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Of course I did ...and I saw ( and still see ) a modern token ( not a coin ) with no value at all ... you can find these things on the stalls for tourists in Rome at 1 €.

In the late 60s my Dad had a shop and he would let me go through the till to see if I could find anything of interest. I found a number of Bun pennies. mostly very worn with the only decent one dated 1892. The oldest was dated 1860 but only the exergue wasn't completely worn. There were plenty of Old Head pennies but very few halfpennies although I did find two with dates of 1895 and 1897. The only pre-1920 silver I found was a 1919 shilling. (I still have all those coins.) Foreign coins would often crop up and I found a few oddities including examples from Singapore, NZ and the UAE. The oldest coins I found (and still have) are a 1906 US Indian Head Penny, an 1899 Argentinian 10 Centavos and an 1875 German 10 Pfennigs.

Bun pennies would quite often turn up in VG, usually dated between 1889 and 1892, or 1875. Pre-1925 halfpennies would often have reverses no better than Poor, or even flat, so bun halfpennies were probably mostly withdrawn. It did make my finding a 1909 halfpenny in GVF+ rather special though.

Lovely crown, Paulus, and a great job with the photo! I'm going to start experimenting with images of my coins this Summer too. I work away most of the year, so I often miss my collection, and I really should get into the 21st century! If I could produce some photos even half as good as your crown pic, I'd be happy!

I've seen a few copies of both G5 & G6 halfcrowns, but they have all been the right size. The reasons I thought the larger was the copy was the shorter serifs on the linked Gs and the C. The shape of the protrusion on the harp by the left Gs looks to be straight as well instead of being slightly curved.

Your dad is quite right. I worked for J Lyons teashops in my school holidays and on occasions I was trusted to work the till at the end of the counter. Bun pennies, usually very worn (clear date) were easily found, as were widow head coins in around fine. I never once saw a Victorian halfpenny of any kind, and even Edward VII ones were rare and very worn. The best Victorian penny I ever found was a 1892 in GVF, which I still have. Otherwise, the only other notably decent coin was a 1866 one thirteenth of a shilling from Jersey in EF. The coin is absolutely jet black and has a commonwealth style bust, which is probably the reason it got spent - the owner I would guess thought he was fiddling me with a foreign coin by passing it on. Again, I still have it. It is probably the fact that interesting coins could be found in change which set me on the path of collecting. I put together an album in the late 1960s/early 70s, and was inspired to pick up the interest again in the early 1990s, and the rest as they say is history.

At first glance I would say from the reverse that it IS a matt proof - it has superb overall detailing. Harder to tell from the obverse, as it seems to have been cleaned, which is a real shame. I think it IS the proof though.

Damn the truncated summaries of a post's title on the right! All I saw was: Hi and best way to get la I was really hoping for something interesting, or at least a few tips.