oldcopper

I take it this die got re-used in 1844. Presumably you've got one of those.

I have to say it's a lovely coin, it cost me quite a bit more than £850.

Here's a price rise in that sale: Anne pattern halfpenny P726: £1,800. I sold it in their March 2020 sale for £850. Aaagh..... Someone made a few hundred quid on it.

..as usually found.

Or if you prefer farthings,

Perhaps there's something like a Dulux chart available for slabbers?

Still on the penny thread, anyone interested in the load of completely naturally toned (sarcasm) 1937 proof bronze coming up for auction in Heritage? Someone's chancing their arm....do you want one in bright blue or luridly efflorescent blue, sir?

There's a 1934 lustrous example coming up in the LCA auction. Hard to tell from a photo I suppose but the colour looks reasonably honest:

The 1799 and 1806 copper are known for occasional flat areas in the legends, Peck mentions it. He says the currency proofs don't suffer from it so it must be a facet of production "en masse".

Five? - was there a tokens one as well?

Sorry - it got sent before I'd written anything. I sold a Bramah 25c through Spink last year - nice one, quite lustrous - £440 I think. You don't see many of them around, but not a very exciting coin for me as no-one's worked out the under-figure yet as far as I know.

They've got an Edward VIII 1937 £5 coming up in a month or two - might go for a bit.

Hey, I hope you're not referring to me saying "finest ever" about the 1696 6d! But you are right about slabbing grades being used to spin the line of "finest known", whereas they mean - "the highest numerical grade assigned to the small cross-section of a certain variety that has been slabbed, as judged, in possibly only a few seconds, by a grader or graders of unknown experience and ability". As often noted, slabbing works better for more modern coins (19th and 20th century coins), but certainly for even modern copper and bronze proofs especially, I suspect or know a fair degree of "enhancement" ie colourisation, that goes on. Though I suppose if you keep it in the slab, it will retain its value, so long as the slabbers don't allow too many through. Absolutely agree that people should look at as many examples of a coin they're interested in; go back through old catalogues with lots of illustrations or on the internet (HA, Noble numismatics, DNW, London Coins, Mark Rasmussen, Sixbid archives etc), see how they're graded and priced (for the time), then compare it to the example you're interested in. This also shows how rare or common it is, as in how many comparable or better ones you can find.

I thought that 1696 2nd bust sixpence in the Spink auction was possibly the finest known for the earlier date.

Some of these coins were one-offs to be fair, the last James II plume shilling on the market that I know of was Spink SNC in the early 80's - £2,500 for a coin in only fair condition if I remember rightly. There might have been another sale since but none I know of. "Conceivably the finest known" is not the case for the 1700 plumes 6d - perhaps "finest known in commerce" might be more accurate, as being a duplicate of the BM's, the BM 's retained one would be better and the Ashmolean has a better one as well:

The lack of overheads for Spink is a factor as well - they don't produce a catalogue, unless it's a special collection, so they can bang out anything on the Internet without much effort. The Viles stuff would never have made it in the catalogue only days. It was more akin to DNW's multiple lots section or "Collector's Corner" in the old SNC; often single figure prices, and mainly lower-grade.

Nothing for me. That Churchill satin crown at $9,500 (= about £9,500 after extras) - not bad for 10 minutes work on the surfaces with some blue tinge. Oh, what a cynic - not that that is my area of expertise! Even that Soviet medal from the late 80's which looked like something out of a toy box circa 1960 made $15,000 hammer. That James II halfcrown also caught my eye - an excellent example of the type, almost full detail. Needless to say, I dropped out very early in the bidding. The fact that Greg Edmonds spent an eternity on many of the lots unfortunately seemed to work in his favour. 45-50 lots/hour is excruciating and some fingers unfortunately must have lost patience, anything to move him on!

Thanks.

Didn't Seaby's close about 1990?

Thanks, well spotted, I missed that. I wonder how the Mint managed to damage all 4 (at the last count) dies for this reverse, presumably in their manufacture? Plus bad E's on Alfnail's type as well.

I've only ever seen the first two dies of F114 you illustrate - the date-flawed one (illustrated in Freeman) and the crack though the N one. Most of the bright ones are from the crack through the N die in my experience. I reckon a group of mint state ones must have been stashed away at some stage. I haven't ever seen the third variety before - presumably it's very rare?

1858 large rose: £1850 - congrats! I presume that's the best one you know.

I think that's DNW'ese for "cleaned". I agree with Rob it's sacriligeous and it's very annoying, especially when a really nice coin is tampered with and ruined this way. Sadly, it may well get slabbed at good grade now. A similar example happened to me recently, where the vendors took a wonderful coin (an 18th century copper proof) and tried to "improve it" before re-slabbing it, which meant it ended up looking like something out of a Christmas cracker (once you knew it had been treated). Idiots, and I was the mug who fell for it. Luckily I got my money back on re-selling it soon after. Not one to keep. Here's one of my "favourites", mainly due to the over-the-top write up from Goldbergs. It's from the Cheshire Collection (still on the web). "Maybe Queen Victoria herself saved this little darling" is how they put it. Well, she'd have had to have been about 185 years old to appreciate the colour as I owned this coin up to a couple of years before this sale, and it was a dullish orange colour then! Ex SNC 2001 with a black and white photo. Talk about Christmas Cracker again......

Did anyone see the 1698 DIE farthing (GVF with some lustre) that CooperCoins had a photo of in the latest Coin News - it was £765. I phoned them up (hadn't even heard of them before) straight away - too late. I hate it when that happens! - There was a lot of interest unsurprisingly.