and more 'jelly' like than they used to be. I don't think that is disputable. And with the albeit limited sample of microscope photos I have taken, you can clearly see the detail in proof sovereigns has diminished over the last e.g. 30 years. And there is an obvious trade off in the real world. A highly ambitious design will probably cost more, be harder to mint, and will generate more faulty coins. Before this is a 100% Royal Mint bashing exercise, I would say that I saw similar reduction in detail with Perth Mint coins across the same time period. Whether 3 has become worse in absolute terms, I honestly don't know. From all the voices on the forum, clearly it has. But I haven't been collecting long enough, and I don't own enough 'older' proof coins to see that objectively. Coin for coin, I have no idea what the return rates used to be. I think the return rates for everything, from cars to lightbulbs, is much higher than it used to be (for all sorts of reasons), so again that is very difficult to compare. I know that people are now able to scrutinise coins in far more detail. I also know that people on this forum are far more discerning than the average punter. My personal experience buying proof coins from RM is that the first time I receive a proof it probably has a 70% chance of having unacceptable levels of faults. I will send it back and the second time it will have maybe a 20% chance of having unacceptable faults. This has happened multiple times. The difference between those numbers is too large to be a coincidence. So... one must conclude that RM has a systemic bias, either intentional or not, between the first release of coins and later fulfilling of returns. I am sure conspiracy theories abound. To be explicit, an example of an unintentional bias could be that the returns are fulfilled with later runs, where they have learned about the characteristics of the coin, are producing lower numbers, and therefore the chance of coins having errors is reduced. And example of an intentional bias could be that they believe the majority of their sales will be to people who don't scrutinise the coins closely, so they hold back the higher quality coins for those that bother to complain. Discuss.
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