lubi29

1/2oz proofs S2

Reload S1 tigers

Whilst we are waiting for the Royal Mint to issue the 2021 Gothic Crown, I thought it would be nice to show the 1847 alongside the Alderney. Also gives me an opportunity to very proudly confirm I have finally managed to get a Gothic Crown. Probably just in time before the prices go crazy.
What do you guys think of the effort from Alderney? I think they did well. The only real difference is the alignment and I wonder if the Royal Mint will follow the 1847 or Alderney in that respect?
 

https://iaingould.co.uk/2021/10/15/devon-cornwall-police-forced-to-pay-the-price-for-coin-fiasco/

From @BackyardBullion group order.
Falcons and Mouses.
Thanks you

Did it make sense to buy the Australian Lunar Tiger in the UK while, on a budget, there are cheaper coins? NO
Did I buy it anyway because it is stunningly beautiful? YES

I may have information about the price (and maybe something other details) early next week. 

After reading your post, it looks like the remaining 1000 of the standard 1 Oz silver proof are with LPM for the 2-coin set with 1000 of the 1 Oz silver reverse proof.  That’s what their issue limit states.
By this logic, it would leave just 10 more of the standard 1 Oz silver proof for whatever else the RM does with the extras.

S1 gold 1/10 oz ox , goat to finish my set and silver 1 oz S1 still two more to complete.

Not really pal 7010 is high IMHO for silver 1oz proof & I think I'm giving the panther a miss I don't like the design, you can see it in the flesh on this RM video about 2.25 in if you can't be bothered to watch it all.
 
 

Another find from a man who had secret stash.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/16336867/pensioner-secret-stash-rare-saxon-coins-worth-185000/

An absolute Choice 1911 proof florin.

Just received these two lovely coins. Will try to get a five pound and a full in future.
Not sure why the 2 Sov didn't get CAMEO grading... I  believe the cameo contrast looks very similar.  

Lunar S2  silver proofs 1/2oz ,1oz ,2oz  and 1/10 oz 1/4oz gold Lunar  S2 bullion   to finish sets from SC via @sovereignsteve and 1/10oz gold S1 from member of forum.
 

A nice 2nd Coin Cabinet arrival that solves a storage/ display problem.  
The Cabinet has a drawer for coin paraphernalia, the remainder of the them fitted out with Inserts that accept Crowns, which was its intended purpose.
As a nice bonus,  the drawers are also deep enough to hold 10 Slabs per drawer 😃 and my Peter Nichols Cabinet with my historic Silver sits nicely up on top 👍 

We have seen increasing quantities and variety of fake coins , made in China, of many different types of coins, for about the last 10 years.
Producing replica / counterfeit / imitation coins, and almost anything else, seems to be big business in China.
China does not participate in copyright, design, or patent protection, with a few possible exceptions. All this is apparently perfectly legal in China, and almost certainly encouraged by the Chinese government, possibly to undermine western democracies, or as part of an economic trade war.
Mostly we have encountered these from owners who have bought one or more on ebay, or sometimes from the guy in the pub, an "antique shope", flea market, car boot sale, Amazon, Facebook, and the rest. Sometimes they have paid hundreds of pounds, thinking they were getting some rare coin at a bargain price, others have paid £20, £10 ore even less, and are still happy when told they have a fake, even when told that they could have got the same thing, generally via Ali Express, for a few pound, even taking postage into account. I am usually too polite to tell them bluntly how stupid I think they have been, and it is frustrating that mostly they are not interested in buying any genuine coins, but still expect to pick my / our brains free of charge.
For many years, I / we have been highlighting some fake coins on our websites, for a number of reasons, mainly for education, but in an attempt to help spread some knowledge and experience, hoping it might help some people from being ripped off. This is time consuming, and I have not always had enough spare time to do it, until the last year or two.
In recent months, I had been thinking about buying a selection of modern Chinese fake coins from China, but was spurred on by a topic post about a month ago about 1841 fake gold sovereigns being offered, and sold, on ebay. I contributed to that discussion. I received a package of about 30 to 40 various fakes last week, in one delivery consolidated from 9 different suppliers. Somehow I seem to have missed the 1841 sovereign off the orders, so I need to get back on and add one.
A TSF member asked if I would start a separate topic here, so here goes.
The two posts I have already added, under Today I Received, were:
A 1933 Penny
 
and a 1934 Crown:
I will be adding information such as the cost from China, plus notes about reseller prices in the UK, and probably a few choice comments about the greediness, lack of ethics of the advertisers / sellers, and possibly about the buyers, all while trying to keep it polite, which could require considerable restraint.
As always, feedback, questions, and comments are welcome.
🙂

A decoration for your Christmas Tree?
https://www.royalmint.com/gifts/by-occasion/christmas/una-the-lion-silver-tree-decoration/
There is also a gold plated version:
https://www.royalmint.com/gifts/by-occasion/christmas/una-the-lion-gold-plated-silver-tree-decoration/
But do not get too excited "Email when back in stock"!
 

Ive posted about food inflation a few times,  as said before the government need cheap food to keep the masses happy.    Next year will be a shock for everyone food inflation will be high and some things won’t be available 
2 big things fertiliser gone from £200 last year to £475 this if you can get it. Tens of thousands of acres of grain won’t be planted this year.     Added to this the government’s green revolution whereby they are paying for wild flowers and bird seed mixes are taking as much out the system also.   So Britain will have to get used to having some pretty flowers and some nice birds but bread will be short. 
government are too blind to see what’s happening but this time next year food will be a struggle  

This could signal the end of 'professionally' graded coins as a means to speculate. Historically a 'perfect' coin was considered the holy grail and rarely (sometimes never) obtainable. Nowadays people have come to expect perfection for anything released by a mint. The term 'proof' has always been used as a description of the way the coin is struck - not as a guarantee of a perfect coin. A proof coin is (supposedly) the best that a mint can achieve at that time, under those conditions - nothing more.
The true value of slabbing is in identifying genuines coins - something i imagine the whole business was based upon. The use of grading companies as a tool for speculators has made the whole business, for me, appear a bit grubby.
Each to their own obviously, but it has always left me scratching my head at people who will pay huge premiums for a 70 graded coin over a 68/69 graded coin. Take them out of the slab and i would defy the majority of people to distinguish between them. Yet are paying hundreds or thousands of pounds for two digits printed on a slip of paper.....
When is a '70' not a '70' ?- could be the next day.
 

Hi all,

I prefer to collect most of my coins in ngc slabs so i sent this set for grading.
i noticed the milk spots and i knew it would not achieve very well but  decided to do it anyway and upgrade any coin to higher grade in the future if i could find any. 
After reading all the disapoinment (including mine) i am not sure if it will be possible to get this set in pf 69-70 as very few have been graded and as far as i understand , there wont be any restrikes from the mint. 
If anyone else has graded any of those please let me know. Also please feel free to share your thoughts on my coins. 
Thank you

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I stumbled across the Talent as a measure of gold or silver in olden days.
This is from wikipedia.  I thougt it was interesting and wanted to share:
 
 
A talent (Latin: talentum, from Ancient Greek: τάλαντον "scale, balance") is an ancient unit of mass. It corresponded generally to the mass of water in the volume of an amphora, i.e. a one-foot cube.
The Babylonians and Sumerians had a system in which there were 60 shekels in a mina and 60 minas in a talent (in Ancient Greece one talent was 26 kg of silver). The Roman talent consisted of 100 libra (pounds) which were smaller in magnitude than the mina.
When used as a measure of money, it refers to a talent-weight of gold or of silver. The gold talent is reported as weighing roughly the same as a person, and so perhaps 50 kg (>110 lb avoirdupois). Some authorities say that the talent typically weighed about 33 kg (>72 lb) varying from 20 to 40 kg. In June, 2018, the international price of gold was about US $41,155.69 per kilogram. One gram costs about $38. At this price, a talent (33 kg) would be worth about $1,400,116.57. Similarly, in February 2016, the price of silver was about $15 per troy ounce or about 50 cents per gram, so a 33 kg silver talent would be worth about $16,500. Thus when we read that King Auletes of Egypt paid Gaius Julius Caesar the sum of 6,000 talents of gold to grant him the status of a "Friend and Ally of the Roman People," this amount would be worth about $8,400,000,000 USD today! These estimates are only rough values, because they are based on modern estimates.The value of silver in comparison to gold drastically changed. This is because of the output of the Spanish silver mines in the New World. In ancient times the same amount of silver was often worth more than gold. The estimates do not account for the less technical mining ability of the time, nor that there were still native deposits available. Later in Roman history, during the medieval Byzantine period, the emperor Basil II was said to have stockpiled the legendary amount of 200,000 talents of gold which, in modern terms, would be worth approximately $280,023,314,760 USD. At any rate, he did save enough money that the Byzantine government was able to remit all taxes paid during the final two years of his reign.[source?]
Another way to calculate the modern equivalent to a talent is from its use in estimating military pay. During the Peloponnesian war in Ancient Greece, a talent was the amount of silver needed to pay the crew of a trireme for one month. Hellenistic mercenaries were commonly paid one drachma for every day of service, which was a good salary in the post-Alexander (III) days. 6,000 drachma made a talent.
The talent as a unit of coinage is mentioned in the New Testament in Jesus' parable of the talents. One talent was an incredible amount of money.
Categories: Old units of measurementUnits of mass

A user from the german silver forum had a conversation with someone at the Perth Mint and it looks like there will be no 2021 10 OZ Kookas. Thats some really bad news. I just hope it's like at the Royal Mint and nobody at the Perth Mint knows, what anybody else is doing there.

Early this year I found a place that was selling a raw 1798 Guinea for around 1250 CAD (720 GBP) and I bought it due to the amazing luster and strike of the coin. Recently I subbed this coin to PCGS for grading and the grade came back MS63. Needless to say I am very surprised and happy about the result along with my MS61 1817 Sovereign.