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Rob

Expert Grader
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Posts posted by Rob


  1. On 10/10/2023 at 11:41 AM, oldcopper said:

    I should add that finding a 1698 DIL halfpenny in any condition above Fine is probably impossible. Peck's plate coin (BM) is almost certainly the best by far.

    I would concur. Before I abandoned collecting halfpennies in 2008/9, the only thing I found worthy of keeping was the attached, and fine it ain't.

    02339.jpg

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  2. It depends on what you have as not all apply in all instances. Generally speaking therefore, a proof will have brilliant fields, square rims, sharper milling, squarer sides to the lettering, a better quality of engraving to the detail and is likely to be in close to as struck condition. Although a few proofs get circulated, the vast majority do not, and in the case of non-set years, almost never. Easiest way is comparing a known currency piece with a claimed proof and then look for reasons why it isn't one rather than saying it is better, so must be one.

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  3. On 10/7/2023 at 10:35 AM, Master Jmd said:

    These Casascius coins were a primitive type of hardware wallet that predate the likes of Trezor and Ledger that are now in common use. I'm not too sure what failed crypto currency system you're referring to here, but Bitcoin, now in its 14th year, is far from a failure in my opinion.

    The coins themselves contain access to a private wallet containing the amount of Bitcoin indicated. They have a built-in tamper-proofing mechanism to indicate whether the Bitcoin held on them has been redeemed or not. In this case, all 250 of these are unredeemed, meaning each coin contains its indicated value in Bitcoin, and I guess the grading company adds an extra layer of authenticity on top.

    Each of these are for either 1 Bitcoin or 0.5 Bitcoin, so it's expected that they'll sell around the Bitcoin rate (~£22,893 for 1 and ~£11,446 for 0.5). I imagine the majority of buyers will crack these out to redeem them.

    Whilst these are mostly now a novelty, they did once have a very practical purpose at a time when little regulation was in place to protect such assets - keeping your Bitcoin on these meant you had full control and weren't putting all your trust in an online wallet destined to fail.

    I didn't say that Bitcoin had failed. I asked the question, how they would grade a failed virtual currency? If they are going to grade these things, then they have presumably had to verify that the contents are as it says on the label. The money is there or it's not. If the grading is for the plastic disc only, then that's silly. The money is in the virtual currency, not in the 'coin' and if the bitcoin has been wiped, who pays? 

    Anyway, bitcoin is of limited value to the average person. I've got accounts with 4 different banks, and none of them will allow me to pay in Bitcoins. Nor indeed can I take it round the corner to buy a loaf of bread. But hey, I could be the proud owner of an almost unblemished piece of plastic valued at over £22K that I can't spend.


  4. https://coins.ha.com/c/search-results.zx?N=3184+792+4294934363&type=bodycopy-coinworld-news-tem100623

    TPG grading of virtual currency. :blink:

    Can't wait for a CAC sticker to say it is genuine.

    Does a failed crypto currency systems warrant a details grade?

    Why does a virtual currency need a metal disc in any case? Surely their raison d'etre was to eliminate them? Touted as the most important physical collection of crypto currency ever to come to market, this has to be the biggest load b****cks seen in many a time.

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  5. Not sure what the 2h refers to. It's nothing to do with Brooke which would have been appropriate for 1946. After that you are into BCW territory. Nothing in IDB's BNJ vol. 28 article helps.

    I think those images help, as the 9, H & E are of a different style. That might mean this is a G S Hopkins ticket from Baldwin's 30. Anyone with a known G S Hopkins ticket?


  6. 9 minutes ago, secret santa said:

    Not true.

    1590148979_RevGdieA2zoom.jpg.7b516a49943d0827af1ebd00539ca349.jpg

    Mr T said that, not me. 

    My point revolves around the different A marked dies and the use of the die letter in general. I appreciate the die letters are used with reverses E(B), F(C) & G(A) which would imply they are comparing the 3 designs, but why would they be comparing them in 1862 when all three were used in various obv/rev die pairs the year before? It isn't as if they had no data to go on given the large output in 1861. Unless they suddenly ran into a problem with rev. G for whatever reason and felt the need to revert to an earlier die to see if something could be improved. Then to have at least 3 different A dies raises the question as to why more than one was needed. 

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  7. 1 hour ago, Mr T said:

    And a little bit of an update to this - I haven't done a in-depth study of the G with rock/G with no rock from 1861 to 1873, but I have had a brief look.

    From 1863 to 1873, the pictures I have at hand all seem to show a rock (though a bit faint at times).

    More interestingly, the 1862 with A to left of lighthouse has no rocks while the 1862 with A to right of lighthouse has a rock, at least from the handful of images I've looked at (https://www.baldwin.co.uk/product/victoria-1837-1901-halfpenny-1862-die-letter-a-rrr/https://www.londoncoins.co.uk/?page=Pastresults&auc=124&searchlot=555&searchtype=2https://www.londoncoins.co.uk/?page=Pastresults&auc=162&searchlot=2355&searchtype=2).

    Hmmm. The thing that stands out most here is the different positions of the two As to left of the lighthouse. The grotty one appears to be well circulated and presumably genuine as nobody would counterfeit a coin with a small A by the lighthouse when the majority of examples were bereft of any mark. The high grade one looks genuine too, so where does that leave the letters being a means of die identification? Back to the drawing board? The obvious inference is that not all As are equal, so with multiple dies extant, the letter must refer to something else - week, coining press, metal mix?

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  8. No idea as I haven't looked, but presumably only this reverse die or maybe an unknown second one. It's a die match to the one in Bull once you have sorted out the double striking.

    As a tun 3a1 variety it's bound to be rare as there are huge numbers of single stop dies with only a handful of 4 pellet stop dies to add. I would have thought the survival rates would be similar to other die pairs unless there were indications of a rapid disintegration (or a mint fresh hoard came to light), but don't know what that number is.

    There were examples in the North Yorks Moors and Tooze collections in DNW's archives.


  9. 6 hours ago, Coinery said:

    Agreed!

    I’m thinking I’ll take a look at the Hammered FB group for a few days, just to see what goes on, but I’m not seeing it working tbh?

    A report on how you get on would be useful. 

    Aside from the good search facility, one of the real advantages of this forum is the indicator of which threads have posts you haven't read - and it goes to the first unread one with a simple click. Or alternatively, the new thread indicator which again goes to the first post. If you have to scroll back up through days of posts to get to the point where you last read, I can see an awful lot of things being missed, not to mention the need to separate out the different topics, which appears to be a major issue if replies get buried. 


  10. 5 minutes ago, Coinery said:

    Sorry @jelida but I don’t belong to any coin groups so can’t recommend them unfortunately.

    I think you make good points @Rob and @TomGoodheart re the searching of historic posts plus, I guess, you have to have been online at the time, or they’ll be buried long before you see them anyway?

    I think that sums up the biggest problem with FB. I might go a week without looking at the forum, or on other occasions visit a few times a day. Not all of us live on our phones, so difficulty in finding old posts and replying is a bit of a negative.


  11. 12 hours ago, Nonmortuus said:

    Is the restricted scope generally typical of FB? The above all have specific fields of interest unlike this or other forums. Is there anything with unrestricted cover? As Richard notes above, there are a few well known names about, but if the scope is limited, then it seems a wasted opportunity.

    Realistically, when dealing with more knowledgeable minds, you would probably be better speaking at a fair, phoning or emailing, which trumps any forum/group discussion which tend to have short posts because many people can't be bothered formulating or reading lengthy replies. From a personal perspective, I regularly end up discussing a query for anything from 10 minutes to an hour because few things are that straightforward.

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  12. Posts are only any use if they can be retrieved. Is there a search facility on FB? I ask this because the wife has used it but when she says I should look at this post - she can't find it because life has moved on and there's been a zillion replies, mostly of vacuous nonsense.


  13. 25 minutes ago, Old Money said:

    They all seem to be platforms for selling rather than educating

    That's not too surprising, as everyone wants to make a quick buck and education improves decision making, which is unhelpful for sales in most instances. A comparison between rare as in half a dozen known and rare as in only a million struck puts things into perspective. 

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  14. Most guesses of surviving numbers are underestimated, relying to a large extent on personal experience, which is a bit hit and miss as you can't pick up everything. There is no central database of coins, so you will almost always revise numbers upwards. The only exception to this is likely to be for cases of mis-identification where one type will reduce and another increase. Patterns and proofs are a bit more quantifiable.

    Additional examples from known dies can appear at any time, just as new die pairs appear on a regular basis. We only have a fraction of the story.

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  15. 1 hour ago, Martinminerva said:

    Nothing.  Coin collectors like the circular bits of metal.  These other people like a square piece of plastic with an arbitrary number printed on it.  Two completely different sets of people.  Perhaps some enterprising individual could separate the two camps fully by just issuing bits of plastic without anything in them!! 😉

    Yes, but they tend to get upset when you tell them. When I pointed out to someone on CoinTalk that 'I collect coins, while you collect opinions', he got a bit miffed. Diplomacy has never been my strong point, so if someone could enlighten me on how to call a spade a spade without offending, I would like to know.

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