LawrenceChard

There's nothing silly about chocolate coins. Perhaps we should get some 1917-L ones made, although they would need to be high cocoa content, 91.6% should do it. I could give the toolmaker one from our stock to copy.

Kuenker are a major German and European numismatic auction house, they do also hold stock of coins as dealers. I had never heard of Rauch before, but they are in Vienna, and Kuenker also have an office in Vienna, so it sounds like Frühwald can easily get a second and third opinion, or third and fourth opinion, if you count mine.

I guess you mean 100 ounces of platinum. You could just try leaving it in storage outside the UK, but probably not easy to arrange. I suggest writing formally to HMRC, tell them the position, and ask for their written advice. Be prepared to argue your case if you think they are wrong, which they often are (50%?). If the answer suits you, bring a copy of it with you when you arrive.

I think you are going a bit extreme at $20, but you could be right! 🙂

The test you mention is always optimally performed at 2.30 🙂

I was pleasantly surprised to get an e-mail reply from Dr. Winfried Frühwald, saying he would show to coin to both Rauch and Künker, and withdraw the coin from auction if they agree with my opinion, which I am sure they will.

Sounds like ebay member stephanderson555 is yet another ebay crook, unless he is so stupid, he really does not know the difference. "1917 King George V London Mint Gold Full Sovereign" Nobody is likely to have alerted ebay to this fraudulent and misleading description, but even if they did, I think ebay staff would also be so stupid, they would not understand the difference, and neither ebay nor they would care. Do I sound ever so slightly cynical?

No, just making a point in plain simple English.

Somewhere out there is a fake 1934 wreath crown, or more specificially a re-engraved date one. Going back to about the 1965 to 1968 period, we used to get a regular visit, perhaps monthly, by a man from Southport called Wheeler. He was always looking to buy wreath crowns, but only those from 1930 to 1936. The other coins he wanted to buy included pennies from 1862 to 1868, halfpennies from 1870 to 1879, Edward halfcrowns from 1902 to 1909. Typical coins he owned and was offering for sale included the above mentioned 1934 crown, 1869 pennies, 1871 halfpennies, and 1905 halfcrowns. These are all the key dates in their series. It is very unusual for collectors to own all the key dates, but be looking to buy most of the common in a series, and this fact raised my suspicions. I had also noticed that some of his rare date coins looked to have have some "work" done around their dates. Further, in the wreath crown series, he was never interested in any dated from 1927 to 1929. Similarly, he avoided 1910 halfcrowns, 1860 and 1861 pennies, which are a different variety from the 1869, and the same pattern with Victoria young head halfpennies. We used to have a local competitor and fellow dealer called Peter Ireland, and I spoke to him about Wheeler. At first Peter seemed happy with the coins he had bought from Wheeler, but he was happy to re-check, and also to have a closer look at any subsequent coins he was offered by Wheeler. This co-operation paid off, as on his next visit to Blackpool, Peter and I both identified highly suspicious coins in Wheeler's stock. We called the police, Wheeler confessed, was convicted and went to jail. When he was arrested, and his home searched, there was no trace of the 1934 crown. I called in to a Blackpool jeweller, a man called Fielding who ran Regan's jewellers, and I asked about various coins including a 1934 crown. He retreived the coin from his back room, I examined it, and could easily identify it as the same fake that Wheeler had offered to me. When I told Fielding this, he went into denial, even though I was able to tell him the name of the seller, and more details about the case. Fielding seemed clueless about the fact that I was one of two local numismatic coin dealers. I believe he subsequently sold the coin to an unsuspecting sucker, made a profit, avoided a loss, but lost any respect from me. I also informed Peter Ireland about this. This was not the last time I have known jewellers to sell fake coins, sometimes in ignorance, sometimes in full knowledge. It is a very common occurrence. I am still waiting for the faked 1934 crown to re-surface. If I do get to see it again, it will be very interesting when it's owner asks how and what I know about it.

It would be better to include the item number, seller ID, and / or a direct link, plus the item title and description. Preferably all of these. This furthr information would provide important clues, if any were needed. As everybody else has said, just looking at the photos, it is not a coin. It is not even a fake coin, it is only a replica or "round" and it does say " Golden State Mint", so you could have Googled them and found the answer in seconds. It is still not too late to add the direct link, instead of expecting everyone else to try searching for it 🙂

I have alerted both FRÜHWALD and Sixbid. I found it slightly odd that Sixbid seem reluctant to receive fake and fraud alerts directly: "Do you have a question about an auction on Sixbid, lots displayed, buying or selling coins, the status of your bids in an auction or payment for an auction? Please contact the affected Auctioneer directly." That's rather like ebay saying contact the seller directly.

I have seen worse, but it is an obvious fake. Whoever FRÜHWALD are, they should be ashamed of themselves.

With such a minimalistic description, and the total lack of photos, I think this is highly suspicious. It could be someone who knows almost nothing about coins, but is more likely to be a scammer. (Perhaps one who has been kicked off ebay) ☺️ It might be an idea to alert sixbid to the suspicions. Many people might refrain from this if they were hoping they were going to get lucky and buy a £10K coin for £500. (Greed and fear).

Pouring it into a cast bar is not the same as having it minted, which of course is a different process. While I am being customarily pedantic, it did use to be possible to take gold or silver bullion to the mint, and have it "minted", turned into coin for you. There was a small fee. This was all a long time ago, even before my time, so don't expect the Royal Mint to provide the service for you. If they read this, they may think of adding it as a "new" service, but I am sure any fee will not be small. You have not menioned the purity of your silver, but some TSF members have assumed it is sterling silver scrap. You may find that if you melt it, your bars will not be .925 for a number of reasons. Hallmerked items can be contaminated with stuff like solder, or worse still cadmium. You probably don't want to inhale any cadmium fumes, as they are known to be carcinogenic. (Melt in your BackYard?). Also there are fake hallmarks, and genuine hallmarks illegally applied to sub-standard items. Most silver and gold we have ever scrapped is defiicient by about 1%. Are you capable of assaying your bars? Refining them? If they are purely for your own amusement, there is no problem.

I am sure this is for fear of US government sanctions. While there are valid arguments for sanctions in general, it is too easy for powerful players, like the US government to use bully-boy tactics, and act like would-be dictators. I noticed a later comment mentioned submitting it as Persian, and I always try to differentiate between past and present country names. When it is a historic artefact, it strikes me that applying sanctions is an attempt to rewrite history. It stikes me as bad that NGC would refuse to grade Iranian coins, but I wonder if this is NGC company policy, or simply an employee interpreting rules mindlessly. With big companies, particularly American ones, it is often difficult to find out, and frustrating trying to. Do ebay and Amazon permit listings of Weimar Republic coins, some of which have Nazi symbolism? This is only a (semi) rhetorical question. If they still permit them this week, they may ban them next week, particularly if someone complains. 🙂

Don't forget that "mint condition" doesn't mean perfect. We have had sealed tubes of silver Britannias with fingerprints on them before now, and they were on both sides of the coins. To be fair, I think the RM usually only put fingerprints on one side. 🙂

I agree they look quite nice, but I can't read a word on them... might even be Arabic for thanks for your money sucker, Ha ha!... or "Death to all infidels". 🙂

We only have the Royal Mint's word for that, and... Does anybody really care what day they were struck? 🙂

When I saw the thread title "Dorset coin company", I wondered if it was about a "Dorset coin company", or The "Dorset Coin Company". Folowed closely by the thought that if a TSF member was asking if Dorset Coin Company are trustworthy or reputable, then I might add my opinion that they indeed very honourable, and well -respected numismatists. In the past, I have dealt with them (mainly with Ernie, but I probably have spoken to Terry). The actual thread, with the comment "Thanks for your money sucker. Ha ha" shocked me. No wonder some other TSF members queried how the previous conversation had been phrased. Being pedantic, he should at least have put a comma after the word money, but perhaps he was replying using his phone, which seems to make everyone lazy, and sloppy about spelling, punctuation, etc. 🙂 Perhaps Terry was having a particularly bad day, but even so, the comments are inexcusable for two reasons. The first because it's no way to talk to any customer, but the deeper reason is that it appears to reveal his true attitude to customers and collectors. Nobody with that attitude should be in the coin business. When I did a Google search for DCC, their ebay shop was the first result, which is quite revealing. I wanted to find their website, but I guess ebay pay Google adwords to be able to hijack the top spot, and DCC's website is not fantastic; it loaded slowly with missing images, and it's my further guess that ebay is there main online sales channel, while their own website is of much less importance to them. I took a further look at Google results, and found: "Dorset Coin Company dorsetcoincompany.com Site will be available soon. Thank you for your patience! © Dorset Coin Company 2020." in 20th place, but their actual live site dorsetcoincompany.co.uk failed to appear in the first 5 pages (50 results), so might as well not exist as far as Google is concerned. My third guess is that DCC discovered that it's easy to use ebay to market your products, and also that it requires considerable effort and expenditure to create a website which can compete with ebay. I sure am glad that I took the view back in 1998, that we needed our own company website. We experimented with ebay years ago, and hated it for enough reasons to fill a book. What seems to have happened is that unless a business has a fully-functioning, all-singing, all-dancing, website, then it might as well pack up and go home. The alternative is to delegate your online presence to ebay, Amazon, and the like. This applies not just to the coin business. Talk to anyone with a food take-away; if they are not using JustEat, Deliveroo, etc, they probably don't get enough trade to stay in business, so they have to pay maybe 15% to 20% commission to get sales, and that probably means they have to increase their prices to pay for it, which means that you, the customer, ends up paying more. The same thing applies to hotels on sites such as Trip Advisor and Booking.com. These sites also want hefty commissions for booking through their sites, and have T@Cs which debar the hotel from charging lower prices to direct bookers. I intensely detest this, and always try to book direct, but expect to get a better deal. Another example is review sites. While they are a good idea in theory, they are far from perfect, open to abuse, and they charge hundreds or thousands of pounds to allow companies to "manage" the feedback. It works a little like the old Mafia protection rackets. My next thought is why @Leonmarsh enquired via ebay. I would have tried direct, and possibly suggested that as DCC would be saving (15%?) commission to ebay, they could pass it on as a discount instead. Of course, this does not guarentee a successful outcome. At least, buying from DCC, you could be reasonably sure the coin would be genuine... ... unlike https://atkinsonsbullion.com/gold/gold-coins/other-gold-coins/pre-owned-saudi-arabia-1-guinea-gold-coin, current price £339.13 although out of stock, where it seems you can be assured the coins will be fake "The photograph shows the type of coin you will receive, not the exact item.". The photos on ths page show a very obvious fake. I only became aware of this when @BackyardBullion posted a YouTube video BYB was very kind about Atkinsons when he discovered the coin was fake, and reported that the problem was rectified, although I would not have had such kind thoughts. I looked at Atkinsons website at the time, and they had two pages for Saudi Guineas, one generic and one for the specific date. Both had the same photos which were of a counterfeit, although BYB's coin was a different fake. What surprised me at the time was that, weeks afterthe BYB incident, Atkinsons' website still had the same photographs of the same fake coin. It seems they had not thought to check whether the coin in their photos was genuine or fake. I have looked at the site and page occasionally since then, waiting to see if the would ever replace it (I have previouslly publicly commented about it). I checked again today, and have stopped being surprised that they still have the fake photos there. What does surprise me is to notice that more than two years have passed since the incident. (Where did the time go?). I also just checked our website (not for images of fakes), here: https://www.chards.co.uk/1950-saudi-arabia-gold-one-guinea/1761 priced just under £370 (plus our additional postage charge!). It does say we are out of stock (actually it says "add stock alert" which I think we should re-word). Our photos are of a genuine coin (of course), all our coins are guaranteed genuine, and we do know the difference, and how to tell. The listing is for an ungraded "bullion" coin, but most of these Saudi Guineas are minty anyway. Just after the BYB video, we sorted through our stock of them, from memory about 20 coins, added them to our site, and sold them all quite quickly. I may have upset two dealers with this single response, but c'est la vie! 🙂

Good spotting! It's a wonder the RM haven't done 2 different S.O.D. Queen's bithday sovereigns, one in April, and the other in June. 🙂 Perhaps they brought it forward this year as a bit of "insurance"?

I don't think many bullion dealers manage to work on those huge spreads, making 5% to 7% margin, except for very small deals in low volume. To be competitive, margins and spreads need to be about half those figures. Sure, there will be many small "local" dealers, who do have that sort of margin and spread, or even higher, but would anyone want to do any business with them, except for very small deals.

I presume you meant "If it does go that high". Although I can't speak for all dealers, yes of course! It's what dealers do - "deal", that is buy and sell, trade, make a market. In theory, and in essence, it is a very simple business model. Only very small, or perhaps small-minded, dealers would just sell their own stock, and refuse to buy. Most bullion dealers of a reasonable size operate by buying and selling quite competitively on quite small spreads. Typically this might mean buying at 99% (of intrinsic). and selling at 101%. If the market turned so that most investors were selling, then we, for example, would simply shift our buy-sell spreads slightly, perhaps to buy 98%, sell 100%, and when demand exceed supply, mover them the othr way, perhaps to buy 100%, sell 102%. In these example, I have assumed a buy-sell spread of 2%, but this is only as an example. If there were big volumes of trade to be done, then we might find ourselves buying at 101%, selling at 101.5%. In "paper" financial markets, speads are much smaller, down to a few parts per thousand, but in may examples, I assume we are dealing with "physical", so coins and bars, need to be delivered, checked, tested, stored, and the same again in the opposite direction, so spreads need to be slighly wider to pay for the handling costs. Spreads on small deals will typically be wider than I have indicated, to cover the time and admin costs. i hope this helps. 🙂

I once picked up a whole mint sack of them! At 1,000 per sack, that makes a mint bag just over 28Kg, the heaviest mint bags I know of.

Things must be really bad if they think Cadburys is the good stuff. Anybody remember: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2006/aug/03/food.foodanddrink Salmonella outbreak costs Cadbury £20m Although as a popular mass-market brand, it is not so bad.

Photographing Holographic Coins - Trial and Error If you think getting good photos of coins is difficult, try photographing holograms, it's not easy, and definitely a case of trial and error. For example: It's actually the reverse of a 2020 Canadian gold "reverse proof" one ounce maple leaf, from this set: There is no single answer, and you just have to experiment.