LawrenceChard

"and with this I get nothing, no sound at all." I guess your hearing aid battery has died, or it's switched off. 🙂 " I am sorry about the picture quality, this is unfortunately not one of my strongest points and I am using a mobile phone." My usual suggestion it to upgrade your mobile phone from an expensive Apple, to a superior Android one at 1/3rd of the price. 🙂 On a more serious note, it is almost impossible to tell from your photos, a "ping" test as some have already suggested might help, but is not foolproof. I always believe it's helpful to name your source (posh people call this provenance), it does help others to help you. If you bought from ebay, most TSF members would shout fake before they heard any more, and would probably win most bets. If it is ebay, include a link to the item and name the seller. If the same names crop up frequently, this also provides valuable clues.

I realise this in an old post, but: On Friday 4th September 2020, gold was about £1453 per ounce, which would make a sovereign about £342 intrinsic value. Gold had risen from about £900 about two years before, and was only about £1300 per ounce a month before your post. It sounds likely they had priced the coins a few weeks earlier, and not re-priced them to reflect the increase., so you were lucky, but should probably have bought all of them straight away. In general though, you need to be careful buying gold coins from pawn shops or jewellers. They have often bought these in as scrap, in coin jewellery, and can be very polished, gilded, worn, ar fake. They often acid test them, and even file the edges in order to get a good test result. Jewellers and pawn shops are not renowned for working on fine margins, jewellers often expect 100+% markup, and pawn shops ask 5%, 6%, per month interest, so don't readily work on the relatively small spread that bullion dealers are happy with. They possibly did not require your ID, and they may have been legally obliged to do so.

Aha, a common misbelief! Now you know. White gold is a cheap substiture for platinum. The better quality 18ct white gold uses palladium or platinum as a whitener, and has better working and durability properties then the cheaper stuff whic uses nickel. Nickel is a very effective whitener, but creates processing problems including annealilng, and other harder, can also be brittle. Lower carat alloys, such as 14ct and 9 ct are even worse. It;'s best to use platinum, which is relatively cheap at present, and is very durable, but it does require greater manufactuing skill, and because of its higher melting point, needs special casting equipment, furnaces, blowtorches, etc., all of which adds to the cost. Because most white gold alloys are slighlty yellowish, it is common to rhodium plate them, but of course, the plating wears off, and things have to be re-plated too often.

Interesting! What we really need is some sound check videos on the Music Legends series. Who sounds best? Queen, David Bowie, Elton John, or The Who?

It all depends on what you alloy it with. Yellow gold is normally alloyed with a mixture of silver (10.5) and copper (9.0), so would not vary greatly. White gold might be alloyed with palladium (12.0), platinum (21.4), copper and silver as above, nickel (8.9), zinc (7.1), theoretically but unlikely aluminium (2.7). Better quality white golds use platinum or palladium, whereas cheap versions use nickel, which is an effective whitener, but produces hard apringy alloys prone to cracking, and also causing annealing problems.

Close, but... The paragraph "Specific Gravity Table" contains the table, but the table header says "Metal Density", and as I had just explained, "density" should have units, which are not present in the table, so we should have either included the units gm/cc in the table, or better, changed the table headed to say "Metal Specific Gravity". I can't remember now why I included the mention of "Nottingham University Students", but I think we had probably received an e-mail from one of them asking us the difference, instead of referring to a reference book. In fact, I think we then answered his/her e-mail by pointing them at the page, and giving them a free mention. In case anyone is interested, the Chards page was ported over from the original, which is still available here: https://24carat.co.uk/frame.php?url=densityofgoldandothermetals.html, and created about 1998/9.

The density of fine gold is 19.3 grams per cc, while 22ct is about 17.75 grams per cc, depending on the other components. This page has a brief table: https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/density-of-gold-and-other-metals/377 I just spotted a slight error on the page. Anyone want to try to win a pint by finding it? You are of course correct in that 24ct gold is softer and generally less durable than 22ct gold. Hardness and durability are not the same thing, and hardness depends on a number ot factors including the exact composition of the alloy, and whether it has been work hardened, annealed, and more.

You were, and still are, quite right @Britannia47 to be disappointed with the colour of your (1997?) proof sovereign. The marketing people, and other decision makers, at the Royal Mint, seem to have decided, sometime during the Queen's reign, that modern sovereigns were traditionally made of red gold, that is alloyed only with copper, and without any silver content. Why they believe this, nobody knows, but it now seems to be ingrained, as does their stubbornness, and resistance to change, or perhaps reluctance to admit they have been wrong for the past half century. I have linked this page in TSF a few times recently: https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/analysis-of-alloy-content-of-gold-sovereigns/180, but will do so again, as it is relevant to the discussion. We have actually tested many hundreds of sovereigns, but will either expand that page, or publish further research when we have more time. My experience says that a typical silver content in pre'QEII sovereigns was 3 parts per thousand, but with quite wide variation. Tradition is indeed not entirely on your side ragarding using "fine" gold of 999 or 999.9 ppt, but the first ever gold sovereigns, in 1489, were made of 15.55 grams of 23ct (95.83% fine) gold, and they contained about 0.479 troy ounces of fine gold, more than double the "modern" specification, so tradition is not entiirely on the Royal Mint's side either! What's more, although I have not had the opportunity to test any of the Edward VII sovereigns, I stongly suspect they are alloyed with a high relative silver content, and certainly not with all copper. This page: https://goldsovereigns.co.uk/firstsovereign.html may be interesting, I wrote it in about January 2000. I don't agree that we should make 999.9 gold sovereigns, but we could do much better than the Mint's current efforts. If it does ever remove it's head from its anus, and pay due respect to tradition, they could call it "The Old Sovereign", rather than "The New Sovereign".

That's fart too much information! although it did feel like a breath of fresh air.

We already have one in stock: We had some technical problems with the lighting! 🙂

Nothing sinister about that, he probably has the remaining 99 of them still in stock, that's about £500 worth of stock! 🙂 Correction £495.

Are you still waiting for them to get back to you? 🙂

Almost any "Historic Coin" from the Royal Mint will be very expensive, as most TSF members would, and many have, told you. Many years ago, the Royal Mint threatened to sue me/us for defamation for stating that one of their mintmark sovereign sets was a rip-off price. Their laywers incorrectly, and dishonestly, in my opinion, stated that rip-off implies dishonesty, which it of course does not. Needless to say, they did not proceed with any legal action. I suspect it was an attempt at using the law to inconvenience a competitor, using governement money to do so. The Royal Mint used to be primarly engaged in producing UK and other coins. Now it is primarily a coin dealer. The deal you linked would be good at about half the price. If the Mint, or its supplier, takes as much care in choosing "your" coin as it took matching the obverse and reverse photos, you shoulc certainly look elsewhere. Also, in general, it is usually not great to take advantage of interest free credit. "Free credit" involves costs for its supplier. It is almost always better to shop elsewhere. Before posting this, I looked on the @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer website, but couldn't find any USA $10, $5, or $2.5 gold eagles, halves and quarters. We probably have some, but not had time to grade them and add them to our stock system. As I am "working from home" today, I can't nip down to the bunker to take a look. Even if I could, I would probably need some help finding them because of our new super efficient bin location system! (It does work well for most other purposes) 🙂

Although this video does not relate primarily to coins, or coin grading, it should be of considerable importance and interest to most coin or bullion investors, collectors, slabbers, stackers, and even conspiracy theorists. Exposing FRAUD And DECEPTION In The Retro Video Game Market It was posted by Karl Jobst, and has been discussed and linked on Reddit. "My scathing review of the current retro video game bubble is out! These people don't care about video games, they just care about taking your money" I will not attempt to describe it in full detail, but it involves or mentions: Mark Haspell and Deniz Kahn of Wata Games PWCC Tulipmania The Great Coin Bubble of the 80's PCGS RSE Archive LLC Rally RD Eric Naierman Merrill Lynch NCI Heritage Capital Corps. James Halperin Certified Rare Coin Galleries (CRCG) Ebay The press and media in general for helping to promote and distribute propaganda issued by the interested parties. So, while I do not expect many TSF members to be Retro Video Game collectors or "investors", I think this video is educational and worth watching.

We do have a few photos: 2021 Silver 2021 Gold More to follow I hope the other mark is not SARS! 🙂

Thanks for taking my points positively. As I think I already said, try Emporium Hamburg, to see if they can or will tell you the gold fineness. Of course, they may nor know, otherwise they may have included it in the item description, but you never know, it's worth asking them.

Following on from a few earlier posts about 2022 gold sovereigns, Year of the Tiger: There is to be a new fifty pence design relating to insulin. Here is our quick visualisation: We do not yet have full details, but: The Royal Mint Innovation in Science Series: Insulin 50p Next we have a potential new addition to the Innovation in Science Series, which already includes coins celebrating the work of Stephen Hawking, Rosalind Franklin and John Logie Baird. The design will feature a depiction of insulin molecules, along with the chemical formula for it. Insulin is commonly used in the treatment of diabetes. We don't know if the coin is commemorating a specific event related to insulin and it's discovery, but we have some ideas. 2021 marks 100 years since the hormone was discovered by Scottish biochemist John Macleod, and Canadian scientists, Frederick Banting and Charles Best. In 1951, British scientist Frederick Sanger produced the first full structure of the amino acid. It was the first protein ever to be fully sequenced sand allowed scientists to further understand it. The coin could possibly commemorate 70 years since this scientific breakthrough. As we're already in August, we think it's more likely to be a 2022-dated coin. If that's the case, it may be celebrating the 100th anniversary since insulin was first used in the treatment of diabetes. Often regarded as one of the most historic breakthroughs in medical history, insulin has saved the lives of millions of people around the world. The full list of coins we can expect to see is below. Denomination Metal Diameter Weight Fineness Actual Metal Weight 50 Pence Gold 27.3 mm 15.5 g 916.7 0.457 oz 50 Pence Silver Piedfort 27.3 mm 16 g 925 0.476 oz 50 Pence Silver 27.3 mm 8 g 925 0.238 oz 50 Pence Cupro-Nickel 27.3 mm 8 g N/A N/A We will be adding more as we learn about them, and they will be added here: https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/new-coin-information-summer-2021/1015#The-Royal-Mint-Innovation-in-Science-Series:-Insulin-50p

Perhaps the idea is that if you strike your own, they might be better than the ones the Royal Mint strikes! 🙂

The photos on my post you quoted are of British Royal Mint silver coins including some high premium proof coins, namely Queen's Beasts. So, not only 999, not only bullion. For a definitive answer you should probably ask the Royall Mint, but don't expect to get a fully detailed or satisfactory explanation.

Do you think anyone would pay extra for bars with a "distressed finish"?

WTF knows?

I suspect that if you phoned 999 and told the police the ebay seller was round at your house, pointing a shotgun at your head, and threatening to shoot you if you didn't buy it off him for cash, they would ask if you thought it was a real gun, or a fake, then promise to try to send someone round to take a statement from you in a few days, possibly after they had carried out a risk assessment. On a slightly more serious note, I think it would rank low on police priorities, that ebay would be unlikely to co-operate promptly, with any enthusiasm, or at all, bearing in mind they are a US company, and we are only in the UK. I do agree with you though!

i suppoes you want "free postage"! 🙂

Having been tagged into this by @Liam84: First to the OP @Gildeon When requesting information, it is always best to include as much information as you already know, and also to phrase your question more exactly, rather than have to clarify and correct it later. Like most of the other TSF members who have responded, I too started with a Google search. In my case I searched for: REX SICILIE CAROLVS IMPERAT 1967 The first result I found was: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/imperat-carolvs-coin-rex-sicilie-1967-464035933 which @CollectForFun also found. WorthPoint quotes: Source eBay UK So I looked on ebay, but failed to find your auction. Later in the thread, I noticed you said "And the fact it was bought from a big auction house..." I thought, WTF didn't you mention that to start with, name the auction house, and include a like to it, so that anybody trying to help you could quickly see and know as much as you already do or did. While I am at it, and being my usual, slightly pedantic self, you started off with "Just won this in an auction". I would say you bought it in an auction, rather than you won it. "Win/won is a bit of soft but pervasive and insidious propaganda that ebay like to promote. Psychologically everyone likes to win, but not everybody wants to be reminded that they spent money. It is another example of the mind games which big multinational corporations like use to manipulate and enslave the plebs. @CollectForFun also found the link to the Silver 1 Tari - Carlo V on Numista, which was a good start, but of course, I was looking for a gold coin, which @KevinFlynn also found, a Mezzo trionfo d'oro, on CoinGallery.de. That coin weighs 1.72 grams, yours "says 3.26 gr", so it sounds like yours is a (full) trionfo d'oro. After this, I noticed that your original post was back in August, and you only got 1 answer, then 3 months later, you posted "One more try to get more information about this." which made it sound like you were irritated, annoyed, or disppointed that your question had not been answered to your complete satisfaction. If TSF featured on any feedbacl sites like TrustPilot, you could have given it a 1 star rating, and said 3 months later and I have still not found out what I wanted to know! Having got a second link, you then said "Thanks but I am mostly looking for info about the restrikes.", which you could and should of course have stated in the first place. Another point, which @CollectForFun correctly pointed out, is that it is not a restrike, but would be better described as a replica. See this page I published probably over 20 years ago: https://24carat.co.uk/frame.php?url=restrikes.html . Eventually, you posted a partial screenshot from the auction catalogue, from which we can see it was lot # 942, and the item was described as "moderne goldmed..." (German for gold medal or medallion), but still failed to name the auction house, or to post a link to the actual result. I did manage to find what looks your auction on lot-art.com, but by this time, was losing the will to live, so gave up, apart from noting that it seemed to be from a Hamburg auction site, but this may be wrong. I'm almost past caring. I also noted that Liam84 used DuckDuckGo.com, which I also use occasionally, but only when I am looking for ways to assassinate Rob Halliday-Stein, or tunnel into the Royal Mint. (I am joking). Really! I note that the WorthPoint link says "in mint condition comes with attractive blue case". I know you said this site requires a subscription, but there is a big button which inites you to "START FREE TRIAL" Have you thought about doin that? I have not checked, but I guess you can cancel before the one month free trial period ends. If you looked whose blue box it was, that might tell you who marketed it. I also note you are in Ireland. If you are anywhere near GoldCore in Dublin, you could try asking them for an opinion, but I suspect they know F.A. about coins. If not, there are seom actual real coin dealers in Ireland you could try. One of yout posts says " but not easy to sell without knowing the grade." I have some very clever, high tech, technology when it comes to assessing the grade of a coin. The main input devices are called eyes, and I have two of them. This passes data to the main processing unit, called a brain. I only have one of these, but have found it very effective when in use. Looking at the images on your auction catalogue screenshot, it looks to be in more or less mint condition, which is what I would expect from a modern replica, which will not ever have been in circulation. The thought occurs to me, and probably to others, that you could have checked with your source what the gold alloy fineness was, or the grade, but I also used my clever, high tech, technology, and scanning the auction catalogue screenshot, I saw "vz-st". During my many years, I have learnt a tiny smatteriing of German, so I Googled "vz-st german coin auction grade", and found an Emporium Hamburg page https://www.emporium-numismatics.com/PCGS-NGC/Grading-Scale which includes: " AU 50, 53, 55, 58 About Uncirculated german: Vorzüglich bis Stempelglanz (vz-st)" Achim Becker founded Emporium Hamburg a long time ago, so it may be EH who originally marketed this replica, but ultimately it is probably not highly relevant. The information you are probably hoping for is how much it is worth. The makers or promoters of gold replica coins uusually ask at least double their intrinsic value, but on the secondary market, most jewellers would offer you scrap value for it, after filing the edge and acid testing it (this would probably be between 50% to 75% of its intrinsic value). A coin dealer might pay you more, perhaps 70% to 90% of intrinsic. If we owned it, we would probably ask 10% premium for it, and if it had not sold in a few years time, then we might scrap it. The cost to photograph it, describe it, and market it, would probably be more than our profit on it, but we take a long term view of many things. I guess there will be some, most, or all, of the above which you didn't want to hear, but you got it all anyway, free of charge. 🙂

Yes, but I think it's because he fell for the "free postage"! 🙂