SeverinDigsSovereigns

You'll get much more for a graded coin

For small coins airtite caps are superb. For larger ones maybe holders are your safest bet.

I agree you need to grade to sell, that's how market works today. But when I collect it's the coins that I am collecting, not a plastic holder with a piece of paper. If people here detest fiat money with numbers printed for nothing, they'd rightly hate TPG premiums.

I have a cupboard full of dead holders. I think that's a collection in its own right

Fun fact: £1 notes were earlier than modern sovereigns (1797) Banknotes were earlier than the original sovereigns (China, circa 1100 vs England 1400s) There was also a time the UK goverment tried to persuade people use the sovereign instead of bank notes. They tried to persuade the workers to accept the gold coins as payment. When paper money was sound people hated coins I guess. Even if they did £50 fiat coins (base metals) today, I'd prefer the £50 notes

Did you also see the Germans on no man's land?

AllGold is selling one at MS61 for £780. From the picture I think yours stands at MS62 or better, though pictures can be deceptive. My advice is don't grade if you're not planning to sell. Plastic holders are pretty lifeless in my opinion. Although it makes sense to check if they are worth keeping by grading them. I have some very personal feeling against holders, but that's just me And I buy graded then crack out. I like to handle coins, but I shouldn't. I therefore put my coins in airtite caps, for at least they're round...

I don't know, I just did raw in my first NCS submission...

Thought their FMV was based on raw coins not graded ones?

I think so. Not sure about the 1887 though... Also you might want to send more coins at a time to save shipping

Grade and sell for £1000 on eBay.

You might be able to net £200~300 grading that 1884s

Depends on condition really. I'd pay a good £1500 for any MS63, and I think MS62 will see their £1500 days pretty soon. A generic example more like spot, really. Some people might add £20~30 on an AU58, I think in British terminology nEF. EF and gEF roughly translate to MS60-61 (maybe £600?). Those tend not to go as wild as MS62 or 63. MS65 in any year will go crazy... Or you could have rare dates and varieties. The 1841 being the rarest I've seen VF examples going for £6000+.

Yes they have serious liquidity problems. I'll recycle your 1oz for 90% of spot and spare you the misery On the riverbed where that boat wreck is?

Roettier medals (Battle of Lowestoft, Peace of Breda, etc) The Waterloo medal Etc etc Some English Commonwealth designs, too. They are beautiful designs but I shan't touch them. I shan't touch any of the traitor coins either, although they seem pretty popular among collectors.

I hope those who like the design do enjoy. I will not buy this one myself.

@GoldDiggerDave I feel I cannot pass a conservation topic without mentioning our official conservation partner here

https://digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/136506/4/Palomar_A_Comparative_2016_ Journal of Cultural Heritage.pdf I've found this article when browsing around. The authors compared different ways of conserving silverware, which applies equally to coins. I will try to summarise the article in a way that is friendly to people with little background in chemistry. The article tests three kinds of methods of silver conservation: Physical (wiping, rubbing, polishing, etc) which are straight out for coins. Chemical, which the article defines as dipping, to differentiate from "electrochemical" methods. Electrochemical, in plain English the baking soda+hot water+aluminium method. Below I state as facts: 1) you should never try to meddle with a coin physically however hopeless it looks 2) toning is metals (primarily silver and copper) reacting with chemicals in the environment. Primarily, with hydrogen sulphide aided by oxygen, but many other substances also react with silver with ease: cyanides (if you smoke actually), chlorine, and many other stuff 3) toning is the same as corrosion and is irreversible. Silver sulphide (and other toning products) have different crystal structures from the pure metals. 4) dipping is removal of silver sulphide from the coin using acidified thiourea, whereas soda removes sulphide and leaves silver behind, with permanently changed crystal structure. 5) lustre is light scattered by porous surface of a coin. An ideally polished coin (the perfect proof) should have no lustre at all. 6) according to the article and my own experience, both dipping and soda remove tarnish from .999 silver almost completely, but soda works less efficiently for .925 or .900 silver. Some thalers have .8xx purity and basically cannot be helped with soda. Both methods work well on reddish-purple gold coins (if you don't like the reddish toning on old gold), but for very deep copper spots or greenish spots on some old .900 gold, only dipping works. Below I add some context in terms of chemistry (you don't have to understand this bit) The most important rule governing our lives and the entire universe is the second law of thermodynamics, and in very simple language inaccurately reads: things will spontaneously go to the less ordered state. This means coins start to corrupt the second they come off the press. At the early stage of corruption the appearance is minimal. Some lucky coins corrupt in a way that enhances their eye appeal. The main suspect of corruption is oxygen and hydrogen sulphide (which smells like bad eggs). They work together to give silver a darkened look (from a layer of silver sulphide); colourful toning results in different depths of said darkened layer (light diffraction like rainbows). The process is analogous to aqua regia dissolving gold, and has something in common with the dipping process (what a surprise) Where oxygen acts as the oxidant, and hydrogen sulphide provides a ligand. In the dipping process, thiourea is the ligand. In the aqua regia process, nitric acid is the oxidant, itself becoming reduced giving the brown fume, and hydrochloric acid provides chloride which acts as the ligand. Metal ions that are insoluble in water forms a complex that is soluble, and therefore some metal is removed. The baking soda method, on the other hand, is essentially a battery. Silver sulphide is reduced and aluminium is oxidised. The sulphide ions leave the surface of a coin to carry charge and combine with hydrogen in water to become hydrogen sulphide, a gas, which leaves the solution forever (2nd law in action). To summarise, dipping does remove some metal from a coin's surface, and the baking soda does not. Neither methods restores the coin to a state prior to toning. Below I comment on some common misconception in the numismatic hobby. This section may contain some personal opinions, and some viewers may find it offensive. 1) in theory, over-dipping does not remove precious metals from a coin and cause a loss of lustre, because thiourea is not an oxidant. You need an oxidant to work with the dip to remove gold or silver from a coin. In reality, however, oxygen in air is sufficient in helping thiourea remove gold and silver. It is therefore important to dip very briefly if at all. 2) toning is but a marketing whitewash for corrosion. Attractively toned coins will not stay attractive forever, and your best hope is removing oxygen and sulphur from the coin to "freeze" the coin if you like it. Honourary mention to Lighthouse Intercept. 3) a coin is not "original" the second it comes off the press. It is untrue to say a toned coin is "original" and a dipped coin is not. If toning is light, dipping will make it look "original" without harming the coin too much. If toning is deep, then dipping will leave behind an ugly cloudy look, but it is unfair to say dipping has damaged the coin: toning has. 4) there is no difference between natural and artificial toning in a chemical sense. Physically though, artificial toning tend to be shallow. Because of this, artificially toned coins tend to be more colourful. Natural toning, on the other hand, will develop much deeper into a coin's surface and look darker. Colour often appear only at certain angles. This is why some NGC or PCGS pictures look beautiful with the actual coin ugly in hand, but those are most likely natural. Beautiful AT can be removed without ruining the coin, and ugly NT has ruined the coin already, whatever TPGs and CoinTalk puritans say. I'd like to conclude with some very personal opinions on what coins you should or should not try to conserve. Dipping or soda method effectively remove hazy toning on old proof coins. You'd better conserve old proof coins before it's too late. If you're uncomfortable doing that yourself try NCG or PCGS Conservation. This is because, as said above, toning permanently disrupts a coin's surface, rendering a proof coin no more. This is perhaps truer for old proof gold coins than for proof silver, and given the expensive nature of such coins, make sure you know what you're doing or hand into TPG conservation. Copper spots on gold coins will eat into the coin. These should be removed when it's not too late. Red-to-purple toning on gold coins is beautiful. You may leave as is or soda the coin to make it shiny gold, and it's a matter of personal preference. Don't dip if soda alone works efficiently. Thou shalt not remove beautiful natural toning from circulation-type silver coins. If the toning on an old silver coin is ugly, the chances are it's hopeless already. Don't pay too much for those coins even if they're MS63. But sometimes an ugly coin can be successfully restored. You should assume an ugly coin is hopeless and only conserve to try your luck. I would happily listen to opposite opinions, and I gladly accept correction on my chemistry. I hope at least some people will gain better understanding of the nature of toning and conservation. It's very important we know what goes on before we decide what to do (and not to do). There is actually quite a lot of myth among the numismatic community, and it's important we understand the hobby.

As it stands now one will have to pass stuff on any try staying alive for another 7 years. IHT really is the worst type of tax, one of the Whig inventions (and many other Whig philosophies morphed into today's disastrous progressivism), leaving much of our cultural heritage in the mercy of National Trust history rewriting.

Sounds like theft. Worse still, centralised collectivist theft. Still, place two countries on earth, one with this so called citizens' panel and one without. People simply flee from the former to the latter. The only way this crazy idea could be implemented is a concerted effort by all governments in the world, ie. internationalism, another idea championed by Marx an Co. This is why I never liked the idea that any country should be the one true world power (like US), because then a world government becomes more likely. A world government will inevitably lead to diluted voting rights, open borders, and hence communist dictatorship. This is because one safeguard of democracy and freedom, the boundary (as @silversky agrees), will be broken. Where's the citizens' panel when citizenship is no more?

This unfortunately is the typical communist tactic. Having some people on their side, and once in power kick them away. Bloody purge is commonplace in communist regimes. Mao was a master of this, and his diciples today call it unite-fronting.

Yes, illogical human behaviour is problematic. That alone rules out any possibility of a everyone-act-good utopia where individuql wealth is limited in a reasonable way without harming the societal functions. If any one individual cannot be trusted to reasonably accumulate and use wealth as he wishes, how could anyone in his righ mind trust many individuals to reasonably distribute it?

Good luck with French Revolution 2.0 when most of the original participants got their own heads chopped off. A theoretical moral limit? Probably. But in practice, no. Not because there is no moral arguments surrounding private wealth, but the assumption that no one is perfectly moral, and the masses are not to be trusted to act morally in a collective way. This assumption appears true whenever tested. And I very much agree with your common border argument. Democracy or other form of social structures all require boundaries to function well. Although I don't see how any kind of revolution respects that.

The so called zaibatsu are still dominant in Japan's economy today. They were there because of Japan's shot up post Meiji restoration. Those conglomerates received much government help during the early Imperial expansion of the Japanese Empire. Japan's 80s story was one of blind optimism, irresponsible debt piling and hoping for things to continue forever. And they went bust when the bubble bursted. On the other hand, I think British and European assets are somewhat undervalued. There's also a lot of international politics at play. Japan had to be helped by all necessary means simply because of its geographical location, similar to Germany, by the Americans. In the meantime we got the hammers. I'd read into Japan's ups and downs with much caution and little analogy. Also, we already eat our zaibatsu. We feed on them, or whatever there is left from bankrupcies caused by Red Robos, foreign takeovers, punitive tax rates, public expenditure blackholes, etc, etc, mainly used to bribe the electorate. Edit: in addition to allied intervention, the leftist movements pretty much died in Japan after the asama sanso incident. The same movements continued, in various forms, in the western world (and seemingly looking to a return in Japan).

Some QB going for 1800 each when spot is 1600. The dragon and completer especially