I was living in a fool's paradise

stevereecy

Maybe you'll find this interesting....maybe not. After slowing down on collecting, now I'm back to it again. Unlike my last "hiatus" I learned from my past mistakes and didn't sell anything off.

I have a partial box of 20 I'm working on, but what rekindled my desire to collect was a need to collect something relatively inexpensive. That and my problem free Gothic Florin...I love looking at that coin.

So this time I thought I'd try a new "low buck" approach for foreigns. I went out and bought myself a nice Dansco Album with blank pages of various sizes. The plan was to fill it with coins that I like below a specific price point. But to add to my challenge, I decided that each coin would need to have good eye appeal, and I would have to get a good deal on it. (like $50 coins that I bought for $35 or something). Those extra criteria should make it challenging enough that I spend more of my time shopping on-line than spending money (which is a good thing for me). I'm gravitating toward British Victorian and Edwardian stuff right now.

So, after shopping around for a couple of weeks, I found a nice young head Victoria Shilling (UK). Nothing to get excited about, but still a cool coin at a decent coin. I bought it last night on ebay. As an aside, I'm paranoid about buying raw coins since I've been burned too many times, but I'm going to have to get over that and get better at spotting "body bag candidates". Here's the coin I'm paranoid about (seller's photo):

Hopefully the scratches don't look too bad in hand and I'm curious to know what it will look like if it soaks in olive oil for a while to loosen up some of the dirt crusted in there.

After pulling the trigger on it, I still have about $25 in my paypal account. I figured I'd find another Shilling to go with it. I knew that the Edward's can be difficult, so I THOUGHT I should be able to find a nice XF to BU type specimen of a George V Shilling. I wanted an early one, with some eye appeal. Like a little rainbow toning somewhere. $25 should be enough, right?

WRONG!

Where the heck are they? I couldn't find a nice George V Shilling that I liked for even 1/3 of my budget. Surely they are new enough not to be too expensive??? What the heck happened? Did prices rise, or (most likely), have I been living in a fool's paradise about prices? Are toned coins so popular there aren't any out there for even a halfway reasonable price? I figure I could get a really nice U.S. Quarter (like a Standing Liberty) for less money than what people want for their nice George shillings. This is going to be a heck of a lot harder than I thought!

coinpalice

your not going to buy much of anything with 25 dollars, deposit your entire next paycheck into your paypal account. don't tell your wife

BillDugan1959

It's probably not you personally. Pricing on eBay is simply a complete crapshoot.

Lots of sellers put ridiculous prices on things, hoping for a 'mark' to come along and make their day/week/month very profitable.

As a buyer, you have to weigh lots of factors and especially how frequently an item is likely to appear/reappear.

Nor is eBay the only source of coins, although it can be rather convenient.

stevereecy

I finally found one and bought it. Seller's photo. 1914 Shilling, so it's Sterling Silver. Seems like it should have luster based on the metal flow lines. It was less than $25 delivered. For some reason, there aren't many/any beautifully rainbow toned specimens. Maybe that has something to do with the alloy used in the sterling silver? This one is a long-term place holder until I find one that knocks my socks off.