TeaTime

I would recommend buying the Coin Yearbook from Token Publishing - There is a HUGE price difference between a coin graded as Fine and a coin graded as Very Fine.... The trouble with Ebay is that a lot of sellers can be very liberal when allocating a grade (along with the ubiquitous 'grade as per pictures' etc with blurry photos). Steer clear of numismatic coins on Ebay unless you are prepared to spend a lot of time researching. The price differences may well indicate that someone with more knowledge has done the due diligence for you. However it could also be the result of shilling or unrealistic seller expectations...... I was lucky enough to find a local coin dealer years ago who walked me through the basics of coin collecting and accurate grading. I would recommend that you look at dealers prices for a realistic value of any coins you may be interested in. For every 'bargain' on Ebay there are a hundred disappoinments...

I've followed a few links on dealers sites to look at the second-hand silver (expecting it to be tax free) only to find minimal reductions in overall price. I wouldn't call it a scam because a dealer can charge whatever they like - i would call it hugely disappointing, to the point where i no longer bother looking. The special scheme is not tax-free - VAT is still applied to the dealers profit. The trouble with that is if the dealers profit margin is high then there is not a lot of scope for tax savings for the purchaser.

I have seen plenty of fakes of these but i've never come across one that has actual silver content. It looks genuine to me and the mintmark appears properly struck - a lot of counterfeits have no or unreadable mintmarks. Maybe someone at the mint was using less than 90% silver either accidently or for nefarious reasons.....

There is always a market for numismatic silver but, by and large, the market is for small private sales. Trying to unload collectable coins in any quantity is almost always going to result in a loss. If you sold them to a PM dealer you would be lucky to get £14 each..... If you sold them to a numismatic dealer you may get half book price (£25 for Fine examples)..... It's mainly forums, FB groups, Ebay and, to a lesser extent, coin collecting socieities that enable most sellers to not make losses when trying to release funds tied up in PMs. Not really information that is likely to encourage people to dip their toes into the silver markets. God, i've made myself feel depressed !!

Yep. And that is where the 'spot price' comes into play - dealers will sell at a premium and buy back at spot or under. They're in the market to make money after all. The manufacturing cost, general appeal, VAT, aesthetic qualities etc that justified the selling premium suddenly become irrelevant..... 'Spot price' in reality relates to the raw material not the finished product and is used by dealers (when buying back) as a means to ensure there is a profit to be made. Even PM dealers need to eat ! I do not generally invest in silver - i collect items made from silver. (Around the turn of the century i was buying 1oz silver coins for £5-6 each - double the spot price.....)

And yet no-one complains when they buy a tin of baked beans when the 'spot price' of beans is a quarter of the finished product. I think the biggest hurdle for collectors of silver to get over is the ubiquitous use of 'spot price'. In reality the advertised rate that we see everywhere for silver is almost meaningless. The real value of silver is what real people will pay for real product. If a silver coin or bar is regularly selling for £100 then that is what it's worth irrespective of what the stock market predicts silver to be worth. Most sellers / dealers use the advertised spot price as a starting point, not a written in stone 'that's what it's worth' price...

It's a tricky question with no right or wrong answer. In general when buying gold you are mainly reliant on the spot price rising to make money. There are exceptions when it comes to low mintage, desireable modern coins but even they can fall out of fashion. Generic gold will sell at a small premium over spot privately or less than spot commercially. Historically silver coins can make larger gains and the spot price is not such a factor. The big issue is when you come to sell. Are you selling a weight of precious metal or are you selling a collectable item ? If it's by weight then it's a coin toss as to whether gold or silver make better gains. If it's as a collectable item then silver has been shown to make better gains. There are a lot of other commodities that could be better for long term investment but few that can satisfy that Scrooge McDuck feeling of owning something so desireable and shiny ! Think of it as wealth storage rather than an investment and you wont go far wrong...

With gold prices so high it evens out the prices of sovereigns. The numismatic premium tends to get lost or is such a small percentage of the overall value as to make it negligible. That may change though as we start to lose more of the older coins to melters.... When i stopped buying gold it was possible to buy a new sovereign for around £65 and a numismatic one at around £75-£95. A huge percentage difference. A lot of the silver coins (mainly pre Victorian Crowns) i have owned for a while have seen large increases in resale values whereas gold has pretty much tracked the spot price. I think, historically, the larger silver coins have had more appeal to collectors.

Personally i'm not a fan of grading companies. Although; I have several slabbed coins that have been given a '69' rating - i am unable to see any issues with the coins. My belief is that it does not serve their business model to grade too many coins at '70'...... I must add that i have never used them myself - i simply take advantage of the perception that a lower graded coin is worth less and buy them from disappointed owners ! I find it odd that there are people who allow a partisan stranger determine how much enjoyment they should gain from an object. As for your coin - to me it looks on par for what to expect from the RM and something a collector would be happy with. The trouble is we're not really talking about collecting - we're talking about speculating. Only you can decide if the flaws detract from your enjoyment of the coin. If they do then i would send it back. The only trouble is that someone in the RM quality control department has already deemed your coin acceptable. Every time they accept a coin back as flawed is an admittance that they are not actually very good at what they do.

I used to subscribe but found that some editions had little that interested me. I also hated the fact that the front editorial piece was a full page in tiny script which was very difficult to read. Am definitely going to try the free issue offer and may well re-subscribe if it has enough content of interest.

The 2012 crown has the Gillick portrait on the reverse and a Head and shoulders draped portrait on the obverse. I can't think of any coin that has the same portrait on both sides of the coin... As someone else mentioned on the QB thread it would have been nice to have seen the Gillick portrait on the completer... Maybe that will be the next special release.

Out of curiosity, if it were to get a 70 grade would the marks then become acceptable to you or would you still consider it defective ?

I would absolutely not be happy with that. A proof coin that is showing obvious damage is unacceptable and should never have passed quality control. There is a huge difference between particles in a capsule and a damaged coin. If you store a coin in a capsule it will not spontaneously become scratched - the same cannot be said for toning and milk spots. These can appear at any time and are in the nature of the material. In fact i would go so far as to say that discolouration on a Silver proof coin is inevitable. Damage is not. As a long time collector of numismatic silver my expectations are obviously different to a lot of people who are relatively new to collecting silver proofs. Thanks for the offer but i stopped buying sovereigns when thay passed the £80 mark.... I would absolutely not be happy with that. A proof coin that is showing obvious damage is unacceptable and should never have passed quality control. There is a huge difference between particles in a capsule and a damaged coin. If you store a coin in a capsule it will not spontaneously become scratched - the same cannot be said for toning and milk spots. These can appear at any time and are in the nature of the material. In fact i would go so far as to say that discolouration on a Silver proof coin is inevitable. Damage is not. As a long time collector of numismatic silver my expectations are obviously different to a lot of people who are relatively new to collecting silver proofs. Thanks for the offer but i stopped buying sovereigns when thay passed the £80 mark....

Agreed, the blanks are treated differently - but there is no difference in the silver blank up to the point where it is used either for a regular strike or a proof strike. The difference is how it is treated once that decision has been made. The silver will be exactly the same. My response was to a statement that different silver was used for different strikes. Either way the milk spotting issue is probably nothing to do with the blanks up until something is done to them. Whether that is before polishing or after we dont know and the RM seemingly don't care. Maybe someone with a lisp is in charge of quality control - 'that onesss ok, ssstick it in a capssssule'.

A silver blank is a silver blank whether it ends up as a proof or as bullion. They're all the same until they are made into coins. The only difference is the die used, the number of times they are struck and how they are handled afterwards. So why would anyone believe that just because a coin is designated as proof, it would be immune to what is a common issue with all RM silver ?