oldcopper

Final update on the H/KN mintages, James Sweeny in his book "A Numismatic History of Birmingham Mint" gives the calculated mintages of each Heaton year (which he says are "based on RM and Heaton's records, and are deemed acurate by the RM"): 1918H - 2,572,800 which gives 1918KN - 1,088,000 1919H - 4,526,034 which gives 1919KN - 683,566 by subtraction from the Coincraft combined totals.

Quoting myself, first sign of madness. I've looked at Coincraft now and they combine the H and KN mintage figures: 1918 Royal Mint - 84 million 1918 H+KN - 3,660,800 1919 Royal Mint - nearly 114 million 1919 H+KN - 5,209,600. So 1918 provincial issues should be rarer than 1919; which if 19KN was lower mintage that 18KN, means 19H much higher mintage than 18H, which backs up the findings. I'm surprised the RM went to all the trouble of contracting out when the extra output only added up to a few percent.

I think Coincraft's catalogue mention mintage figures for 1918/19 H/KN's but I haven't got it to hand. From memory the rarest is as expected the 1919KN and it may be more19H's than 18H's were minted. I don't know where Coincraft (if it were them) got the figures from as I haven't seen them anywhere else.

The W.W. seems too large as well.

In my experience, the archive has never worked - always comes up with "no lots found" however broad the search parameters

Yes, it was the Alderney coin, went for £3250 back then ( in 2007).

I think the Wm III double obverses are slightly less rare than sometimes claimed - I picked one up at the Midland coin fair for ~£100 15 years or so ago. Lustrous as struck...no, pretty awful condition as usual.

Bramah mentions Very Good and Good as grading terms (below Fine as nowadays), and that was in the 20's. So it's been around for some time in the UK and thus maybe originated here. Don't know either way. It might be like putting a z in words like realize - now American English but in fact old English.

Yes, they're all nice examples.

The 1808, 1937 and which other?

The Waterboard collection (sorry, I thought I'd crack that lame joke before anyone else did!) is now on Spink's website. Some die number/die letter Victorian bronze but mainly gold and silver. Nice to look at and many fantastic coins! Many are in Waterbird-customised slabs, which is the main attraction of course. I notice the collector (Al Batross?) bought a few items from Mark Rasmussen's Noad list but they haven't mentioned the modern provenance of these pieces for some reason, only the old ones. This is a habit some auction houses are forming.

I think both the recent decent grade ones (the Bates and Pywell-Philips) were both from different dies and had thinner 8's. Doesn't mean there aren't other dies out there, but it would be a massive figure if it was an 8. https://www.dnw.co.uk/auction-archive/lot-archive/lot.php?department=Coins&lot_id=316038 and the Pywell-Philips one:

Could be the far commoner 1696 with a different 6. You may have trouble selling it as the rare '98.

I remember viewing a 1694 and 1717 halfpenny in the first Gregory sale (Baldwins May 206) and their orange lustre was breathtaking for copper of that age. Anyway, they turned up again for auction at Baldwins several years later (maybe 2014?) and they just weren't the same, I'm sure there had been a very noticeable fading/darkening of the colour and it wasn't just my eyesight. They were described in the auction catalogue the same as in 2006. The person who bought the 1694 did well though, as the coin got slabbed (significantly it was now a BN) and sold for ~$8K hammer at HA a year or two back (from memory)!

Sorry Pete - I mean even more of a fortune! The bottom line for me is why buy a coin when you can't enjoy it's beauty in all lights, especially directly reflected light to show off any brilliance. Apart from as an "investment" maybe. Surely reflectivity (ie brilliance) is one of the main reason people like proofs for instance. Ah, the dazzling reflection of....perspex! It's not quite the same. But if you find it hard to store or care for your coins properly (I've been there!), then slabs do have their plus points.