JLS

You'd have to have really quite precise equipment to distinguish between minor differences in volume. Callipers may be quicker !

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Palau-Big-Pirate-Skull-25-2018-Antique-Finish-Silver-Pirate-Skull/174312522767 The Pirates of...Palau ? It weighs half a kilo of pure silver so I guess it might make a (rather morbid) paper weight...

As the owner of this piece...I'm still tempted to do this but the rest of the metal looks OK... I think anodized copper wire treatment is the next step; if I can't get all of it off mechanically I'll consider chemical cleaning. Don't think it will ever be problem free though.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Masonic-Penny-unpolished/133390637391 I didn't know that the Queen was a freemason ! Or that 1967 pennies get more valuable if you polish them...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274326733979 Someone actually thinks a cartwheel penny is a farthing...were the 1790s an age of giants ?!

That 1807 is a well known and relatively common contemporary forgery with the casting flaw across the reverse, I think I paid a good £20 for my example... Curiously the pound coin also appears to be fake !

8/6 ? Nice !

A very rare token I noticed in a bulk lot last week, paid £15 and there was an EF 1901 halfpenny and some other odds and sods as well.

As a keen collector of the Birmingham series....WOW ! Diameter ? White's 1849 Directory of Birmingham, p. 182, "Holland, Henry, gun and pistol maker, 21 Steelhouse Lane". The Henry Holland of Holland and Holland was, according to Wikipedia, only apprenticed in 1861, so possibly this piece is unrelated.

As far as I know, yes, no reducing machines anywhere until the 1830s, and none at British mints until the 1850s or 1860s. Definitely not used at Soho in Boulton's day !

A good diagnostic for a proof of this issue is whether St. George's belt is sharp all the way across his chest. It's very rare to see a currency piece with this feature as they generally were not well struck enough.

Unless it was a US coin where dipping is "market acceptable" for some reason, I'd be pretty annoyed to be sold a dipped coin as problem-free. Last year I bought a nice looking Edward VII florin out of DNW at the reserve on an opportunistic bid. It was in a MS61 holder and described as EF+, bright... In hand, blank, lifeless surfaces, no real mint brilliance. Luckily I didn't pay too much for it and found someone at Bloomsbury who took it off me for what I purchased it for...

He also seems to have never seen a proof George IV shilling: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1821-GEORGE-IV-Laur-Head-Shilling-Bought-as-GEM-UNC-Superb-but-I-believe-PROOF/233569315655?hash=item3661d0eb47:g:UyQAAOSw9uxeouVR https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1825-George-IV-Bare-Head-Shilling-PROOF-coin-and-RARE-for-this-date/233568803807?hash=item3661c91bdf:g:swQAAOSwtANeoh0O plus, as a bonus, PCGS LOVES his cleaning technique... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1739-George-II-Shilling-Slabbed-graded-by-PCGS-as-MS62-UNCIRCULATED/233298622265?hash=item3651ae7739:g:27kAAOSwJWddQhiF

Pretty sure you can buy these out of China for around two pounds each...AliExpress might be worth checking....

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1794-Halfpenny-Token-The-Lancashire-Unc/303594651936 Not "Unc."...and the seller unfortunately has a whole group of common 18th century token given the same treatment

Well, it sort of was a live sale, as there were a few phone lines open, and so lots had a defined closing time. You had to pre-register which lots you wanted to bid on, as they skipped lots which no-one wanted to phone bid on and just decided them on commission. Most of the time I was just bidding against commission bids though.

Yes and it was relatively straightforward, I won 6 lots !

Given my collecting (and dealing) interests, the chance that anything I bid on is popular on what is likely a poorly attended auction seems rather remote ! But we'll see.

Hello and welcome to the forum ! Have you tried John Boardman at Whitmore Coins, Tokens and Medals ? He typically has a large number of toy coins in stock...current listing here, but there may well be more unlisted: https://www.whitmorectm.com/toycoins If you let me know which ones you're missing, I'd be happy to watch out for them. J

Well, I've inquired by return e-mail about how to do it, and heard back nothing, so I'll probably just give them a call tomorrow. If possible it would rather nice to find out what other people have bid before making up my mind !

Semra confirmed this morning that they're offering phone bidding.

I think the facility is more useful to e.g. general antique dealers who don't want the hassle of having to register to bid on various sales independently if they're only planning to bid on one or two low value items.

Maundy coins are still legal tender, having been redenominated to their value in decimal pence by the Coinage Act 1971 s. 2(2). It's not really clear to me what the earliest legal tender maundy money is though; can we go back to the undated Charles II milled issues, or can only "modern" Maundy money post-1822 be spent ?

Interesting. I don't own any similar British pieces but I have a French matt pattern, presumably for photographic purposes, from the turn of the last century and the quality of the strike is superlative.

Interesting ! Were these produced for photography purposes ? The obverse strike looks very soft from the images above.