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Welcome to predecimal.com
The largest British Coin Forum in the world, with almost 200,000 coin related posts and over 22 years of activity. Serious numismatic discussions, new discoveries and highly knowledgeable members. We also strive to be a welcoming place for beginners.
If you're new, thank you for coming. If you've been here for many years - thank you for making this what it is, my sincere gratitude for your support and all the activity over the decades.
C H Perkins, October 2025
Update 14/1/26: Items For Sale and Wanted can now be found in the Members Only area.
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Recent Posts
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By secret santa · Posted
In my humble opinion, varieties are created by the design process, i.e. the decision to strike a coin from a selected pair of obverse and reverse designs. Any anomalies created by the minting (or striking) process are exactly that - anomalies, collectibility of which is in the eye of the beholder. The confusion was probably started by Freeman's decision to grant a variety number to the 1897 Dot penny. As I say, just my opinion. And the debate will probably go on forever. On my websites, I refer to variations to a particular "variety", such as variation in the date spacing, as a "sub-variety" whereas Gouby assigns specific identifiers. You pays your money...................... -
After another couple of months, it now looks like this. This photo taken with the new camera I have just picked up - I have not quite got the hang of the focus and exposure yet - sorry! The "copper disease" is much less evident in the hand and the coin will never be perfect again, but I think better than it was. -
I then set about an attempt to retone the coin. A thin coating in vegetable oil and then left on the window ledge in the sun. After a couple of months, it looked like this:
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Here is the coin after cleaning. I started with the Sodium sequicarbonate, both hot and quick and slow and cold, which removed most of the patina but not the verdigris. I resorted to a short dip in diluted Ammonia, which got rid of the verdigris and most of the residual patina. The remaining red staining would not shift - is this "Copper disease"?
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I have been experimenting with trying to recover a 1739 Half penny since December. I am going to post 4 pictures to show how things went. Firstly, this is the start point after I had picked the coin up and given it a quick Acetone wash, only to discover the verdigris hidden under old polish/varnish or whatever.
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