News

The tradition of Christmas stockings also began with coins. There are countless versions of the story, but this one is delightful, and starts with St. Nicholas. A 4th Century Greek saint, he was also rich as his wealthy parents had died when he was young. He loved giving gifts to those less fortunate, preferably in secret, and heard about a local nobleman who had lost both his wife and his money, and had moved into a peasants’ cottage with his three daughters, all of marriageable age. In those days, a girl needed a dowry to offer the groom’s parents, and...

Winston Churchill appears on the new polymer £5 note, and its surprising and amusing to see people trading them on a well known auction site. Apart from a few very early issues this note is worth £5 and that’s where its value will stay. By contrast if you go back to 1965 a Crown coin, (5 Shillings, or 25p to those who pretend not to be old enough to remember) was issued to commemorate his death. It was issued in large numbers and people ‘Invested’ in them at the time in huge quantities, sometimes hundreds or thousands of coins. The...

Grading of coins is sometimes a difficult subject, so please view the photographs and form your own opinion. If anything the pictures taken under artificial light on a DSLR do not do the items justice. I do offer as a guide my own grade with each item which is based on the UK system and many years experience. I don't clean my coins and I don't recommend that you do. A nice toned uncirculated silver coin does not become 'brilliant uncirculated' by dipping it in cleaning fluid, but it is not difficult to find coins that have been treated in...