Chris Perkins

The 50pf with the woman planting a seed or tending to a seedling (from memory)? That design was the same from the late 40s onwards I believe. I've got a few nice examples of the earlier ones but anything from the 80/90s I've long since exchanged at the Deutschebundesbank for Euros.

It could have been a lot worse. Imagine if you were out during the wind and not just after it ;-)

The envelopes I both sell and use for posting out are Polypropylene (PP) which is apparently inert according to studies. http://www.predecimal.com/klar-coin-envelo...1mm-p-7679.html I have them specially made. They are a bit more expensive, but I simply wouldn't entertain PVC at all, even for temporary storage.

Or....it could possibly just be a coin (or 2) that someone has cut in half, or filed down 2 seperate coins. We need to see pictures really.

And it's still in one piece? Coins were often bent to see if they were real or not. Fakes broke because lots of them were made of a brittle alloy. The real ones just bent slightly.

If it's thinner than a normal one (and a little lighter) then it's been filed down. Is there a faint negative impression of the Queens head on the blank side? If so, they may indicate that it's a genuine error.

For how much?

Also, Collectors' Coins GB 2005 is in the public domain, linked to from the homepage of rotographic.com: http://www.rotographic.com/britishcoins2005public.pdf

Can you post pictures of it? The only slight problem is that it is in theory so impossible as an error, that any potential buyers may: 1. doubt its authenticity or, 2. consider it as a coin a mint employee made for a laugh! No. 2 is possible of course. It is unusual and possibly unique, but don't be too greedy as UK errors are historically pretty cheap. You may find someone for a couple of hundred quid, but I don't think we're talking thousands.

Everyone knows that! I think he must have a personal supply of them. They no doubt wear much slower than plastic plectrums, too. I once sold some sixpences to a Japanese guitar shop that intended to market them as Brian May plectrums in case any buddung Japanese Bohemian Rhapsodists desired a more authentic 'metal' tone.

Also relating to 1970s coins and their dates of issue not being the same as the dates on the coins: I've just opened 3 Royal Mint lead sealed canvass bags containing 2p coins. Each of them had a mid 1976 date stamped on the tag, from Aug to November. But all the coins in all 3 bags are actually 1978!! How can a 1978 bag get stamped with a 1976 date? They surely were not making 1978 coins in 1976?

My Krause says $20 VF. It's unfortunately one of those coins that people aren't really falling over themselves for. Perhaps in France it would be a different story.

That's strange. I've had some dealings with Andy and his wife. Met them at the London coin fair too. Domain name look up says that the name expired late July and has not yet been re-newed which means it's currently suspended! That can't be a good sign.

I don't think you'll be having much luck with that one either Russ. It's VF (an attractive VF) and worth around £5 max, not £20.00.

Looks like die damage. Due to wear and tear of the bits used to strike the coins, not strictly a variety. Of slight interest; perhaps worth £1 or so to someone that wants it.

If the threepence is plated (and shows signs of what lies underneath) then it's probably been plated by someone after it left the mint, for a laugh. But if it is actually a different metal all the way through, then it's probably a mint error. Threepences in Nickel are not unheard of and actually there was a Canadian coin which looked very similar to the UK 3d but was made of nickel. The Royal Mint have been known to rarely use foreign blanks. Are there signs of yellow brass coming through, or signs of chiping of potential plating?

Yes, that's about right. That's about what I'd sell it for.

I'll remove the link but leave this here for fun, moved to another area and closed. The Chinese do seen very busy making fakes of everything at the moment!

First one is a jeton (French counting token, they often turn up in fields). The threepence does indeed look very silvery, but do I notice signs of yellowy brass coming through, as if it were plated in a silver metal?

Noted. I'll change it.

The US coin is .900 gold which is a wierd sort of decimal fineness of exactly 90% (as used in Germany and other European countries). It's somewhere between 21 and 22 carat. British gold is spot on 22 carat which is actually .916 fine (91.66666666667%).

I think 1840/50s, but possibly later. They often had an incorrect legend on the reverse, or the makers name. Sometimes they had the right lettering but an impossible date.

It's a brass gaming token surely? A very corroded one. Victorian, made to look like a Guinea. A weight check will reveal that it's not gold (and the corrosion pretty much proves it too). It's pretty worthless.

What's the average age of a Pokemon card collector?!

No, he wasn't. My sources tell me he'd sold it before for £370 and had it returned as a dodgy coin with a tooled '5'. He refunded the buyer then waited and has now listed it again. The original buyer and others have sent ebay messages to him, but last I saw it was still listed and still fraudelently described as a 1905. It is in fact a 1907.