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Kronos

The Standard Guide to Grading British Coins

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That's great! Thanks.

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i havn't seen this book, but would love to have a look at general grades so i can decide myself, seen a 1920 halfpenny at UNC but it has some red spots on luste (yellow) and the detail in the sea on in hair is faint.. hard to decide.

yet i got a nice 1861 farthing for the "Fine" price, even though it has some lustre and i see no signs of wear on victoria so again... hard to grade it.

would be interested to see what fair is in victoria copper and victoira bronze

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Maybe I missed some discussion, but does it cover hammered and how far back? I'd be interested if it does if only to compare my self grading with the experts. B)

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No it's just modern milled, 1797 to 1970 (no decimal).

I imagine a hammered grading guide would be an even bigger task.

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Shame! I'll just have to carry on with my efforts! :P

Edited by Geordie582

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If you've got a good selection of hammered types in various grades to photograph, I'll publish it!

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It is almost impossible to consistantly grade hammered coins.

I consider them to be poor, OK or nice.

The grade of a hammered will depend on the flan shape , central striking , depth of strike, flan clipping etc

There are also differences down to quality of silver ie a EF Henry V111 in debased silver will not match a lesser grade Fine silver issue Edward V1.

Even with Ed 1 pennies the early issues are not as asthetically nice.

Before the advent of the internet and glossy dealer catalogues I used to buy hammered on the strength of the dealers grades. Quite a few of these were returned.

I now only buy on the strength of good pictures or in hand inspection.

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All those reasons are exactly why I've not considered getting involved in a hammered grading book!

But what about a general guide with pictures of lots of different types in various conditions and labelled with the authors opinion? With lots of large quality pictures it may give the reader a general idea on what's what for a few of the most commonly encountered types. I bet we (as a forum) could source enough coins from our own collections for such a book!

That would be fun. I could even publish it with the author name as 'Predecimal.com Forum'.

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All those reasons are exactly why I've not considered getting involved in a hammered grading book!

But what about a general guide with pictures of lots of different types in various conditions and labelled with the authors opinion? With lots of large quality pictures it may give the reader a general idea on what's what for a few of the most commonly encountered types. I bet we (as a forum) could source enough coins from our own collections for such a book!

That would be fun. I could even publish it with the author name as 'Predecimal.com Forum'.

Other than Roman, I don't have many hammered coins and the ones that I do have are mostly horrid. Nonetheless if anyone wants to get going on a guide, I will quite happily photograph them.

Based on my collection, perhaps we should coin(!) a new grading system specially for hammered coins e.g.

OK

Nasty

Very Nasty

Extremely Nasty

Indescribable

or am I being a tad harsh?

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Sounds good to me. I think 'OK' is probably a bit too strong. The top grade should be 'Alright'! Then the varying grades of nastiness!

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Sounds good to me. I think 'OK' is probably a bit too strong. The top grade should be 'Alright'! Then the varying grades of nastiness!

Hmmm... is this good indescribable or almost very nasty... can't decide :)

Yeah, that works!

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Clive....oh Cli-ive...!

sounds like one for you, mate.

i'm sure you all know who I mean

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OK

Nasty

Very Nasty

Extremely Nasty

Indescribable

or am I being a tad harsh?

Methinks you omitted " missed the die"!!

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Methinks you omitted " missed the die"!!

Product of ye mint next to Ye Olde Dog & Duck.

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This project does sound incredibly interesting.

OK

Nasty

Very Nasty

Extremely Nasty

Indescribable

or am I being a tad harsh?

You had better wash your mouth out Red Riley... :lol:

Kindest Regards,

Clive.

Edited by HistoricCoinage

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well i have a copy of coin market values 1999 which shows 3 examples for grading

early hammered, henry 7 groat and a william 4 shilling

for hammered Fine is more like poor/fair in later milled from what i see in this, but yes such a task would be rediculous, as you will have differant strike strengths, allignments, chips, bits broken off etc.

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This project does sound incredibly interesting.

Look, I know it's my fault for bringing down the tone of this discussion, but there does seem to be the germ of a very good idea here. So, just to recap, the idea was to obtain a large number of images of hammered coins and to let the experts on the board decide their grade, and then publish the results.

Wear on hammered coins is so random that anything too structured could end up by posing more questions than it solves but a large number of examples with, where necessary, considered opinions would be an extremely useful tool.

I would be quite happy to contribute in terms of writing and photography, but the technical expertise will have to come from the specialists. Chris has already said (I hope not too tongue in cheek!) that he sees the project as viable, so how about it?

I will also attempt to post this as a separate subject.

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So there you are, it won't be available for Christmas, but will make a darned good Easter present!

Any predecimal calendar,listing of coin events,antiques show carboot etc, first quarter is nearly over, background picture of high grade coins in the book,maybe,or just simply poster dont know if it will work,just a comment.

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I have thought about producing a Coin wall calender. That could be a nice thing.

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I have thought about producing a Coin wall calender. That could be a nice thing.

I also have thought that you have thought of it,much better if there is a schedule of event etc ,etc. in GB additional info for those who hunt also tourist,maybe also poster like what coppercoins coins did, just post my comment earlier for furture use or archive in this forum at least I did post it,your the expert,you can gauge and judge on it,or have a poll,you can include maps,of all coinshop,antique shop,antique fair,antique show,coinshow and carboot,etc in whole of GB.

just a comment

Edited by josie

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ohh. i have a few ideas myself.

i do think a hammered grading book is needed though.

my ideas

book of modern variants, so many victorian coins and some are very hard to work out without pictures, looking on myfarthings.com shows a few variants not listed in the book. well i guess the larger books cover them all but just a book on victorian variants would be great

budget collecting.

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As a publisher I have to produce books that I think have a chance of selling in large numbers. Not millions (that would be nice) but at least 1000 a year.

So for that reason I have so far avoided very specialist titles. Rather than a book on Victorian varieties I'd rather maximise the potential readership and do one on all varieties! But even that may be too specialised. Actually Collectors' Coins GB already includes a lot of unlisted varieties. Some, but not all, are illustrated. So I'm up for books on varieties, but ideally as a bonus part of my main priceguide so that it wins over more readers, rather than doing a new title from scratch.

And as for budget collecting, if someone could present a workable idea I'd gladly have a look. But again, would much rather include information about budget collecting in my price-guide than create a new book!

It's easier to find 500 more customers for an existing established book (by adding extra content for example) than it is to find 1000 new customers for an entirely new book!

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It's easier to find 500 more customers for an existing established book (by adding extra content for example) than it is to find 1000 new customers for an entirely new book!

That makes sense, otherwise you end up like the photography book I just read where the author spends half the text referring you to his other books! Very annoying...

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well i dont see why an extra 5-6 pages just to cover a few extra veriants would do no harom.. i know there are plenty there and that was why i bought it (budget and covered more recent stuff... coins market values has nothing for 1885 farthing let alone variants....) was checking some of my recent farthing purchases and found them on myfarthing but not in the book.

while we are on the subject, we want a grading book for hammered, the one key thing i find missing is, early hammered been picking up pre 1799's to cover a monarch run, now i know there are loads of differant veriaties for those but a rough guide to those would be good.

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Just to let you know, I bought the Kindle edition of this. It is SO HELPFUL! Thank you!

Are there any plans for future editions, with more illustrations etc?

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