TeaTime

I have a bunch of the '50 years of the fifty pence' BU coins without the privy mark (4 with and 4 without)- in this case a Spirograph type privy that should be next to the 50. Initially i thought i had picked up a rare profit making opportunity, but i wouldn't be surprised if this was a common mistake for the RM 😐 For this to happen (on the fifty pence) they must have separate dies, some with the privy and some without. Makes you wonder why they would produce dies without it when it is part of the design. The two pound coin i can understand because it's a standard obverse but the fifty pence has 'new pence' substituted for 'fifty pence' and is unique to this coin.

I think it depends whether the marks are considered as part of the minting process or are damage after the fact. In this case it looks like the scratches have been made between striking and packaging. Unacceptable on a proof coin. I really believe that, in general, RM customers expect too much from them (i.e. when complaining about dust or fibres in a capsule, specks in frosting etc) but a scratch like that is obviously the result of poor handling at the mint..

Something that i can't get my head around is people buying i.e. Britannias from a dealer purely as bullion silver.. and paying up to 60% over spot. Buying a coin isn't investing in silver as a commodity, it is investing in a collectors item. Isn't it ? If i wanted to invest money in silver as a pure commodity i would be buying bent forks and wonky fish knives, not newly minted coins that will instantly lose any premium because they've arrived damaged. It's no wonder that dealers have perpetuated the term 'bullion quality'. What is surprising though, is the number of buyers who have accepted it. Now excuse me, i have some forks that need straightening.

The term 'bullion quality' is meaningless and is used far too often by unscrupulous sellers as a way of trying to abdicate any legal responsibility for supplying goods fit for purpose. Collector coins - i.e. those sold as collector items and not as circulating coinage - should, by definition, be of a quality fit for collecting. They are not called 'stacker' coins ! Any dealer selling RM products takes on the responsibility for supplying the goods as fit for purpose. That's what the profit margin is for. If they can't be bothered to check the coins before selling them on then shame on them. If they have checked the coins, spotted the damage and still sold them with no caveats, then i refer to my earlier post - I sometimes wonder what the motivation is for them to accept (and pass on) damaged stock. Greed ? Laziness ? Fear ? Ennui ? Probably a bit of each.

It always irks me that dealers send out defective product and then use the 'bullion' response when questioned... I sometimes wonder what the motivation is for them to accept (and pass on) damaged stock. Greed ? Laziness ? Fear ? Ennui ? Probably a bit of each. Dealers, just send coins as per the fetching photographs on your site, not full-price seconds. 🙄

No one can predict which popular items will remain so. What could be considered a great short-term gain could end up as bullion for a variety of reasons. Series gets cancelled. Enough product for demand. Gary Glitter endorses the product....... Saying that i consider the legal-tender Australian dragon coin/bars as a good bet for modest growth because they are quirky and appeal to more than one audience - they also have a numismatic appeal.

I hear a lot of stories regarding scams and rip-offs related to Ebay... This is my perspective - I have been selling there on and off for about 15 years and cannot recall any time anyone has tried to scam me. I've had a couple of returns which have gone through smoothly (and even received good feedback from the buyers) when there has been a question regarding what i have sold. One example was a wristwatch that didn't change the date correctly when tested by the buyer. I accepted the return and refunded upon receipt of the goods - all the while maintaining good communication. The watch was faulty. I have sold a lot of silver and a few gold coins and never had an issue. In general at around 70-100% more than i would have got from a dealer. I have no doubt that there are people out there using Ebay to scam a living but, in my experience, they are a tiny minority and not truly indicative of buyers in general. Of the millions of sales that go through every day you never hear a word. One scammer though makes headlines. The only advice i would give would to be brutally accurate in all descriptions and ensure that whatever you are selling is photographed from every conceivable angle ! If you assume that 1 in 20 sales (an example only, not indicative of my reality) results in either a spurious claim, charge-back, not received notification etc etc then it would still be advantageous to use the Ebay selling platform over a dealer/forum sale even if you were getting a mere 10% more per sale. A small caveat - i have only sold up to £1000 in value for any single item so my experience may not be indicative of real high-end stuff...

What you have is technically termed 'a divot caused by a piece of cr*p stuck to the die' - i doubt that would fit on an NGC label though. I have a couple of Queens Beasts Lions with the same issue - the divot found its way to the middle of the G of England on both coins. I look at it as an example of poor manufacturing. The term strike-through brings to mind a coin struck through a foreign object rather than a bit of manufacturing swarf. It would be interesting to find out what NGC would make of it and if they would give it a designation.....

Hmmm, well technically the 'authenticity approved' could be referring to the information on the paperwork rather than the coins..... I would not consider a photocopied information sheet a COA. I would be looking for some more concrete provenance with something so specialist. I think you were right to return the coins - not necessarily because of the paperwork but because the items are too easily faked.

The wording on the COA is odd (perhaps the writer was trying too hard to sound official) . 'Authenticity approved' in this case literally means that some random person - albeit an 'expert numismatist' - has approved of it rather than a consensus that it is (they are) genuine. In general for something to be approved it has to be agreed between more than one person. As for COAs - in my opinion they are a waste of good trees. Some people insist on a manufacturers COA when purchasing specimen / proof coins - and generally pay a lot more than they need to for the privilege of owning a bit of paper. A COA should be treated as a legal document - but only when it is unambiguous (and genuine).

I sold my entire sovereign collection around the year 2000 (at £55 per coin) to invest in silver..... It's not all bad news though, Britannias were a fiver each back then 😁 I also scrapped my whole collection of gold watches when it hit an unprecedented £600 an ounce around 2009. Again, not all bad news because somewhere in the loft is an awful lot of mid-range watch movements !

My opinion would be that a new, untouched proof coin should look flawless when viewed with the naked eye. There should be no scratches, marks, divots or discolouration visible when viewed without magnification. Once you start magnifying then everything becomes subjective. Everything and anything ever manufactured in the history of the world will show imperfections if you zoom in enough. A proof coin is not a guarantee of perfection, it is simply the 'best' the mint can produce at that time.... Imagine 10 x magnification used on a William III proof coin - i would bet a months salary that the fields would look like the surface of the moon. If a dealer had sold me a new proof coin that had visible defects i would expect to be able to return the coin - but only if they were obvious without magnification. In this case it sounds like the dealer has accepted your opinion of the coin and offered a refund so i see no issues.

I would have no problem removing a coin from a holder if i was thinking of selling. I see nothing nefarious in doing so. One person graded that coin and stuck it with a 'details' definition - my opinion may differ from that person. I have seen many coins with less than a 70 grade that appear, even under magnification, to have no faults... It is only someone's opinion on a given day after all. And don't get me started on the actual slabs and how easily they mark and scratch. NGC charge extra for scratch resistant slabs. Seriously ? You have to pay extra because the standard option is, by their own admission, prone to damage easily. 🙄

I was moderately excited by the crowned portrait Britannias until i saw the price on the RM site. Just shy of £35 for a one ounce 'bullion' coin which will, more than likely, be spotty, dinged and scratched is taking the p*ss. Nearly double spot with the current shoddy quality control is laughable. For the price i would expect a BU coin.

If you get pleasure from them then the cost is irrelevant. We all hope our coins appreciate in value but the reality is that modern high mintage BU coins will rarely act as a retirement fund ! In most instances the packaging is worth more than the product. Buying loose coins from the secondary market should only be done if your motivation is not profit orientated. I was gifted the very first UK silver proof £1 coin and ended up buying every design (not every issue, just different designs, patterns and finishes). I know that what i have invested exceeds their current worth but i enjoy owning them. And for me, that's worth more than making a couple of quid ☺️

Yes. I started out as a numismatist and got sucked into stacking precious metals. I have crates of BU and proof base metal coins which i occasionally haul out and spend an hour or two just staring at them... I often buy proof £5 coins on Ebay for less than the mint sell the BU ones for too. It's astonishing how many proof sets get broken up for one particular coin and the rest get sold off cheap. It's also very difficult to stop buying a particular denomination once you have a few - i find myself buying the 50p's as they are released because the collector in me wants a full set 🙄 - normally i'll buy one RM packaged coin to stick away and one unpackaged (Westminster or Koin club) for the collection. I try not to think of the premium....

1) Anyone who uses Ebay is doing so in the hope of finding a bargain (overwise there is literally no point in shopping on the site). Most people who are hoping to get something cheap would be reluctant to ask too many questions for fear of alerting the seller to the real value of the item they are selling.... Alternatively; 2) Ebay is a good sight for finding obscure or hard to get in the UK stuff but caution is the watchword. As long as the buyer has a modicum of knowledge about what they are searching for and is diligent then there shouldn't be too many issues. As for sending mis described items back, I have done so numerous times and never had a problem. The only time there could be an issue is if the description of the item is so vague that it's difficult to pinpoint any falsehoods - and that takes us back to point 1. Caveat emptor 😁

I have seen the base metal set of Queens Beasts in (RM packaging) being offered for more than the full 2oz silver bullion set. Mind boggling. A set without the packaging (from a secondary seller) probably sells for a third of the RM sleeved coins. Even more mind boggling. People are therefor willing to pay serious money just for the packaging. Completely boggled. I predict that the 2023 Tudor Beasts Yale cu-ni coin will also start flying when the media pick up on the wrong monarch being on the coin...... Just wait for a slow news day.

I have been trying to envision how the RM could update & replicate either of the coins as a bar. I came up with nothing. The first two bars had a theme and the last two were basically portraits and pretty standard reverses which would look odd in anything but a round format. I suspect the RM have a similar problem. But i live in hope.

Some dealers sell coins and some dealers sell precious metals that happen to be coins. Distinguishing between the two types of dealers is the rub... I very much doubt that they viewed the coins before sending them out - as a precious metal dealer they have assumed no responsibility for the condition of the product and have delivered the weight of PM you purchased. Only you can decide if the price you paid is fair for bullion silver. In the interest of a balanced response the milk spotting may have appeared subsequent to the coins being sent. My view though is that the seller of the coins bears a responsibility to ensure you receive a product similar to the one advertised. If there are no caveats at the point of sale in regards damage, staining etc. then i would consider these unacceptable.

Have just remembered that a friend of mine who previously collected the Britannias stopped at this time. The reason - he was miffed that they changed the size of the coins and the .999s didn't fit in his custom made holders. 😵 The change in quality was a big deal at the time and the RM tried to blame it on the use of .999 silver over .958 (stating it was softer and damaged more easily). The reality was the manufacturing process changed to accommodate higher production runs rather than the silver content. Britannias are now treated as circulating coins by the Mint... but priced as collector coins.

Whilst the Britannia was manufactured in .958 silver the standard of the coins was brilliant uncirculated (they were still sold as bullion) and dealers would get them individually sealed (at least the dealers i used did). To maximise profits the RM changed the manufacturing process with the switch to .999 and, somehow, managed to con people into accepting the new bullion coin definition (zero quality control as opposed to metal content) that is common today. The BU Britannias now sold by the RM are of the same quality as the old 'bullion' coins of yesterday - but sold with a hefty premium. 😕 I suppose the .958 coins were more for collectors than stackers...

I was half tempted to order the 2oz set but i cannot justify the cost. £560 for two silver proof (albeit 2oz) copy coins is ridiculous. With a regular one ounce proofing selling for £95, and taking into account the additional silver content, these should be for sale at no more than £260. The Britannia 2 coin reverse proof sets were £195 with a mintage of 520 as opposed to this mintage of 3250. Take away the flipping aspect of this issue and i just don't get the appeal.

It's the Royal Mint - they may not even produce them this year. The 1/10th ounce silvers seem to be produced completely randomly (i suspect that they are only minted if they receive a big overseas request and then sell the remainders on their website). Would be nice to have a KC III 2023 issue but it wouldn't surprise me if they don't bother. Logging on to the RM website daily is the only way to know - they tend to appear with no fanfare and very, very quickly sell out.

Realistically the market for coins with first day covers is not that big. On average though BU £1 coins and £2 coins attached to FDC fetch around a fiver each and £5 coins between £7-£12 each. Anyone buying as a job lot will expect to be paying out half the individual prices or even face value only. Ironically with the stamps, he would have been better off buying them loose rather than as FDCs - unused modern stamps are worth face value or current postage rates whereas used stamps are pretty much worthless. The days when postmarks where considered to add interest are gone ☹️.