ebay

[scottishmoney]

Yeah you got that with foreign imports no quality
If I remember correctly we got independant in 1830 and only found a king in 1831 cause the job was not intresting or maybe not well paid

Well actually the monarchy back then was being able to get away with whatever you wanted, wild sex romps etc.  Look at the 19th century male British monarchs before Victoria, they were all involved with many many women, and probably a few other men as well.  Belgium being a small and newly independent country did not offer much in the way of aristocratic sex romp apparently.  In fact the Belgian and Netherlands monarchies by and by are some of the more boring and apparently androgynous in all of Europe.

[Paint Your Wagon]

I read somewhere the Dutch Queen is one of the richest of Europe
Could it be the simple life ? 

[scottishmoney]

Why do you think they call that company with the yellow sea shell logo - "Royal Dutch Shell"?

[Paint Your Wagon]

Why do you think they call that company with the yellow sea shell logo - "Royal Dutch Shell"?

I never thought about that since I think Belgium is Petro-Fina-Elf territory and some BP and Shell
I think Kuwait selling under the name of Q8 left
But at 9.45 dollars a gallon for 98 octane for the car I can understand the distribution is living on the vapours what in
french is called La part des anges 
( It is presumed by taxpeople that a certain promille is lost during all those transfers and if you do better that is pocket money or the part for the angels)

[scottishmoney]

I saw Shell stations all over whilst I was in Europa, we have a lot of them here too, the company has been in America since the 1910's.  Back during WWI not a very popular company here, because the Dutch were trading with the Germans and supplying them with petroleum product.

[Paint Your Wagon]

Not surprisingly it was just announced on the news that bicycle sales are sharply up and repairs are in the stratosphere
One guy said he got out of bed at 5 am and repaired till 8 pm and was not even keeping up with repairs
For a country that is not so fond of bikes this is remarkable .
I just stay in my garden with the laptop
But since yesterday and for the following days it is cold and rain and some more rain 

[Paint Your Wagon]

This notorious Swisse ebaygirl has singlehandedly moved the panama canal into italy 

Normally she calls everything uncirculated and lustrous bankfresh but even she did not dare to do that here

The coin is Maria Luiga di Parma ex wife of Napoleon and looks like somebody used sanding paper on it



http://cgi.ebay.de/Panama-40Lire-1815-Original-Gold_W0QQitemZ140228871069QQcmdZViewItem

[scottishmoney]

Parma, Panama, same thing after a hard night of Schnapple.

[scottishmoney]

Ebay is becoming a sinking ship of fools to me.  Lately I have had one positive experience with an eBay seller, another would be positive if the thing showed up - but I believe seller in Venezuela sent it, it just never came, and another situation that I could defecate on.  I have with only two exceptions had to contact sellers of high priced items and extract information from them on whether item sent, tracking number etc.  I am about ready to KMA eBay as a buying venue.

[Paint Your Wagon]

ebay france probably is 50% goldplated coins old and new coins and golddust or paper in bottlets
ebay germany is into bottlets of goldpaper and little nuggets etc
Also a lot of "new" sellers mygrating to selling a foreign goldcoin with a germany only warning which was allright for selling old jeans and old t-shirts and then committing the ultimate folly of using DHL at double the price of German post

I just succumbed to asking a guy in a wheelchair if I would be allowed to bid .
He was surprisingly nice , probably never even considered a foreigner might want to buy a foreing coin 

I think once gold takes off in september that my buying days are over . I do not want to risk another 1980 . I figure that if I stop buying around
650 euro I will never suffer a loss in this lifetime ( that was the high at 1000 dollars )

[Paint Your Wagon]

And this looks like nickel being sold for silver by a 6000 plusser

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=290226336023&ssPageName=STRK:MEBI:IT&ih=019

[Paint Your Wagon]

Superb picture by a professional seller 
At more then double gold price after all you cannot want a good picture can you 


http://cgi.ebay.de/FRANKREICH-GOLD-20-EURO-2007-DEGAS-nur-500-Stueck_W0QQitemZ310046722272QQcmdZViewItem

[scottishmoney]

I love sellers that sell stuff with teeny tiny pictures on large priced items. 

But occasionally you come across sellers with good images, that you can also use:

All I had to do with the image was crop the black background.  BTW a very very nice original exceptional paper quality and well centered note at a very low bid.

[Paint Your Wagon]

My nephew of whom I am the godfather did celebrate his 12 years holy communion and confirmation today
I gave him a 500 Euro brandnew note

First thing he did was fold it in four ( ouch )

Since nobody accepts these notes in a shop I wanted to scan it for myself because I probably will never see one like that again .
The bank gives me a stack of 50 Euro used notes

Canon driver said error error you may have wrongly placed the object whatever I tried
Silverfast driver was a lot more explicit , it said I was trying to scan a banknote and would be allowed but that it would attach a refuse to print and gave a website for all of the world with the legislation in vigor for scanning , printing or sharing electronically banknotes .

72 dpi max and specimen printed over 70% of the surface is the Belgian requirement . I was downright amazed cause I thought that that only writing on it or tearing it in two was forbidden . 

[scottishmoney]

Yep.  You might just as well as given him 100 €5 notes in a munched up wad.  I often take my offspring to coin shows with me, where they often rack up the assortment of free and near free goodies.  Cannot tell you how many times I have heard the unfortunate comment that my children were the first that the dealers had seen in all of the day that actually were polite and appreciate in the form of thanking for the goodies.  One time my then 10 year old daughter(has a serious eye for expensive and rare coins) were talking to a Russian dealer, she wanted to look through his $10(junk, okay $10! is junk?) box, and she picked out a Moldavia Wallachia 2 Kopek from 1772 and he sold it to her at that price, even though it is worth far more.  I asked her what she liked about the coin, she said she just wanted it, and couldn't explain why.  Curiously maybe there was some secret connection to the coin, nobody thought of.  She was born right near where it was minted.  She even picked out my Athenian Tetradrachm a few years ago.