Best Of

Here’s mine. My eyes (and maybe the photo quality) are not good enough to make a determination. You tell me.

Steve

Rule #1 I only buy coins and designs that I love. My test criteria for a coin, is this coin going to knock my socks off in 5-10 years? Will I still be impressed with the beauty and quality, even after I have looked at it many times? As for set building, and filling gaps, refer to rule #1

@winesteven said:
Here’s mine. My eyes (and maybe the photo quality) are not good enough to make a determination. You tell me.

Steve

Steve, that looks like FS to me.

View from the Car on Last Night's Drive Home:

@Nap said:
I am building a British coin collection going back to early medieval times. I strive for completion, not because a book tells me I should (I don’t care) and not because it’s an achievable goal (it isn’t, due to several rulers’ coins being of such great rarity that no examples are privately owned). I’m building the collection I want. That has forced me to make some compromises with condition and buy damaged items. I am completely comfortable with this, having made a conscious decision to go ahead with this. But it is important that you be completely comfortable with one of two suboptimal options- a forever missing coin or a coin with significant impairment. At some point, even if you are in the financial position to buy a problem free example of a great rarity (if one exists), you may decide you simply don’t want to have so much money tied up in a single coin. And that’s ok.

Be aware that there are great deals on problem-free coins and there are lousy deals on problem-free coins. Similarly there are great deals on impaired coins and there are lousy deals on impaired coins.

There’s no perfect way to collect. Just have fun with what you do, and take pride in your collection.

I too collect British, but not nearly a seriously as you do. I have bought some coins that have been clipped, BUT only if the design is complete. I refused to buy the badly worn Henry IV coins which dealers told me were "a bargain" at $2,800. If you have to spend that much money to get an example of a king's coins, you may as well buy a gold piece. I bought a noble. It's overgraded in my opinion, but at least it's in presentable condition. The Henry IV coins are tough because the pieces issued for much of his reign were too heavy. Many of his coins were shipped to the continent and melted.

This Alfred the Great penny has been clipped, but I didn't need to take out a mortage to buy it.

In todays mail

Queen Elizabeth learns what's been sneaking up behind her on the reverse of that coin all this time...

This is the Strasburg Railroad Mechanical shop. They are working on their #89 and the Greenbriar #614