OT: Spend a Penny...

Mother · 2006-05-21T18:13:51+00:00

eBay Item: 8815654450I inherited a large number of bullion bags full of old coins followingthe death of my uncle last year. One of these bags has now beenopened and I thought it may be a good fundraising exercise, given thebag contains mint 1966 One Penny coins, to flog them off via eBay.ALL of the dosh will be donated to the Alzheimer's Society - quitefitting really as my aunt is in the final stages of dementia and hasbeen living in a care home since my uncle died.Essentially, whatever the excuse - 40th Anniversary of England winningthe World Cup, celebrating the year the 101 was first sketched out ona scrap of paper somewhere in Solihull - you're making a donation tothe Alzheimer's Society - which is a very, very worthy cause, andgetting a free, uncirculated, untouched mint condition Penny to thankyou :-)My aim, having put 1,966 of them on eBay is to raise...... £1,966 pounds. Please click the 'buy it now', and I'll shower youwith praise on the site :-)

M

Mother 20 years ago

I think your math is a bit out. ONE bag of old Pennies weighs 9K and contains 1,200 Pennies - that's £1,200 pounds by doing the current auction - somewhat more than weighing in 9K of not totally pure copper

- even at todays over-inflated metals prices.

I won't be bollocked for defacing coins of the realm if I sell them 'as is' _or_ melt them down - they are no longer coins of the realm.

I am currently selling 2003 2p coins for £10 each which have legally been (quite seriously) tampered with, as you know, and with the full warrant of the Treasury as granted to the Magic Circle. I'll soon be doing something similar with the other coins, especially the sixpences

- and selling them for £10 each too - making a bag worth somewhat over Ten Thousand Pounds (not that I intend trying to sell them all - but still better than melting them down).

Vote

S

Steve 20 years ago

I was thinking in the event of you not managing to offload all half ton

- the price of metals ATM is amazing - some of the stuff we use (tungsten) is a factor of 4X more than 18 months ago.

"Defacing" is OK if you don't attempt to pass it as legal tender isn't it ?

Steve

Vote

A

Alan J. Wylie 20 years ago

This sort of tampering?

http://205.243.100.155/frames/home.html

Vote

M

Mother 20 years ago

No - but the link you've posted is something I've been thinking seriously about (or at least contacting the chap concerned).

Vote

A

Alex 20 years ago

You'd probably be surprised what thier book value is, and given the book values you're probably sitting on a fortune. Unfortunatly you flooding the numismatic market with em will result in them being nowhere worth the book value. ....

Alex

Vote

M

Mother 20 years ago

No. Any tampering of legal tender - for whatever purpose (making a charm out of a coin, for example) is technically illegal.

The only (to my knowledge) exception from this is the Warrant held by the Magic Circle and passed on by default to (honorary, permanent, inner, elected and full) members thereof.

The point being that the coins _must_ be 'seen' as 'normal' for the illusion to work. Even then it is frowned upon to in any way 'alter' the face of the Monarch (so my 'Winking Queens' 10p pieces - no typo, were not very popular at the time...)

I have accidentally 'spent' a gaffed £1 coin to buy a newspaper before now - and at £20 a time, makes for an expensive read on the plane.

Vote

A

Austin Shackles 20 years ago

On or around Tue, 23 May 2006 22:03:02 +0100, Mother enlightened us thusly:

no, why have stacks of mint 1966 pennies (and other coinage) was what I had in mind. I mean, collection of odd coins, yeah - I've got some, but not thousands all the same.

Vote

T

Tom Woods 20 years ago

Tetleys is always going to be cheap in leeds. When i was there 6 or 7 years ago i remember it being £1 a pint frequently (in normal pubs)

I think i once managed to drink around 14 of them (i have unpleasant memories of the day after!). Its a good job i can't drink anywhere near that much now im older!

Vote

M

Mother 20 years ago

TBH I'm not overly bothered about their 'value'. They're really nice looking coins and a piece of history for a large number of people.

Vote

M

Mother 20 years ago

I think the answer to that is now ashes scattered to the wind. You rather had to 'know' my uncle and his quirky eccentric ways to understand (or not) some of the odd things he did. His estate realised 4M - a fair chunk of which went to that nice Mr Brown.

Vote

M

Mother 20 years ago

Tetley, Stones, Wards and the like were intended, historically, to be weak as p!ss. The steelworkers etc would be so dehydrated that they'd easily sup 8+ pints at lunchtime. The factory owners didn't like drunken workers so put pressure on the brewers to make weak ale.

This is good news for us lightweights and I used to think Wards was a fair pint actually - not to be confused with the likes of the 'real ale' that CAMRA seek, though! :-)

Vote

S

Steve Taylor 20 years ago

Twas 50p in my day. And that was robbery.

Steve

Vote

S

Steve Taylor 20 years ago

Don't we have the Sheffield workers bosses to thank for the original licencing laws, brought in under the defence of the realm act for the first world war ?

Steve

Vote

R

Richard Brookman 20 years ago

Mother"

Vote

D

Derek 20 years ago

I showed that page to Vicky and she reckons doing that is a Federal offense ( note authentic US spelling) and as she pointed out you don't want to mess with the feds as they have a different rule book and oops there you go it fell out of the window again Derek Jiffy bag rec thx

Vote

A

Alan J. Wylie 20 years ago

In Carlisle, during WW1, the government nationalised the brewery and all the pubs in order to preserve the sobriety of local munitions workers.

H2G2 has some useful words on the subject:

formatting link

The locals seemed to mourn its passing when it was privatised in the early seventies, proving perhaps that the *only* thing a government can be trusted to run well is a piss-up in a brewery.

Vote

M

Mother 20 years ago

It's no longer counted as Treason (I think that went many many years ago) but it is still illegal AFAIK.

I'm NOT going to ask the Clerk tomorrow though, as I'll have to say why. My recent eBay selling has, whilst being positive and in a good cause, led to Charlotte demanding I divest myself of various precious things, and people in the office suggesting I clear the store room we can never get anything into due to other precious things. The last thing I want is for anyone else bloody well suggesting I sell of remaining precious things... :-(

Vote

N

Nige 20 years ago

Mother"

Vote

M

Mother 20 years ago

Eccleshall road!

Yeah, great shame - I miss the 'smell'. They are not 'some flats', they're yuppie heaven - 250K at time jobbies. You can always tell who lives there when shopping at Waitrose - miserable f****rs. Given they live less than a minutes walk away - why on earth do they have to DRIVE there? Incredible.

Vote