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11 hours ago, Menger said:

An early, proof-like strike still deserves a premium though. Indeed, it may be more scarce than a genuine proof.  So I don’t steer completely clear. 

Expanding on this theme of early strikes, a few things I have read over the years would have these early strikes looked out in a different light, although not true proofs they are referred to in several books to be select in production and therefore of similar quality to proof coinage and in some cases as 'specimen'.

These coins would probably be used in gifts and for marketing showing quality and detail, most commonwealth or dependent countries had coinage struck by the Royal Mint, some independent countries did also.

There are also pyx records of currency coinage undergoing the same scrutiny as proof and precious metal coinage.

I would reference Pecks, and Gruber before, with regard to Copper Pennies and Halfpenny references following his listings, recorded as bronzed currency coinage, and would cite the Colin Adams collection for numerous examples.

Hocking with regard reference to coinage struck for record, usually regarded as Proof.

Montagu with reference to CP1857 Proof, slabbed as 'Proof like' by NGC.

I am sure collectors of other denominations could come forward with examples of their own.

This would then bring about the question, which is rarer, the Specimen or the Proof.

 

1839 Proof sets were struck on order up until the 1853 set became available, the 1839 Halfpenny is the same Obv die as used on Jersey currency coinage of that date, no currency Halfpennies were struck for the UK in that year, and maybe once initial orders had been satisfied the dies were used for that purpose.

This caused 1841 Halfpenny and Penny replacing the 1839 Coppers within the sets, and for a short period, the the 1841 and 1843 Halfpennies dies were adjusted to 1839,

It is possible a similar action was initiated, maybe achieved on the Penny, Bramah references a 1841 copper penny with a crescent under the 4, the beginning of an 8, or just maybe a 3.

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18 minutes ago, Old Money said:

CPBP1858o(27).JPG

S6000524.JPG

Is that top one ex-Baldwins (which they sold as a proof) then ex-Roland Harris, but looked artificially bronzed? Nice looking coin.

And presume you mean that the 1839 IOM halfpenny shares the same obverse, as there was no 1839 Jersey halfpenny and they have an ornamented fillet in the headband?

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18 minutes ago, oldcopper said:

Is that top one ex-Baldwins (which they sold as a proof) then ex-Roland Harris, but looked artificially bronzed? Nice looking coin.

And presume you mean that the 1839 IOM halfpenny shares the same obverse, as there was no 1839 Jersey halfpenny and they have an ornamented fillet in the headband?

The Copper bronzed currency penny is not the Baldwins coin, had it several years before, if I find the record I will pass it on.

I have had several over the years, but none from Auction or notable collections.

A few years since I last looked at notes, memory fades, you are right it is the IOM CHP1839.

 

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I think the 1839 sets were produced on demand up to the mint refurbishment in 1882, because it's difficult to find another reason for the 1839 sixpence reverse combined with the final young head obverse which wasn't introduced until 1880. These are rare. It might also explain the minimal number of inverted die axis 1839 proof halfpennies (P1523*) and farthings (P1557) known. My 1839/41 halfpenny is inverted, but I don't know anyone with another inverted 1839 halfpenny to see if that is also 1839/41. Can anyone chip in here?

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1 hour ago, Old Money said:

The Copper bronzed currency penny is not the Baldwins coin, had it several years before, if I find the record I will pass it on.

I have had several over the years, but none from Auction or notable collections.

A few years since I last looked at notes, memory fades, you are right it is the IOM CHP1839.

 

Thinking about it, the Baldwins coin might have been 1857.

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4 minutes ago, oldcopper said:

Thinking about it, the Baldwins coin might have been 1857.

1607127156_CPCP1857o(25).JPG.099b1e747d050c5a2635e20b8b93e8f1.JPG

Bought from Northeast Numismatics

 

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3 hours ago, Old Money said:

Expanding on this theme of early strikes, a few things I have read over the years would have these early strikes looked out in a different light, although not true proofs they are referred to in several books to be select in production and therefore of similar quality to proof coinage and in some cases as 'specimen'.

These coins would probably be used in gifts and for marketing showing quality and detail, most commonwealth or dependent countries had coinage struck by the Royal Mint, some independent countries did also.

There are also pyx records of currency coinage undergoing the same scrutiny as proof and precious metal coinage.

I would reference Pecks, and Gruber before, with regard to Copper Pennies and Halfpenny references following his listings, recorded as bronzed currency coinage, and would cite the Colin Adams collection for numerous examples.

Hocking with regard reference to coinage struck for record, usually regarded as Proof.

Montagu with reference to CP1857 Proof, slabbed as 'Proof like' by NGC.

I am sure collectors of other denominations could come forward with examples of their own.

This would then bring about the question, which is rarer, the Specimen or the Proof.

 

1839 Proof sets were struck on order up until the 1853 set became available, the 1839 Halfpenny is the same Obv die as used on Jersey currency coinage of that date, no currency Halfpennies were struck for the UK in that year, and maybe once initial orders had been satisfied the dies were used for that purpose.

This caused 1841 Halfpenny and Penny replacing the 1839 Coppers within the sets, and for a short period, the the 1841 and 1843 Halfpennies dies were adjusted to 1839,

It is possible a similar action was initiated, maybe achieved on the Penny, Bramah references a 1841 copper penny with a crescent under the 4, the beginning of an 8, or just maybe a 3.

I actually bought the Copthorne 1874H F74 penny in 2016, which is an example of a "specimen" strike. Although I only went on what was said. In truth I'm not actually sure either way. For all I know it might just be a F73 in a decent state of preservation. There's nothing specific to mark it out as anything special. Although if necessary I've no doubt I'd still be able to pass it on as a specimen based on past acceptance. See what you think:-

Quote

"Specimen Issue. BMC 1698. F 74. Dies 7+H. Small rim nick at 3 o'clock. Virtually As Struck with some lustre.
Ex D. Wallis Collection, DNW Auction 83, 30 September 2009, lot 3372 [from J. Welsh January 2000]. Periodically, the Heaton mint struck carefully finished specimen coins of varying denominations as an example of what the company could produce; in some instances they were presented as gifts to dignitaries and government officials and in other cases were part of the travelling portfolio of a Heaton sales representative (cf. Gunstone, SNC December 1977, p.545; cf. Tansley Collection, DNW 67, lot 369)" SOURCE  (lot 86)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

specimen rev cropped.jpg

 

specimen 18 cropped.jpg

Edited by 1949threepence
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18 minutes ago, 1949threepence said:

I actually bought the Copthorne 1874H F74 penny in 2016, which is an example of a "specimen" strike. Although I only went on what was said. In truth I'm not actually sure either way. For all I know it might just be a F73 in a decent state of preservation. There's nothing specific to mark it out as anything special. Although if necessary I've no doubt I'd still be able to pass it on as a specimen based on past acceptance. See what you think:-

specimen rev cropped.jpg

 

specimen 18 cropped.jpg

I think any coin struck to such standard, if not proof, would fall into that category.

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3 minutes ago, Old Money said:

I think any coin struck to such standard, if not proof, would fall into that category.

"prooflike"

The obverse rim is thicker than usual, and it's a very nice coin. I've no reason to doubt it's a specimen based on what was said. But I do think it comes down to personal opinion, as opposed to being definitively certain. 

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At page 407, Peck does make reference to "bronzed current pieces" of which the 1857 is one. Although at page 405 he casts doubt on the authenticity of the bronzing.

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On 4/19/2023 at 8:04 PM, Rob said:

I think the 1839 sets were produced on demand up to the mint refurbishment in 1882, because it's difficult to find another reason for the 1839 sixpence reverse combined with the final young head obverse which wasn't introduced until 1880. These are rare. It might also explain the minimal number of inverted die axis 1839 proof halfpennies (P1523*) and farthings (P1557) known. My 1839/41 halfpenny is inverted, but I don't know anyone with another inverted 1839 halfpenny to see if that is also 1839/41. Can anyone chip in here?

Is the 1839 proof sixpence with obverse 6 mentioned in any books?

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6 hours ago, Mr T said:

Is the 1839 proof sixpence with obverse 6 mentioned in any books?

ESC 3249 (1738). The last one I noticed went through Heritage in the last 5 years. Can't remember the date though.

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Coopers Coins are asking £675 for this quite ordinary large rose, large date penny - link

I got mine - a better example than that - also as a BIN in April 2021 for just £155 from emeeco. 

Another instance of a huge price rise (although obviously there will be some natural variation from one dealer to another in any case, but not that much).   

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1 hour ago, 1949threepence said:

Coopers Coins are asking £675 for this quite ordinary large rose, large date penny - link

I got mine - a better example than that - also as a BIN in April 2021 for just £155 from emeeco. 

Another instance of a huge price rise (although obviously there will be some natural variation from one dealer to another in any case, but not that much).   

I'd suggest they're just flying a kite to see if anyone bites (if you'll excuse the mixed metaphor). I'd say the fact that no-one is watching tells you all you need to know.

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12 minutes ago, Peckris 2 said:

I'd suggest they're just flying a kite to see if anyone bites (if you'll excuse the mixed metaphor). I'd say the fact that no-one is watching tells you all you need to know.

It'll be interesting to see if anyone does bite, and if they don't, whether they will start to lower the price - they're already inviting offers.

It's a hell of a lot to ask for such a bog standard coin, condition wise. The large rose, large date is scarce, but not desperately rare.

Edited by 1949threepence

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I think its more likely the Large rose he overpaid for when he bought it , it has been for sale over two years.

The same seller has recently added one on his website in fine grade for £100 and the more expensive one maybe he bought attributed and just gave it a go.

Some copper pennies sellers have found not attributed and not paid much for them ,its therefore much easier to sell them cheaply.

Dealers who buy quite a lot may just take a chance and pay a high price for something considered rare / scarce hoping to sell it and just make a bit ,it doesnt always work. 

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On 4/23/2023 at 6:49 PM, Rob said:

ESC 3249 (1738). The last one I noticed went through Heritage in the last 5 years. Can't remember the date though.

Many thanks.

Unhelpfully listed under the sixpences of 1880!

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On 5/6/2023 at 4:12 PM, Mr T said:

Many thanks.

Unhelpfully listed under the sixpences of 1880!

The Verene collection of UK proofs sold by Nobles Auctions last July also included the mule 1839 mule 6d

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On 5/1/2023 at 11:12 PM, 1949threepence said:

It'll be interesting to see if anyone does bite, and if they don't, whether they will start to lower the price - they're already inviting offers.

It's a hell of a lot to ask for such a bog standard coin, condition wise. The large rose, large date is scarce, but not desperately rare.

My 5 years count of ebay listings (2007-2011) found 13 large rose 1858's, from almost 3000 listings of 1858's.

Of these 6 were small date and 7 were large date. I remember that when I first became aware of the large rose variety (courtesy of another member) I found the small date type first, and it then took me a good year to find the large date type. I don't think that many collectors were aware of the large rose varieties back during my study period, so this would suggest that the small / large date types have similar rarity. These stats probably go against what most collectors now believe to be the case.

In any event, 13 large roses over 5 years compares with 70 x 1849's, so I think it is a pretty difficult type to locate, particularly in a decent grade.

      

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4 hours ago, alfnail said:

My 5 years count of ebay listings (2007-2011) found 13 large rose 1858's, from almost 3000 listings of 1858's.

Of these 6 were small date and 7 were large date. I remember that when I first became aware of the large rose variety (courtesy of another member) I found the small date type first, and it then took me a good year to find the large date type. I don't think that many collectors were aware of the large rose varieties back during my study period, so this would suggest that the small / large date types have similar rarity. These stats probably go against what most collectors now believe to be the case.

In any event, 13 large roses over 5 years compares with 70 x 1849's, so I think it is a pretty difficult type to locate, particularly in a decent grade.

      

So about 0.4% of all 1858's you recorded were large rose. I never imagined they were quite that scarce. Indeed, many of us have had it in mind that the small date large rose variety was considerably rarer than the large date, large rose. But from your findings, it's much nearer 50/50. 

Out of interest do you have figures for the 1854 no colons on reverse variety?

As ever thanks for such incredibly useful stats Ian.

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Hi Mike,

I was wondering whether you might ask about the 1854 No Colons Bramah 17a one day!

I'm afraid I haven't yet started on the 1854 analysis, partly because there are around 4,000 of those in my 5-year study; also, I was wondering what to attempt. Clearly the OT/PT split is relatively easy, but perhaps not that interesting. The OT no colons is clearly feasible, but I would also like to attempt the 1854/3. I'm thinking, however, that in the absence of a good additional identifier, I don't think the picture quality of most ebay listings will be detailed enough to allow me to do that one.

I will do the No Colons count at some point and post on the forum. Thanks for asking, it's good to get a bit of pressure to make me do it. 😣  

By the way, I have a spare copy of Bramah if anyone is interested, but it won't be for peanuts!

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1 hour ago, alfnail said:

Hi Mike,

I was wondering whether you might ask about the 1854 No Colons Bramah 17a one day!

I'm afraid I haven't yet started on the 1854 analysis, partly because there are around 4,000 of those in my 5-year study; also, I was wondering what to attempt. Clearly the OT/PT split is relatively easy, but perhaps not that interesting. The OT no colons is clearly feasible, but I would also like to attempt the 1854/3. I'm thinking, however, that in the absence of a good additional identifier, I don't think the picture quality of most ebay listings will be detailed enough to allow me to do that one.

I will do the No Colons count at some point and post on the forum. Thanks for asking, it's good to get a bit of pressure to make me do it. 😣  

By the way, I have a spare copy of Bramah if anyone is interested, but it won't be for peanuts!

Thanks Ian.

You'd have thought there would have been a re-print of Bramah by now. Can't be copyright issues as they expire 70 years after the author's death. As Bramah died in 1942, that date would have been reached in 2012.

The originals, being so rare, will always sell at a premium even if there was a re-print.

 

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I'm loosely back to collecting coins thanks to the hobby I moved onto when I left here back in 2008: Pokémon cards. The amount of money that has found its way into Pokémon "investing" in the past 4 or 5 years is absurd. There are a lot of different cards which were difficult to sell for much more than £10 back in 2018 which are now easily selling above £1k.

I'm laughing at myself at the moment because a PSA 10 copy of a Pokémon card I decided not to buy for $400 back in early 2019 sold in Japan last week for the equivalent of $102,800 just 17 minutes after being listed. It's completely bonkers.

In early 2020 covid was keeping everyone at home, and a lot of late-20 to mid-30 year olds found themselves with nothing to do. Pokémon was something we played during our childhood, and nostalgia bought a lot of people back, then adults collecting Pokémon cards started making headlines around April 2020 ultimately attracting more and more people into the hobby. Thanks to the addition in the US of stimulus checks giving everyone free money, prices of pretty much every card ever made quadrupled between January 2020 and June 2020. Your typical readily-available £5 card was suddenly £20 and where demand was so high a lot had very low supply.

A lot of us that had been in the hobby for several years beforehand thought it was a fleeting bubble, myself included. I personally stopped buying any Pokémon cards around August 2020, expecting prices to plummet by the end of the year. Prices did level out for a little while, but fast forward to January 2021 and the introduction of the second stimulus check only caused prices to go up even further. Those typical £5 cards that were £20 in June were now breaking the £50 barrier - a 10x increase in just over a year. But this was just the start...

Minor celebrities with large social media followings started getting in on the action. Around April 2021 a friend of mine sold a PSA 9 "Pokémon Illustrator" card they'd bought in 2019 for $70,000 to a Dubai collector for $900,000, setting what was then the record for the most an individual Pokémon card had ever sold for.

For over 5 years at this point I had been collecting cards in PSA 10 grade, and despite thinking I'd never sell any of my cards I made the decision to begin downgrading my collection in mid-2021. The gap in value between PSA 9 and PSA 10 was silly at this point. I sold a PSA 10 card for almost five figures and the very same day picked up a PSA 9 replacement for just over £100.

In late 2021 a scummy influencer broke the $900,000 record my friend set a few months prior by purchasing a PSA 10 copy of the same card for $4,000,000 plus over $900,000 worth of trade value. Despite being a PSA 10, the card was well known in the community to have been crossed from a PSA 8 several years prior and it was later revealed that the $4,000,000 he spent was profit from some cryptocurrency scam he operated. Regardless, this made headlines around the world when he showed up to a boxing match wearing the card dangling from a necklace... as any normal person would.

Despite Pokémon card values already being significantly higher than they'd ever been at this point, the trend didn't slow down there. China's economic uncertainty bought a lot of wealthy Chinese investors into the hobby, buying cards for far more than they'd ever been sold before. If a card sold for over $1k in a popular auction house like Heritage or PWCC it almost guaranteed that every other copy of that card would be subsequently bought out from eBay and other stores - sometimes these would sell over 5 times higher than the auction copy.This trend continued throughout 2022 and into this year. We're now seeing Japan go through a similar Pokémon card boom. Prices on Japanese cards - which were already greatly inflated from their 2019 values - now had significant interest from wealthy Japanese investors. That $102,800 card I mentioned earlier was a sale between a Japanese card shop and Japanese investor. It's one of 167 PSA 10 copies of the same card, and is a 3x increase in value since the beginning of the year.

The downgrading of my collection I began in 2021 has now turned into me auctioning off all of my remaining PSA 10 cards. I don't value them anywhere near as much as people are paying for them, and whilst the income is something I welcome I'm quite sad that what used to bring myself and a lot of others great enjoyment has been transformed from a bit of fun into a serious investment. Very few people collect Pokémon cards for enjoyment any more, and demand is so high that it's almost impossible to find new product on shelves.

I still very much believe Pokémon is going through a bubble, but it's been going on for so long now that I don't know when or if it'll ever burst.

Sorry for writing a slightly off-topic essay. I mostly wanted to say that I'm enjoying being able to pick up farthings for not all that much higher than I was paying 15 years ago. It's refreshing.

Edited by Master Jmd

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