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15 minutes ago, Zo Arms said:

I think I'd be slightly suspicious.

Sellers feedback would be hugely off-putting for me. 10 negs, 42 neutral. Doesn't instill confidence.

May be wrong tho.😄

27 of those 42 neutrals were this month from one buyer. I couldn't be a***d to go through and find the offending items, but frankly I wouldn't worry too much unless it was someone selling fakes and called out as such. I had a stupid woman from York leave crappy feedback for receiving something as described! She expected something different to what was pictured and written in the description. :blink:

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8 hours ago, jelida said:

I seem to have a sense of ‘deja vu’ again........

http://www.predecimal.com/forum/topic/12193-penny-acquisition-of-the-week/?page=54

see May 14th.

Jerry

I've a strange feeling that we've mentioned  'deja vu'  before.....

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7 hours ago, blakeyboy said:

I've a strange feeling that we've mentioned  'deja vu'  before.....

How weird, I’ve got that ‘vu jàDé’ feeling that I’ve never seen it mentioned before.

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9 hours ago, Zo Arms said:

I think I'd be slightly suspicious.

Sellers feedback would be hugely off-putting for me. 10 negs, 42 neutral. Doesn't instill confidence.

May be wrong tho.😄

Although it is 99.8% positive, and with that level of feedback you're always going to get some dissatisfied customers. 

Even so, I'm always slightly wary at anything less than 100% these days, as I've been shafted on one or two occasions.

 

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Query about the 1856 penny. I hope someone can confirm my thoughts.

Peck records the 1856 ornamental trident (ref 1512) as "very rare", and the 1856 plain trident (ref 1510) as "extremely rare" (page 407) .

Conversely, Bramah, at page 109, considers the 1856 OT as "very rare" and the PT as "scarce".

This isn't about the differing qualitative terms used by each, but about the actual relative rarity. From my observations so far, I'd have to say that the 1856 PT is much the commoner of the two, within otherwise scarce parameters, and that the 1856 OT is - in fact - very rare. So Bramah appears to be correct on relative scarcity, which leads me to wonder why Peck concluded the opposite - unless it's a clerical/typing error.

Thanks in advance.    

  

 

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That is a good question. All i can say is that Spink shows the ornamental trident prices to be slightly higher than the plain trident prices. So i guess that it is there opinion or findings.

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Yes, good point. I am not sure established rarity scales of times past apply to top grade coins nowadays...This would be pennies as well as the silver series of Victoria. 

As far as the 1856 penny, I am not sure if I would rate either type as significantly scarcer as I have seen "streaks" of appearances of both.

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I did an exercise on ebay for a full 5 years between 10 and 15 years ago where I took images of all Victorian Copper Pennies that were listed. Over that period, for 1856, there were 138 PT's listed and 79 OT's, some may have been listed more than once, but figures are still comparable....I think.

Maybe this gives a guide as to rarity.

There were very few in high grade, both types.

 

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11 hours ago, 1949threepence said:

Query about the 1856 penny. I hope someone can confirm my thoughts.

Peck records the 1856 ornamental trident (ref 1512) as "very rare", and the 1856 plain trident (ref 1510) as "extremely rare" (page 407) .

Conversely, Bramah, at page 109, considers the 1856 OT as "very rare" and the PT as "scarce".

This isn't about the differing qualitative terms used by each, but about the actual relative rarity. From my observations so far, I'd have to say that the 1856 PT is much the commoner of the two, within otherwise scarce parameters, and that the 1856 OT is - in fact - very rare. So Bramah appears to be correct on relative scarcity, which leads me to wonder why Peck concluded the opposite - unless it's a clerical/typing error.

Thanks in advance.    

  

 

Pecks was more a catalogue of coins in the BM, an extension of the publication, and consolidation the work of Greuber,.whereas Bramah was essentially a rewrite of Christmas whose book was not made  publicly available and  most of the copies were destroyed soon after his death by his family. These were surveys from general population of coins observed in circulation at the time.

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1 hour ago, alfnail said:

I did an exercise on ebay for a full 5 years between 10 and 15 years ago where I took images of all Victorian Copper Pennies that were listed. Over that period, for 1856, there were 138 PT's listed and 79 OT's, some may have been listed more than once, but figures are still comparable....I think.

Maybe this gives a guide as to rarity.

There were very few in high grade, both types.

 

So not quite a 2:1 ratio in favour of the PT. Thanks very much Ian. Once again, incredibly useful info.

1 hour ago, secret santa said:

Any idea of the ratio of 1856 PT small and large dates, Ian ?

It's odd, isn't it, that Peck made no reference to date width, size, and digit design (for want of a better phrase), except for 1857 to 1859 "small dates". Especially given that date differences prior to 1857, especially 1853 and 1856, are very obvious to the naked eye, and far from subtle. Bramah mentions 1857 (specifically) having a much smaller date variety, presumably because of a report in the Spink Numismatic Circular of March 1895. Apart from that he seems somewhat dismissive of date differences in terms of collectable varieties, because of the sheer number - "innumerable", as he points out.    

39 minutes ago, Chingford said:

Pecks was more a catalogue of coins in the BM, an extension of the publication, and consolidation the work of Greuber,.whereas Bramah was essentially a rewrite of Christmas whose book was not made  publicly available and  most of the copies were destroyed soon after his death by his family. These were surveys from general population of coins observed in circulation at the time.

Yes, Bramah mentions Henry Christmas's work "Copper and billon coinage of the British Empire" (1864) in his bibliography. Something he says at page 108 seemed slightly odd in view of the fact that by 1929, 60 odd years had passed since demonetisation of pre 1860 copper. Yet he says: "......it is very doubtful if any casually-acquired hundred specimens would in practice contain any examples of those dates to which 1 per cent is allocated. The simple reason is that the scarce dates are retained by collectors and will not be found in promiscuous assemblages". Where would anybody have "casually acquired" 100 specimens in 1929? Certainly not from change. By definition they would only be available for sale as collectors items, or the odd few in jam jars etc. Of course, I'm pre-supposing that huge bagfuls of random copper coins weren't available then, in the same way as they are now for pre decimal bronze.      

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I would think Christmas would have had opportunity to census coins that were collected from circulation at the end of 1860 when they were demonetized, as well as collect and use them in the years before. This knowledge was later used by Braham in his conclusions. Any personal observations by Braham could only have been from collections and not circulation.

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1 hour ago, Chingford said:

I would think Christmas would have had opportunity to census coins that were collected from circulation at the end of 1860 when they were demonetized, as well as collect and use them in the years before. This knowledge was later used by Braham in his conclusions. Any personal observations by Braham could only have been from collections and not circulation.

Indeed. I just wondered if Bramah had copied bits directly out of Christmas's book, without modifying them such that they would fit in with the time he was writing.

Probably didn't but it fleetingly crossed my mind.  

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6 hours ago, secret santa said:

Any idea of the ratio of 1856 PT small and large dates, Ian ?

I hadn't gone down to that level on the 1856's yet Richard, but guess it wouldn't take me long..... so will do it over next few days. Trouble is at the moment I'm writing up my Gambia Banknote collection whilst at the same time digging the neighbours Aspen roots out....... which are knackering my lawn.

Wife now retired so need to be a bit careful about computer time!

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5 hours ago, Chingford said:

I would think Christmas would have had opportunity to census coins that were collected from circulation at the end of 1860

The subliminal reason I picked "Secret Santa" as my Forum name !

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Interesting reader letter from a Nigel Palk in the August 2020 edition of "Coin News", in which he refers to two varieties of 1902 LT penny. Here's a screenshot:-

Image preview

 

 

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45 minutes ago, 1949threepence said:

Interesting reader letter from a Nigel Palk in the August 2020 edition of "Coin News", in which he refers to two varieties of 1902 LT penny. Here's a screenshot:-

Image preview

 

 

Where?

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50 minutes ago, DaveG38 said:

Where?

Does this show up?

I dropped in a copy of the previous effort as it was too big to import, and whilst it shows up on my personal devices, it doesn't on anyone else's. Nor on my work surface pro. Had this issue before. No idea what it's all about, but I've now compressed the snip to well below 500 kb and just imported it in the usual way this time. You should now be able to see, hopefully,. 

 

snipped LT.PNG

Edited by 1949threepence

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In my population of two I have two flat-bottomed 2s.

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1 hour ago, terrysoldpennies said:

Any chance of a picture :D

There wasn't one, Terry. Just the reader letter. 

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There was a post about 1902LT on the forum back in October 2015 about 2 different types. Different spacings of numerals and top bar across numeral zero.

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I assume this one of mine is wavy 2 then?

 

1902 D LT 1 Red.JPG

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2 hours ago, Paddy said:

I assume this one of mine is wavy 2 then?

 

1902 D LT 1 Red.JPG

Has to be as it's certainly not "ruler straight".

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