Your questions, answered

Choose the coin and use Buy This Coin, which takes you straight to checkout. Every coin on the site is a single piece, so there is nothing to choose beyond the coin itself and no quantity to set. If you would rather buy more than one, add them to the basket and check out together.

Payment is taken on Shopify’s own hosted checkout. Your card details are entered on their payment pages and are never sent to, seen by or stored on this website. The methods offered to you appear at checkout. If you need to know whether a particular card or wallet is accepted before you start, ask us and we will confirm it.

Yes, and it is usually the sensible order to do things in. Because each coin is an individual piece, the useful questions are about that coin rather than the type. Tell us which coin you are looking at, or send its link, and say what you would like to know.

Yes. Each coin is photographed individually, obverse and reverse, in the holder or presentation it is supplied in. Those are photographs of that coin rather than stock images of the type, so what you see is what arrives. If there is a detail you cannot make out, ask and we will describe what is there.

It depends on the coin, so the listing is the place to check rather than this page. Where a coin is supplied with its presentation case and numbered certificate, the listing says so in its title or specification. A coin sealed in an NGC or PCGS holder is supplied in that holder. If a listing does not mention a box, ask before you buy.

Each coin is one piece and is offered on a first come basis. It leaves the register the moment it sells, so nobody else can buy the coin you have paid for, and a coin you were considering can go before you return to it. Nothing is held back or reserved informally. If a coin has sold, ask us and we will tell you whether anything similar is coming.

We deliver within the United Kingdom only. Delivery is free on every order, whatever the coin is worth, and every parcel is insured while it is in transit. Most of what we sell is certified and travels sealed in its grading holder, which we never open, so the label that arrives is the label you saw. We also sell loose proofs, which travel in the presentation they are sold in; each listing says which it is.

Coins go by Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1pm, tracked throughout, dispatched within one working day of your payment clearing. A signature is required, so nothing is left on a doorstep or with a neighbour.

Contact us with your order reference and a short description of the problem, and we will look it up before replying. If a parcel is damaged or does not arrive, tell us as soon as you notice, because every parcel is insured in transit and the claim is ours to make rather than yours.

If you simply change your mind, you have 14 days from delivery to tell us and another 14 to send the coin back, and we refund what you paid including the original delivery. Do not break the seal on a graded coin: a holder cannot be resealed, and an opened coin is worth materially less, which we would have to deduct.

NGC and PCGS are independent grading companies. They authenticate a coin, examine it under controlled light and magnification, place it on the Sheldon scale of 1 to 70, and seal it in a tamper evident holder with its own certification number. A higher number means fewer surface imperfections, not a different coin.

The prefix tells you how the coin was struck. NGC writes PF for a proof and MS for an uncirculated business strike; PCGS writes PR and MS. The two scales are not interchangeable, so a PF69 and an MS69 are not the same statement.

PF is the proof scale and 70 is the top of it. NGC awards 70 to a coin with no post production imperfections at 5x magnification, which is a statement about handling and finishing rather than a claim that the coin is flawless in every respect.

Ultra Cameo is NGC’s designation for deeply mirrored fields against heavily frosted design, the boldest contrast a proof can show. PCGS calls the same thing Deep Cameo, written DCAM. Cameo, without Ultra or Deep, is the same effect at moderate contrast.

Yes, and it is worth doing before you buy a graded coin from anyone, ourselves included. Every holder carries a unique certification number on its label. Enter it on the NGC or PCGS website and you will see the description and grade held against that number, and for most modern submissions the grading company’s own images of the coin.

Treat a match as one check rather than proof. NGC warns that counterfeit holders can carry a genuine certification number, so compare the images and the description with the coin in front of you, and be wary if no images are held.

Some coins have a surface problem that stops a grading company assigning a straight number, such as cleaning, a scratch or damage. Rather than refuse it, NGC and PCGS give the coin a Details grade: the level of wear it reached, followed by the reason it could not be graded numerically.

A Details coin is genuine and has been authenticated. It is simply described honestly, and priced accordingly. Where we hold one, the qualification sits on the listing, in the specification and in the price.

The holder ties the grade to the coin. It is tamper evident, so the certification number on the label belongs to the coin sealed inside it, and the two travel together. Break the seal and the coin has to be graded again to carry a grade at all, which is why we never open one. The holder also protects the surfaces in transit.

Yes. Most of what we hold is sealed and graded by NGC or PCGS, but some coins are not, and those are listed as ungraded rather than described as though a grade applies. An ungraded coin is not a lesser coin; it is one nobody has submitted. The listing will always tell you which you are looking at.

A proof is a way of striking a coin rather than a type of coin. The dies are polished, the blanks are prepared and selected, and each coin is struck more than once at slower speed and higher pressure. The result is a mirror field behind a frosted design, produced in much smaller numbers and sold in presentation packaging.

They can be the same design in the same metal, made for different reasons. A bullion coin is struck quickly in large numbers and priced close to the gold in it. A proof is struck slowly in small numbers, finished by hand and priced for the finish, the packaging and the mintage as much as the metal.

Neither is better. They answer different questions, and the difference matters most when you are comparing two prices that look far apart.

Less than it appears to, on its own. Three different figures get quoted as a mintage: the issue limit or Limited Edition Presentation, which is the maximum authorised; the number actually struck and sold; and the number sold individually as against inside multi coin sets. They can differ widely for the same coin.

What often matters more is how many survive in top condition, which NGC and PCGS publish as population reports. A population report counts coins those companies have graded, not every coin in existence, so read it as an indication rather than a census.

A price reflects the individual coin: its year, its grade, its mintage and prevailing market conditions. Two coins from the same year can be priced differently if their grades differ, and we will explain the difference if you ask.

We check our prices against other UK dealers and aim to be competitive. Compare us before you buy, and if you have found the same coin, in the same grade, cheaper elsewhere, tell us what you have found and we will give you a straight answer on it.

UK legal tender coins from the Royal Mint are currently exempt from Capital Gains Tax for UK residents, because they are treated as currency rather than as a chargeable asset. Sovereigns minted from 1837 and Britannias fall into that group. Coins that are not UK legal tender do not.

Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and may change. We supply coins as collectible items and do not give tax advice, so speak to an accountant about your own position.

Gold coins that count as investment gold are exempt from VAT. HMRC sets this out in VAT Notice 701/21A, and there are two routes: a coin can appear on the list HMRC publishes, or it can meet four conditions, being at least 900 thousandths fine, minted after 1800, legal tender or formerly legal tender in its country of origin, and normally sold at no more than 180 per cent of the open market value of its gold.

Sovereigns and Britannias appear on HMRC’s list. Silver, platinum and palladium coins are not investment gold and are standard rated.

We do not know, and nobody selling you a coin does either. We sell coins as collectible items rather than as investments, and we make no prediction about what any coin will be worth later. What we can give you is the year, the grade, the mintage and the number of examples the grading company has recorded at that grade, and let you draw your own conclusion.