Paddy

I am pretty sure these are brass gaming tokens of the mid 19th century. Designed to look like the Gold guineas of the late 18th century, they regularly cause confusion! There are collectors of these, but not at great value. The one on the right is particularly nicely struck on the reverse.

Welcome to Predecimal coins! I can't say I can help you a great deal with the coins you describe, but hopefully others will chip in. Being a mainly British coin forum, I suspect you won't get a great deal on the Libyan or Korean coins here, but the Australian ones will probably work. A list of what you have from Australia would be a good start, with pictures to follow if they sound good. Good luck!

Excellent - thanks Rob, that clears it up. For some reason my copy of Spink mentions 5, 6 and 9 but not 7. I don't have Bramah - does it give any indication of relative scarcity between the types? Thanks again.

Seems a little odd that on the 5 incuse the middle blob counts but on the 6/7 relief it doesn't? :-) No idea what caused your mottling. I would guess it has been cleaned in some strong chemical a long time ago and has since regained some natural toning, but can't disguise the pitting caused by the chemical. I have tried to get better pictures of my 3 varieties. In order - 6 (7!) Relief, Plain Hull, 5 Incuse. Interesting when you see them this close together how hugely different the ships are.

Ah - so the middle blob is not a gunport but something else? Is there anywhere that shows the various types alongside each other to compare? I also have what I believe are the 5 incuse and the plain hull in less clear condition. If I can work out how to get clear photos at this scale out of my camera, I am quite happy to contribute to such a site!

Hi Semma4, welcome to predecimal coins. I have had a look at a few of your images, and I can't see anything obviously Saxon amongst them. One is clearly French Medieval and others seem to be brass Jettons. Many people on here will not view your images as they are external links. Further, having to click on each link individually is frustrating, particularly when you have repeated several links. If you use something like Onedrive you can provide a single link to a folder of pictures, which makes them much easier to view. It would also help if you cropped the images so we can see the coin instead of lots of background. If you still want more information try some of the above and get some good sharp photos taken so we have some chance of nailing them down.

I have a coin friend who is very into his Dutch coinage - if you put it on here I will send him a link. (He is an American so he usually hangs around coin fora over there.)

When I was at university I went through a barbed wire fence (backwards while drunk) and it raked my face on the way through - but I ended up with fewer scratches on my face than that half crown!

What should the weight be? Spinks does not give weights or even ranges - is there a good online source for such info?

Certainly dodged a bullet! I don't think I would go more than £20 on the lot - and did you see the postage charges?

I have no problem with questioning or even attacking the TPGs. I stay out of these arguments simply because I do not "get" the whole principle of locking coins away in plastic coffins. For me the joy of "collecting" is finding coins - often in unexpected places and at low prices - to add to my collection, regardless of grade. When I can, I improve the grade of the coins I have and move on the redundant ones. The thrill is in the hunt and filling the gaps. Graded and encapsulated coins seem to me much more of an investment or commodity based game, which is alien to me. Hence I do not give a fig for the debates back and forth on which TPGs grade how and which system is right or wrong. If I like a coin and I can afford it, I buy it. If it happens to be in a plastic coffin, I will break it out - unless it is so valuable it makes more sense to sell it on as it is. Watch me get flamed for stating my opinion - another reason why I usually stay out of these debates.And @ozjohn please don't leave - this forum moves pretty slowly, so the lack of opinion from others is more to do with the number of people watching.

I am no expert but that looks entirely fake to me. I hope the buyer realises as soon as he gets it.

Are there any good online resources to help with collecting Victorian Shillings? Two queries I can find little help with: 1. How to tell the various bust types apart - particularly bust 3 and 4? 2. Die numbers - what range of numbers were made and which are more or less common?

OK - I have done that. I am not great at spotting small details but as far as I can work out: 1972 - One set, Type A, no frosting 1973 - One set, Type A, no frosting 1974 - Two sets, one type A no frosting, one type B with frosting, 1/2 P also frosted 1975 - Two sets, one Type A no frosting, one type B with frosting, 1/2 P also frosted 1976 - One set, Type A no frosting. All the type As are in my older collection, which I have had for about 15 years and came from one auction together. The two sets with type B I picked up at a different auction about 5 years ago. I hope that helps! I admire the work you are doing on these but I'm afraid I am NOT going to become a decimal coin variation collector!

... and here is the hand-written story behind it:

Here's a bit of fun - I picked up this today as part of a job lot from auction. Obviously the medallion, which is penny size, was based on a bunhead penny, but I suspect no recognised variety. Interesting tale behind it - I will post the hand written history in a separate post as otherwise I wlll be out of space...

Thanks for the thought but I am far from an avid collector of Victorian Shillings and certainly don't have the funds to start building a selection of Die numbers! Part of my reason for asking was that I picked up a fairly worn 1878 Shilling and I was struggling to work out whether it was Spinks Third head or fourth head, which correspond to Nick's 5th and 6th bust above (I think). With the benefit of his pictures I believe it is 5th Bust which is slightly scarcer than the 6th bust for this date (I think). The die numbers query came out of finding the 1878 was die 9, and there is also an 1873 with die 2 - both low numbers in the scheme of things - and I wondered if that made them more or less scarce... Which left me uncertain as to which to keep and which to move on. Thanks you all for your help!

Is this one good enough for you?

I picked up this Shilling today amongst some other stuff with the aim of putting it into my own collection. I notice a big fault on the reverse - this is a raised uneven band of metal beneath the lettering. Is this to be expected, or is it some sign of a fake?

Here is one of mine for comparison.

For identifying unusual foreign coins I find Numista excellent as you can search on devices included in the design of the coin as well as country, metal, date etc: https://en.numista.com/

Just to add, the brass threepences are worth checking through - two scarcest dates are 1946 and 1949 and these may be worth a few pounds even in circulated condition. The rest, unless they are stunningly bright and new, are 10p a time jobs at a carboot sale.

OOOOOH! That is one I would very much like to have!

Whoopy-do! Just what I always wanted - a corner of the room in which to hide my face!

I think this would work well if they used genuine solder (as we are familiar with in Electronic) as the joining material. My experience is they more often use a Silver alloy to braze the pieces together. This is much stronger, but also has a melting point close to that of silver, and so is much more difficult to remove. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazing