brg5658

I'm sure these fantasy pieces are detested by purists, but I find the designs to be quite well done.

I couldn't resist picking up this token. I have always adored the sleeping lion imagery. Here's a close-up of the lion; you can see the "centering dot" above the lion's back.

Medal #31 from the series described in Mudie J. An Historical and Critical Account of a Grand Series of National Medals. 1820, pp. 125-26: OBVERSE: His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge REVERSE: Entry of the English into Hanover, which is here allegorized by Britannia giving succour to the Hanoverian Horses.

A heavily circulated series, I've been on the hunt for a decent example for a long while.

Una and the Lion gold 5 pounds.

Just a bit of additional information on the Herefordshire token posted above: This token was struck to commemorate Mr. Biddulph’s return as a Member of Parliament on June 3rd 1796. The bull breaking his chains represents the county bursting free from its Tory shackles on the election of a Whig. The apple tree alludes to Hereford’s cider industry, and the plough to agriculture.

Picked this up in the Heritage CICF Auction last week. It arrived today and I shot a few pics. 1796 Hereforshire penny token, NGC MS65BN

NGC grades counter-stamped coins based on the counter-stamp, not the host coin. Bizarre though don't you think, as both are relevant to a collector and as to value?And i feel somewhat smug Although as i said earlier, UK auction houses grade bothMy goodness you fellas are up late on that side of the pond!?!

I know I've posted it before (sorry), but this little Maundy 4D is one of my favorite silver British pieces.

NGC grades counter-stamped coins based on the counter-stamp, not the host coin.

1857 Penny token (PC-6D), NGC MS63BN

The thread was "zapped" by PCGS. They tend to have a very low tolerance for anything that be even remotely misconstrued as "criticism" of their product. On the other hand, NGC leaves up posts all the time on their forum that are not only critical of NGC (and PCGS and CAC), but sometimes border on slander. I much prefer the mentality of NGC in allowing people to have an open discussion instead of "cleansing" the boards of anything negative. PCGS is sort of like the North Korea and Russia media services.

This is my 3rd example of this token, but when they come up for sale nice and at a good price, I can't resist. This is a Civil War Token -- emergency small denomination money that circulated in the north Union states of the USA mostly between 1863-1865 during the US Civil War. Most federally issued small denomination money was hoarded during this time, and so many private issuers and businesses took the crisis into their own hands by issuing these tokens. This is an example of what's called a "patriotic token" -- not issued by any single business, but by a private entity for general use. There are more than 1,900 varieties of just the patriotic type, not including those issued by specific businesses (store cards) or military groups (sutler tokens). This is a whole realm of exonumia in and of itself. Cheers, Brandon

This token that made it into the "Conder token" guide of Dalton and Hamer under Middlesex is attributed to Taylor, circa 1870. It is not a case of Taylor simply using a die he purchased from SOHO, as the originals of this token design struck around Jan 1795 have many differences including: 1) the originals have "C" Ibberson, not "G" Ibberson, as this later piece does; 2) Originals have a saddle cloth under St. George, this later imitation does not, 3) originals have a completely different typeface and wreath on the reverse. The imitations were struck in white metal, brass, and copper -- all metal types are quite scarce. Atkins mentioned this imitation token in his reference of 1892, but Dalton and Hamer assigned it a unique number of Middlesex-343 when they compiled their (now gold-standard) reference in the 19-teens.

I didn't read it like that at all. To me, it seemed that at that point he was just giving an overview, and rather than precisely grade a particular example used to illustrate, he was just saying that that coin was a typical average specimen of that grade spectrum. This is reinforced after 20 minutes, when he then goes on to illustrate every MS coin from 60 to 68, and then every shade of circulated grade. I thought it was quite enlightening. If you think they (PCGS) can consistently differentiate between an MS65 and MS66 coin, then submit a few coins to them...you'll learn pretty quickly the reality of their methods. If you actually listen to the audio while he's going through each individual grade, it's a joke -- it's simply not possible to consistently grade a coin to that level of detail -- add in the new-ish "+" grades, and you have an even more laughable level of granularity. While I may be youngish, and do own a lot of slabbed coins, I'm of the old school of thought that in MS UNC grades, you essentially can lump coins consistently into 4 levels of state. MS60, MS63, MS65, and MS67 were the numbers that were historically used for those levels. Any level of granularity beyond that, and you're fooling yourself.

Yes, lucky for the purchaser in 2008 when it was downgraded that the PCGS guarantee still covered copper. PCGS made the purchaser "right" with a check to the tune of $15,000... If that happened today, PCGS' guarantee no longer covers copper. That single coin is one of the main reasons they changed their policy. Of course, $15,120 for a coin struck by the billions was a completely stupid price to begin with -- that money would have likely been better spent by the purchaser by having his head examined by a neurologist.

I agree with you 100%. What's even more absurd, when a coin comes up for sale, it gets both a bump in price from the "market-grading" bump, and the additional "toning premium" that people think it deserves. People who don't know that PCGS has already upgraded a coin because of it's "eye appeal" are then stupidly also bidding it up again because of the eye appeal / toning. This idiocy has becoming the norm for pricing of USA coins. One of the many reasons that I collect almost no USA coins. In a similar vein, this is why I pay absolutely no attention to the silly CAC sticker that has surfaced on USA coins in the past 7 or so years. That sticker basically means that one man (John Albanese) likes the coin at the grade on the holder. That has absolutely nothing to do with whether I will like it. While I do buy graded coins often, I buy what I like -- and often couldn't give two shits what the grade is on the label. I own coins in MS62 holders that are heads above the same type of coin I have seen in an MS65 holder.

I think it's humorous when he goes through the grade descriptions at around 9 minutes in. He describes the pictures he's showing with ranges of MS grades: 63-64, then 65-66, then 67-69. This is humorous because that pretty much defeats their argument that they are able to micro-grade a coin to 11 levels of MS. There is no consistency is differentiation between 63/64 and between 65/66. In general, PCGS has a reputation of being "more conservative" on coins (i.e., they will assign a lower numeric grade). BUT, PCGS has serious consistency problems. Resubmissions will have a higher variance of grades at PCGS, and while the grade might be one numeric grade higher on average at NGC, in my experience, NGC has a lower variance of grades, in that they will almost always grade a coin the same numeric grade upon resubmission. There are numerous examples on USA coin forums as proof of this phenomenon. IMO, consistency is more desirable in a TPG than an occasional conservative grade. I also think it's unfortunate that the examples they give are Morgan dollars (probably one of the ugliest US coins around and extremely common) and he argues you should submit 63/64 level coins to PCGS -- please!. Based on their figure, the grade of a mint state coin is determined by: 1. 60% surface preservation 2. 15% strike 3. 15% luster 4. 10% eye appeal I'd be interested to know of those 4 components, what respective percentages would UK collectors assign? I have always had a hard time separating components 1/2/3, and component 4 is very subjective and hand waving. For a coin to have lustrous surfaces, the strike has to be relatively complete. Luster is formed when a coin is struck, and lack of luster is a level of surface preservation. My point being, 1/2/3 are all intertwined -- and point 4 is a subjective hand waving opinion. Strangely, I have seen PCGS clearly/obviously upgrade the numeric grade of some toned coins by 2 MS points for the "eye appeal" factor. That's the market grading component. They upgrade the coin by 2 points because they think the market value of the coin is above the lower grade...the problem is then at sale time, dealers and collectors think the toning merits a 4-10x premium over a non-toned example in the grade assigned without realizing that the coin has already been upgraded for the color. It's a vicious circle of idiocy. Just my 2 cents...

Recently picked up this lovely Scottish token. The detail is absolutely splendid in hand. I'm posting larger pics for this one to show off the fine workmanship...sorry about the scuffs on the plastic holder. 1797 Ayrshire Halfpenny Token, NGC MS64BN

What amazing images - are you using a scanner and if so which one - and what other software? Hi thanks for the compliment. It took me a few years to get my coin photography to what I considered decent. I use a camera with a bellows set-up. You can see more about my equipment at this link.

A new little farthing token I recently acquired. I liked the pigs on the reverse... The date is VERY small in exergue on the reverse -- seems to have been an afterthought. I found this little story/link to be interesting regarding the topic of the token. Best, Brandon

This one arrived today. It is a Notgeld type piece from 1923, commemorating the 700th Anniversary of the city of Peine. It's one of the nicer pieces of blue toned copper in my collection, with booming luster and a lovely design. Cheers, Brandon

...continued...

Of the four purchases I made at the Florida United Numismatists (FUN) show in Orlando, three of them were copper. For the one token (in the 2nd post below) I have provided two different types of pictures to show the color.

Great token Damian...congrats!