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Terms and Conditions

All items are guaranteed genuine as described. 

To order items either use the online shop system or contact us;

When ordering offline, please quote the item number(s) with a short description and wait for our invoice before payment.  Goods are offered subject to being unsold.  

Our normal office hours are Monday-Friday, 9.30-18.00.  

Payment for fixed price items  in GB pounds sterling is due on receipt of our invoice in cash, by cheque, by bank transfer, or by card (Visa Debit, Visa Credit, Mastercard) or through PayPal. Do not send card details by email but go online and use either the Stripe or PayPal gateway.  The goods remain our property until paid for in full. Fixed price items may be returned, in the same condition, within 7 days (UK) or 30 days (overseas) for a refund. 

Postage will be added to your order invoice at cost plus VAT as applicable. Goods sent by tracked insured mail wherever possible.

Delivery times  We aim to respond to your enquiry and process your order, once payment has been received, within 5 working days but it’s usually within 2 days.  We will let you know by email when we’ve posted your package.  Estimated delivery times: 1-2 days UK, 7-10 days Europe, 10-28 days rest of the world airmail.   While the postal workers are on strike, there are severe postal delays.

PRIVACY NOTICE – SEE SEPARATE PAGE below

These Conditions of Business and any amendment to them shall be governed by and interpreted and construed in accordance with English law.

AUCTION TERMS AND CONDITIONS
In addition to and differing from our general terms and conditions listed above:

Bidding All bidding will be done online with the usual cut-off time at 12 noon.  You will need to register in MY ACCOUNT to bid and obtain a user name (this is masked with first and last characters only shown).  While you need to provide a debit or credit card to register, when you purchase from us you will have other options for payment (see below).  From the MY ACCOUNT section you will be able to see what bids you’re winning or losing, and can view your ‘watch’ list too.  Please be sure to add our email address to your contacts (otherwise alerts from us may not reach you or end up in your junk folder).

Search facility and online text catalogue: Do use the key word and category search facility on the net.   There are crossovers between the categories especially on place names and themes; you may miss things otherwise. You can download current text only catalogues from the homepage.

Increments:  bids increase in the following way:

  • £1-£20 £1;
  • £20-£40 £2;
  • £40-£100 £5
  • £100 – onwards £10

The auction uses proxy bidding so that you only see the current winning bid, not someone’s maximum bid (think eBay).  There won’t be tied bids in the future – if someone else has bid your maximum before you,  they win. You can increase your bids online.   There’s no third party sniping facility but of course you can bid up to (almost) the closing time online.  Be aware that once the auction is calculating winning bids at the end you may not be able to place last minute bids if the system is running slowly.

After the auction: You will get an alert by email for lots won after the sale; at that point go to MY ACCOUNT and checkout ‘bids won’.  Checkout your winning bids by clicking on the relevant buttons. That action creates an order and gives you options to pay.  Note that we may need to adjust postage if you have purchased heavy items.

There is NO Buyer’s commission The price online is the starting price and the reserve if no bids registered. We reckon this is roughly half an estimated price. 

Prices realised are available for download from this Simmons Gallery website on the homepage or from the archive page..

Payment for auction lots Payment is due on receipt of our invoice post auction, goods are sent out when we receive payment.  We accept cash, sterling cheques and bank transfers. Payments from abroad should be in GB pounds sterling drawn on a UK bank. We accept PayPal, credit cards (Visa, MasterCard) and UK debit cards via Stripe online from this website.   Do not send card details by email. The goods remain our property until paid for in full. 

Auction bids by post, telephone or email. Written or emailed bids must be received no later than 2 days prior to the advertised closing date, either by post or email. Otherwise we won’t have time to place them. It’s useful if you can indicate whether to increase your bid by 1 or 2 increments if someone else has already bid your maximum.

So bid early if bidding by post please! We prefer you to bid online wherever possible. All telephone bids must be confirmed in writing and must be received 2 days before the end of the auction. Please use the bid sheet in the catalogue posted to you. Email bids will be accepted but are only valid once we have sent an acknowledgement. We bear no responsibility for emails not being received, nor for the late arrival of any bids. If bidding by email or phone, please quote the lot number and brief description with your maximum bid.    The first price in the printed catalogue is the reserve; bids will be refused below this. The second price in the printed catalogue is an estimate but you may need to bid higher to secure a lot. 

Grading & other abbreviations used throughout:

 Unc Uncirculated, as new 
 AU about Uncirculated 
 EF Extremely fine 
 VF Very Fine (normal wear) nVF near Very Fine
 F Fine (worn) gF better than Fine but not VF
 VG Very Good (very worn) 
 G Good Poor – worse than good
 ctm countermark 
 htm Hallmark or Assay mark for precious metals 
 ek    edge nick 
 Materials: AV = gold        AR = silver 
  AE = bronze or copper alloy
WM = white metal, tin rich alloy, pewter, looking like silver
 
  FE = iron       Al = aluminium       Zn = zinc Br = brass 

References: We use the standard numismatic reference works, eg Krause’s Standard Catalog of World Coins, Forrer’s Biographical Dictionary of Medallists, BHM – British Historical Medals, Withers on British Weights, Pridmore on British Commonwealth Coins and tokens, and for tokens and passes, Hawkins, Dalton & Hamer, Davis & Walters, Scholten, Williamson, Bell, etc. The Welsh pub checks follow the Cox brothers work: Pub Checks of Wales 2005.  Other Welsh tokens can be found in Cox Tokens, Checks, Metallic tickets, passes and tallies of Wales 1800-1993.However, most descriptions are in full. If in doubt, please ask. 

General notes: Website content is copyright of Simmons Gallery Limited, Directors H.W.Simmons, M.Sc. F.M. Simmons. Registered number 1612141 England. Registered office 34-40 High Street, Wanstead, London E11 2RJ

Postal address for all correspondence and particularly for bids and payments to:  Simmons Gallery Ltd, PO Box 104, Leytonstone, London E11 1ND, UK