Coin Magazine Reviews

Highly Specialised Audience
It would be harder to imagine a smaller, more specialised readership for a magazine. It was also not possible to buy or order a copy. It was produced anonymously and mailed out to maybe 200 members of the British coin trade.

Legal Action Threatened
Several dealers apparently wanted to sue the author / publisher for libel. Photographs of leading dealers were published, some with alterations, such as transplanted heads, and dubious captions. Perhaps fortunately for the author, nobody at the time could positively identify the author, and now they probably laugh at their initial adverse reaction. Some dealers were believed to be annoyed at being left out of the magazine.

Humour
Among the items we can remember from the early days was a photograph of a well known dealer examining a coin with a female nude, with a bubble from his mouth with the caption "This piece shows signs of mounting on the reverse".
Another item was about a particularly boring small time dealer who had been active in "pre 1947 silver coins", showing the "actual telephone from which Brian Fielding "nearly spoke to Nelson Bunker Hunt".
If the above examples do not strike you as being particularly hilarious, please bear in mind that it was only ever intended for a tiny specialised audience, who were also its target.

Collectors Items
We certainly would not part with any of our old copies of TCP, and we believe it has become a rare, if not valuable, collectors item.

Anonymous Editor Peter Jackson
The ediitor, producer, journalist of The Coin Probe remains as anonymous as The Stig, but we can reveal his name is Peter Jackson, a long time dealer from the Manchester / Cheshire area, and an expert in 1970's Lebanese forgeries of rare coins.

The Coin Probe 2007 - Featuring Osama bin Charden
No self-respecting UK coin dealer has been neglected by The Probe.
The only thing worse than being mentioned in TCP, is not being mentioned.

Do you have any comments about our magazine reviews?