Variety listing

[TerryT 0]

Could someone please lead me to a site with a list of British coin varieties? I've seen Colin Cooke's name mentioned on this site (address?), or any other good ones that I should know about. Thanks.

[Chris Perkins 223]

Gouby is good for pennies, and there may well be other specialists for other denominations. Use google to seach on 'coins gouby' or 'coins cooke'. I'd rather not give them free links! But they're not hard to find.

Also, the forum here has a few unlisted varieties covered.

Most people still refer to Peck, Freeman, Rayner etc. As far as I know, there is no definitive online version.

You could also download my book, which lists quite a few, but isn't free:

http://www.predecimal.com/books/bookshop.htm

[Rob 3,002]

Could someone please lead me to a site with a list of British coin varieties? I've seen Colin Cooke's name mentioned on this site (address?), or any other good ones that I should know about. Thanks.

I'm not sure there is one. Serious variety collectors tend to collect one or two denominations at most. The cost of collecting all varieties in all denominations is a bit prohibitive and also coin collectors are a bit secretive.

For varieties, you will have to plough through a number of books. Generally speaking, the standard references are Spink and Coincraft as these 2 publications give the broadest coverage for date and variety. However, they are both deficient in various ways. Spink doesn't list enough varieties having only some proofs and a handful of patterns but does cover every currency type. The prices are updated on a yearly basis and are an approximate reflection of the real world if a trifle expensive. Many varieites are simply listed as extremely rare with no price info shown. Coincraft has not been produced since 2000 and so prices are nonsensical, but it does have a better list of varieties and covers 1066 onwards.

For more info regarding varieties the standard works for base metal are English Copper, Tin and Bronze coins in the British Museum (otherwise known as Peck - the author) 40 years old but indispensible. The last addition to this was an addendum in the 1967 British Numismatic Journal, so a lot has been discovered since then. Freeman is the other main reference but again is incomplete and only covers bronze pennies, halfpennies and farthings from 1860 onwards plus a few patterns for the proposed decimal currency prior to 1860. Gouby covers pennies in greater detail and there are other older publications such as Batty, Montagu et al but the first 2 are the most important, covering most people's needs.

Silver coins are covered by English Silver Coinage since 1649 by Rayner, last revised in 1992 but still with a lot of holes. Davies' - British Silver Coins since 1816 does what it says on the cover and is reasonably complete with varieties. More so than ESC, but rather narrow in date range.

Hammered is covered by North and sovereigns etc. are covered by Marsh. Both give good variety info.

Other info can be extracted from auction catalogues where reference is frequently made to unrecorded varieties which in the absence of updates to books remain "unrecorded".

Most people compile their own list specific to their personal field of interest. Colin Cooke's list of farthings on the website is not complete and he was in the process of compiling a definitive farthing guide before his untimely demise. I think he said it was up to Queen Anne. I have my own list of halfpennies which is now in excess of 1500 varieties and I haven't read all the books yet. I also have a virtually complete list of all known half-crowns. I haven't started on the shillings yet. None of these are on the web or even on computer.

It is a case of buying the books and doing it yourself, although there may be some other members of this forum who have computerised lists they may be willing to share.

[Peter 615]

Rob

I would like to see the addendum to Pecks work (from the 1967 Journal) !

Varieties were very popular in the monthly (and some fortnightly) coin magazines from the late 60's.....there was a lot of study.

This information is out there and just needs processing.

There is always room for specialist publications ie..George 11 currency farthing varieties... but for Spink or any other publisher to try and encompass everything into a yearly catalogue would be a folly.

I think Chris is going the right way about it in CCGB with notification of a variety so the collector can carry out his own research.

Of course I would love to see CCGB go back to the 1st milled coinage...but this would be a more specialist market for which I would imagine "slightly" more than £5 a chuck will be required.

Going back to Colin Cookes website ,I agree its not complete...but his farthing catalogues contain far more information.eg catalogue 37 (about 6 years old) has 8 listed varities for the 1721 1/4d.

They say there is a book in everyone....no excuse's we all have access to the computer,net and forums such as this.