oldcopper

I have to say the Wiener bust in not pretty, she looks a bit hard. I can't blame Victoria for rejecting it. The reverse would have been incidental as you say.

She dismissed the Wiener shilling bust(s) straightaway.

I don't know of any other bun head penny engravers, considering LCW is signed on both sides at some stage or another. The only other one that I know of was Minton for the rare coronet patterns. The legend and date varieties will have been down to the die sinkers.

You just rail away.

Talking of which, I wouldn't bid on their draped bust James II farthing, especially as its tie ribbons are long and hanging down, and you can see the other side of the cuirass. But apart from that.... Neither would I be tempted by their James II 1687/6 shilling though it's got good detail - it's the one from Sept 2013 DNW sale now brightly cleaned. I should know - I bought it back then, sold it a few years ago. As often happens nowadays, some people take a very reasonable appearance coin (dusky grey here) and turn it into something that might just have fallen out of a Christmas cracker.

Yes, it's funny the best 1918H pennies are also the worst!

It might be that these understrikes survive in relatively pristine condition as they were never issued for circulation. Alternatively someone got hold of a mint roll of these identically badly struck examples from the bank. Either way they all look closely related in terms of striking conditions as they are all similarly under-struck, with the same amount of trident, knee missing, weak bust etc so likely from the same batch. This suggests the striking pressure was under-par to exactly the same extent for a sequence of strikes, and must have been set wrongly, either as an economising experiment or just a simple mistake.

Interesting. I've just looked at the DNW archive and strangely all the BU or NBU ones (of which there are several) are weakly struck missing part of the shaft etc whereas the less lustrous or non lustrous ones are all much better struck. Which is the wrong way round! The best one of the properly struck ones does have a bit of lustre, but the rest are brown.: https://www.noonans.co.uk/auctions/archive/lot-archive/results/338608/?keywords=1918H+penny&x=0&y=0 I wonder if a batch of weakly struck examples failed Heaton's QC and were put away and forgotten about. And here they all are!

You can tell it's an H as well by the terrible strike. Half the trident has gone awol probably due to the severe ghosting. I've got one similar, but your colour is unbeatable! I find the 18/19 H's have paler lustre than the KN's which are deeper orange when still lustred, from the few I've seen.

I vaguely remember plastic facsimile coins when I was young. Forget how realistic they were and they went in the plastic cash till our grandparents had. Ting! Draw shoots open!

I note they've got a lower grade SD Large Rose estimate £4-500. Dave Craddock had one he called GF/NVF for £70, but I only saw his list yesterday and it had gone of course. Sounds comparable.

Do you know what it sold for this time round? Mark Rasmussen also sold this coin on List 9, though it only had "SOLD" next to it in the catalogue, no price. What a tease!

Baldwin's did a video on exactly that point. They don't wear gloves for any metal, which with expensive copper personally I would say is a bit risky. Still, risk/benefit of more likelihood of dropping it I suppose.

The variable rim outside the border is a giveaway. Exactly the same in both.

https://www.noonans.co.uk/auctions/archive/lot-archive/results/235221/?keywords=1953+VIP+proof+set&discipline=&category=&date_on=&date_start=&date_end=&lot_no= The farthing is described as "Freeman 1+A (not listed as a proof)". I think the George VI-type bordered penny was one of the main interests of this set. It went for £4200 hammer. But to pay £6500 for a set in 2021 from DNW described as having a superior finish but without any rare varieties and having the normal case shape would seem to be a big leap of faith.