MickD

Hi All
My raffle prize is GBP50 (or equivalent to TSF members from outside the U.K.).  
Also included is GBP100 to a (non political or religious) charity of your choice, with a default to St John Ambulance.
I personally saw the outstanding work St John Ambulance  performs while in casualty this summer.  A gent in his 80’s had been treated for an injury but had no money to get back to his care home, and no one to take him.  St John Ambulance stepped in to take him home with dignity and respect. 
 
There by the grace of God, go I.
 
Best 
Dicker

About a month ago I was looking through a coin shop's scrap gold bin when I found a beautiful 1916 T German East Africa 15 Rupien just sitting there. I bought the coin for 650 CAD (370 GBP) and I subbed the coin to PCGS and they just returned the coin to me as Genuine UNC details bent. While the details grade is kinda a heartbreak, for the price I paid I still scored a very rare and highly coveted gold coin with a rich history.
 
In 1916 during the height of the Great War, in order to pay for the local Askaris troops under the legendary general Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck (seriously read his story, it is amazing), it was decided to mint a gold coin. This was made possible by the establishment of a temporary mint in a train carriage in Tabora, Tanzania and the gold was sourced from a local gold mine still in operation. The coin was minted under siege conditions as the British was attacking Tabora at the time, and after the capitulation of Tabora the coins quickly disappeared as they were soon perceived as valuable. 
These coins, also known as Tabora Pound, has a elephant in the reverse and the date 1916. The T mint mark is for Tabora and the obverse shows a crudely made German Empire Eagle with the legends Deutsche Ostafrika (German East Africa) and the denomination (15 Rupien).
 

In my opinion, this "junk" coins are the most recognisable and safe investments, because:
1. Are easy to stack, even in buckets, without worries about fingerprints or scratches, milk spots. 
2. Everyone trust in them, there are not fakes (excepting rare and sought after years, especially Crowns).
3. Are very liquid, easy to buy/sell in any quantity with 10%-20% premium for Pre20 and 0%-5% for Pre47.
4. Are very funny to play poker with your friends or to exercise math with your kids.
5. You don't need a safe or vault to keep them. Who will be interested  to see what it is two ugly and dirty buckets under your boiler or in the garrage's corner!
These coins are the best way to stack silver now for long term, even are not looking great and are not shiny. But silver is silver. If it is cheap, hurray!
All the best!
Stefan.

Firstly apologies for the extended downtime. It was much longer than expected as the forum has grown significantly in size recently. 

The work was taking too long, and as we are now in a position to be able to put the forum back online we have gone ahead and put the forum online again. Please note that there is still work going on in the background, and we will need to take the forum off line to finish the work (which we estimate will be sometime Sunday night but which should only last a few hours) 

You may also notice a 500 error issue again, if this happens we will restart the MySQL database. We currently believe that the spot price bar application is overloading the database. When we do the final move of files (likely will be sometime this Sunday night) we will not install the spot price bar application. We will be installing the spot price application on a separate test sever to see if that is indeed the cause of the 500 error issues, and also speaking with the developer of that particular application. 

Apologies in advance for the planned downtime this Sunday 9th May 2021, but the majority of the work should hopefully be behind us. 

This arrived today, the stunning silver 1oz Queens Beasts. 😍
Wow, I like this design.
Worth grading?

There are many patterns in history repeating or rhyming themselves. One I saw very often is a goverment (democracy, dictatorship, empire or monarchy) of a powerful civilisation deciding to spend more than it could afford or collect in taxes, and deciding to "export" its financial problems by expanding its territory and subjugating other civilisations.
The example of the Nazy Germany was lampent. Its economic miracle pre WW2 was no miracle. It was currency creation and desire for "lebensraum" (living space), which pushed Hitler to invade Europe, in order to export paper reichsmarchs and steal resources and wealth (gold from their central banks) of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, France, Greece, Soviet Union and so on.
We have seen may others alike.
A few weeks ago I've had a long chat with a dear friend of mine, about a topic which is, as italians, very familiar to us: the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.
From the punic wars onwards (two centuries before christ), almost every conquest of the Roman Republic was launched with the purpose of looting new territories, in order to seize their land and guarantee a flush of slaves and wealth (in the form of gold, silver, jewelry) from the defeated populations. Think about Julius Caesar. He started the Gallic wars in 58 BC as a Proconsul on the verge of bankrupcy, and 8 years later, after having hannilated the Gauls on the battlefield and looting their land (modern day France), he was one of the wealthiest man in Rome.
Then, a few years before Christ, two civil wars turned the republic into an empire. It was wide, rich, militarily powerful. And greedy.
The emperors always wanted to spend more than what he could collect in taxes. They had bureacracy to maintain, projects to build like acqueducts, arenas and roads all over the empire (never seen anithing alike later in the middle ages). And vaste armies to pay.
But there were plenty of territories to conquer. Britannia, Lusitania (portugal), Middle east, North africa, Balcans. And therefore there were plenty of slaves to bring to the empire and to put to work for free. And plenty of Gold and Silver to take from the conquered population. The endless conquests of the Empire worked very well for two centuries, as long as there were territories to occupy, in order to satisty its unquenchable thirst for "over-spending".

Then around the 200 AD, the Empire reached its geographical limits. Atlantic ocean in the west. Rhine and Danube in the north. Sahara desert in the south. Parthian empire as main enemy in the east. It couldn't expand any further and it was overstretching.
No more lands, slaves, gold, silver. No more fuel for its engine. It will become known as the "crisis of third century". Because the only solution to keep overspending, was to create inflation. They relentlessly started to debase their currency, lowering its purity, melting gold and silver with worthless metals. The picture down below gives a pretty good idea.

At some point inflation was out of control. In one year, while the state doubled the salary of the soldiers, the price of grain tripled.
They tried to control and lock prices. Did not work. The free market was out of control.
They divided the empire in two with two emperors, Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire (later known as Byzantine), in order to make the management of that giant easier. It helped the eastern much more than it did for the western. 
After that for a century or so (from 285 to 376 AD), the empires seemed to flourish again, thanks a long series of population migrations (whom the romans called barbarians) from asia and north-eastern europe. Immigration was successfully controlled, and helped both the empires to bring in new blood, new workforce, new soldiers. They settled in, learned latin or greek, became Romans. They compensated for the foreign territories Rome had no longer the strenght to conquer.
But at some point the barbarians crossing the Danube into the empire were too many. A series of accidents sparked a war and the Goths wiped out the Eastern Roman Army ad Adrianople in 378. The East managed to remein safe after the disaster, but the Goths, just a generation after, invaded the italian peninsula, sieged and sacked Rome in 410. It was the first time in 800 years that the ethernal city was violated by a foreign power, and its days were numbered. The Western Roman Empire collapsed under the never ending barbarian invasions, and ceased to exist in 476.
The Eastern Roman Empire though, had a better geography, richer lands.
And started coining once again an hard currency made of gold and silver from the 4th century. To distinguish it from the always inflated Western denarius, they called is "SOLIDUS" (which in latin means "hard", standing for hard money).
The eastern roman empire survived another 1000 years, until 1453.
Later in the middle ages, the latin language started giving birth to the italian (my mother language).
That "SOLIDUS" started being called just "SOLDO".
And still today, SOLDO is the italian word for "money".
 

After a pretty dull day at work I came home to this. Just the thing to cheer me up. I've wanted one for ages, but they dont appear too often, and the premium is a sickener. But the heart wants what the heart wants!
2018 2oz mapleflex in great shape. Difficult thing to take a decent picture of...

These 3 beauties from @SVcollector
Francs angel 
Francs napoleon 
Kurush ottoman empire 

Got my second of three, day and night blue marbles.
 

A couple of packages arrived today from my favorite Jewellers shop 😍 a set of WW1 sovereigns from 5 different mints plus a few 2019 dated proofs 

https://atkinsonsbullion.com/pre-owned/silver/pre-owned-silver-coins/pre-owned-post-2013-uk-britannia-1oz-silver-coin
 
Not bad at all 

Today I got a nice little waffle back Engelhard 10 oz bar for my collection,
can’t wait to order the 100oz in a couple of months.
 

Apologies for the down time earlier.

There seemed to be multiple back end issues, which caused some errors on the forum. All of which were not showing error logs, so it was difficult to locate.

The errors included but where not limited to; a backup of the forum upload files which was saved on the same drive had caused that drive to become full and subsequently the forum was inaccessible as it had ran out of space. This is despite the massive storage space that we have. We have now deleted those extra unnecessary files, as we have actual back up files on other hard drives on the sever.

There is currently plenty of space, but we will be upgrading the storage space at some point to prevent any future outage. There may therefore be some downtime sometime in the near future when we upgrade the space on the drives. If you currently use the forum for free, please consider upgrading to Premium Membership as this helps a lot with maintenance costs of the forum. Thank you to those who choose to use TSF as a Premium Member and who help to maintain the forum. 

There is also a caching based issue, which we are working on. So there may be some sporadic downtime later as we are trying to re-enable a different caching method.

Once again, sorry for the downtime earlier and glad that we should now be back up and running as usual  

Some lovely additions today,  consisting of:
austrian 1976 100 Shillings 
A beautifully meaty 5 francs from 1848.
and some more us constitutional silver for my stack,
but my favourite has to be a whole album filled with Utah, Nevada and New Hampshire goldbacks, which are truly stunning, thanks again to @DuncanWylieWilson 

Just arrived, 2oz mythical creatures antiqued coin minted to just 1000from the republic du tchad
 
 

Really like this bar, from a fellow forum member, so much so I wish I'd bought a few more
 

Maundy Money Change of Portrait Type Set- well very nearly! 
All housed in their new home, encapsulated in Quadrum Capsules- if anyone has Maundy and wish to have a safe and secure method of storage/ display, these specially designed inners for Maundy can be bought here, for about a tenner for 10 inners & Quadrum capsules, delivered.
Completing the Set has been a bit of a labour of love.  It's almost complete but I still have to source the 1953 Maundy Set.  The 1953 Set is a difficult one to find, the mintage being just over 1000.  In the meantime I have substituted this Set with a 2000 Proof set bearing the Mary Gillick Portrait of Elizabeth II.  The Gillick Portrait has endured throughout Her Majesty's reign. 
The ten coin ‘Type Set’ in the photo’s below features the change of Monarch Portrait from 1817.  It wasn’t until 1820 that special sets of small silver coins were struck for the annual Maundy Ceremony in denominations of 1d, 2d, 3d and 4d.  These special sets of small Silver coins have been specially struck every year since 1820, and in 1822 an enduring standard of the coin was established in terms of the size and weight.  Maundy Money sits alongside the ubiquitous 200 plus year old Sovereign; as the only coinage that endures to the present day.  
The Obverse of Maundy coinage mirrors the Portrait of the circulating coinage of the day.  The reverse was initially designed by Jean Baptiste- Merlen in 1822, and has endured since, excepting a minor change to the Crown, instigated by the renowned Royal Mint Engraver, William Wyon in 1888.  In 1950, George VI vetoed a change back to the Original 1822 design, and so it endures with only the one change in 199 years.
The 1817 features the Pistrucci Portrait of George III.  Unlike the Maundy struck from 1822, the date is found on the Obverse.  
The 1822 was the first year for George IV.  Interestingly, the Royal Mint used the 2d Portrait punch on the 3d coin, which makes it look like an oddity from the remainder of the set.
The 1831 William IV and the 1838 Victoria was the first year Maundy for both of these Monarch's. 
The 1888 was the first year of Jubilee Head for Victoria- it is here you can find the one and only change to the Reverse of Maundy coinage in 199 years.  The change made by William Wyon, in terms of the design of the Crown- please compare with the earlier issues photographed below. 
The 1893 depicts Victoria's Veiled Head Portrait.  
The 1902 Edward VII, 1911 George V and the 1937 George VI Maundy photographed below are all Proof, and these year dates were issued in individual Sets for the Maundy Ceremony and also included in Specimen Proof Sets with other coin denominations.  These Specimen Sets were issued to commemorate each of the respective Monarchs Coronation. 
Missing is the 1953 Mary Gillick Portrait Set, but substituted handsomely with the 2000 Maundy Proof Set, struck to commemorate the Millennium. 
 
Enjoy! 😃
 

 

 

I know its not as nice as other stuff posted here, but its from around 110 Before Christ.😀

Lovely 1872 shilling

A bit of fun.  

For the next large TSF prize draw to advertise and bring awareness of the forum, which will be in around a month or two. Should we double the prize and have 2x 5oz silver bars up for grabs, 2 different winners each winning a 5oz silver bar. If you think we should then like this post. 

If this post gets 100+ likes we will give away 2x 5oz silver bars. (I have set this target deliberately low so that it is easily obtainable)

If this post reaches 200+ likes, we will add a small bonus  

I paid around that for one of the 1kg Geigers currently on e-bay, lovely bar.. I bought it to play with, leave out and enjoy, not an investment. 

2010 Royal Mint Silver BU One Pound   This unassuming little fellow has been a quarry of mine for some years - and I had never actually seen one for sale/auction until this weekend.   Although the RM stated a maximum mintage of 50,000, only 1,544 were actually issued.   Between 1983 and 2016 a total of 113 different silver £1 designs/formats - proofs, Piedforts and Sterling BUs - were produced. All six of the 925s were "shields" and are dated from 2009 - 2014.   My own collection now stands two coins short at 111, just the 2012 BU and the 2014 proof still to be snaffled. 



 

I feel extremely fortunate to have been Graced the opportunity to acquire this wonderful and iconic Sovereign.  
Thank you @SilverMike, @Elements & @Roy for the advice, help and support in making the investment.  


 

Today I received a stunning 1916 Cuba 5 Pesos! 🇨🇺 Absolutely love it! Couple of days ago I also received a gorgeous 1897 Tunisia 20 Francs 🇹🇳 and a beautiful 1950 Saudi Guinea! 🇸🇦