TomGoodheart

If you want a fairly good guide, Lloyd Bennett is one of the dealers that does state grades on his listings. As you'll see if you browse, you can get some pretty nice Cnut pennies but Ed VI shillings not so good. Charles shillings are only really good when made using specially prepared flans - so called 'fine work' issues. In other words, the 'norm' for different types or ages of coins can differ significantly. Just ask Sylvester how many well centred Stephen pennies he's seen with both good legends and bust! That's because there is possible variation at every stage of production! The flan (planchet) is hand produced. They were cut from rods or plate and roughly rounded. They were then stacked together like a pile of pancakes and the edges bashed until the whole stack was more or less circular. This means that often the centre of the coin is thinner than the edge, therefore the legend often strikes up better than the bust. The coin just needs to be dropped into the pile (the lower of the two dies, bearing the bust imprint) without care or the trussle (the upper die) held at a slight angle and the coin will be off-centre or struck more strongly on one side than the other. If the hammer blow or the coiner's grip is weak, if the hammer bounces..... For Charles I by the time Chas had left London, while coins was still produced with the royal portrait, quality control had gone out the window. This means that coins that would for Elizabeth or James only rate as good fine or nVF may be as good as you will ever see outside a museum. That's why grading hammered coins requires you to know so much more about the particular coin you are looking at than the later milled series. Yes it's a challenge but for me (and I suspect Sylvester!) it's one of the things that make collecting such coins so interesting.

And here we have exactly why it's likely to be so difficult to 'certify' grades for hammered coins!! As Sylvester says, you need to compare coins with similar in the series. A great Ed II penny is going to be different from a great Chas shilling. Just to show you, and as you asked (!), here are a couple of examples. The first two are early coins showing the ruff collar popular in the first 'Blackadder'! The coin on the left is as close to EF as you will ever see, the other near VF. The second pair show two coins that are as close possible to how they were when they were first struck (ignore the toning for now). Neither shows any wear at all so, in theory, would be EF. Despite this they only really grade VF because of weaknesses in the striking plus the fact that the first is from knackered dies, the other from poor artistry (what Spink call 'coarse'!).

Ooh goodness. Where to start?.... Well, it's going to depend on the type of coin, rarity etc. It's also going to depend on whether the flaw goes through the coin (ie if it possibly weakens it) or it's a 'crease' in the metal. The extent of the split (ie the proportion of the coin it covers) is also a factor. Some coins are more prone to such things and so collectors will perhaps be more likely to tolerate them. But ultimately I'd guess that, like me, most collectors will look for a decent strike, an even design (ie are the letters and bust equally clear), a central strike and a nice, round flan. The more of these I can get the more likely I'd overlook a small split. It is, as you say, one of the unfortunate but naturally occuring problems of such coins. Will it affect the value - probably yes it will. But the degree to which it does will depend on the above and the grade. After all, true EF hammered coins are not that easy to find! If you can post a pic that may help!

Nah.. no pics a basic listing is going to be 50p or so. He only has to sell one to be laughing all the way to the bank (or jail if I had my way!)

Hmm... yes. I remember Elizabeth, er someone interested in hammered sixpnces (Mitsuko?) and the few one-off posters asking what their coin was. Do we have BO or something?

More evidence that Chris knows everything! Kinda creepy no?

Depends on the age. Silver (pre 1920 .925, 1920-1947 50:50 Silver/CuNi) coins will tone/tarnish. Eventually if left to their own devices and in the 'right' conditions they'll turn black. Basically if the coin is decent enough to make it collectable like these two, don't touch it!!!

Well, thank you josie for introducing a topic of obvious interest to all us regulars here! It seems to me that there are no firm answers here, because each of our views is influenced by what we collect and why we collect it. The 'bottom line' is that collecting habits in the US, where Certification/Slabbing originated, are different from here. There are clearly benefits to C/S, or it wouldn't exist. Similarly population reports etc. But they don't necessarily suit every type of coin or collector. But then if we all collected the same thing and all wanted slabbed (or raw) coins I think it'd be kinda boring! And if you could pay £50 and receive a list of every single variety of George III halfpenny in existence with the number of each variety known to exist would it make collecting them more or less interesting..?

Hmm.. I'm confused josie. Are you of the impression that 'the secrets of British coinage' aren't otherwise recorded, confirmed and verified? But this is exactly what the British Numismatic Journal and to a lesser extent Spink's Numismatic Circular and even magazines like Coin News do. What is done daily on this and other (lesser!) websites. Numismatists and collectors write in with newly discovered varieties, theories and whatever so that others can learn or discuss their interests further. I suspect any business entity would have to pay a not-so-small fortune to be able to draw on the range of knowledge and expertise that the above publications alone can do.

Hmm. Playing Devil's advocate and having read Sylvester's comments I suppose one could say perhaps we do need more certification /grading services! Like Sylvester, I used to collect milled coins. It was quite useful to be able to look through a dealer's catalogue and see a VF 1663 shilling and have a good idea what I might receive. That's because for milled there is a general consistancy to grading between dealers. With hammered the appeal of an individual coin (and they are all individual!) is very much subjective. Yes the 'grade' will influence the seller's asking price but many dealers simply don't state one! Now I think we'd all like the best examples we can afford. I remember my delight when I realised I could read the garter legend at the centre of a Geo II shilling, or could make out the 'fur' on the lions on the reverse of an Elizabethan one. These coins really are miniature works of art and it's only on better examples that you can appreciate it. Additionally the difference between a rare variety and the common type can sometimes only be made out in higher grades. So I suppose that if it could be guaranteed that a coin in a stated grade was always going to be comparable with another it might be useful. And I guess that's exactly what the US market, with it's numeric grading and certification services, is attempting to do. And locking the coin in a little box ensures that you get the coin it claims to be. All well and good. Reverting to my normal view however (Devil's Devil's advocate??) I am concerned that even in the US, where the system has been going for many years, there are problems. We know of slabbed coins being 'coloured' while in the slab. Of coins resubmitted for regrading, in the hope of a higher grade. Of some companies having a decent reputation while others don't. And this is with milled coins of a limited variety over a (relatively) limited number of years of issue. The difficulties in introducing such a system somehere like Britain with it's myriad of denominations alone would be a challenge. Attempting to encompass the vaguaries of early milled and hammered coinage will be even more so. I know I've gone on too much but, just as a last point, here is a link to Goldberg's Jun 2005 auction . I draw your attention to the length of description, particularly to Lot 2161, my favourite and the coin I cited in the earlier thread. I quote "NGC graded MS62 but the cataloguer is at a loss to explain the number." Quite so!!

Thee and me Sylvester will, I suspect, never find slabbing/certification very attractive because the key things that slabbed coins offer aren't of much concern to us. Some of the stuff Rob collects however could be offered protection by the slab and yet interestingly he too is unpersuaded. Certainly for Sylvester and me - we don't require the lustre of our EF coins preserved because they ain't! Even protection from fingermarks is of limited interest when most of your coins are grey lumps like mine! A certified grade is valueless if, like me, you don't take too much notice of the given grade of a coin. Hammered coins just don't conform to a uniform standard and I imagine we both place greater importance on how a coin compares to others we may have seen before than to someone elses view. I doubt either of us is too worried about needing to cater to the sort of market slabs currently inhabit should we want to sell on our 'treasures'. I'm not saying that this couldn't change. An influx of modern fakes of the highest quality isn't impossible - they are known to exist for other types of coin. I would however be surprised if this happened to most of the coins I collect in the same way that I wouldn't expect a huge rush of fake jubilee shillings. I suppose confidence could fall to the extent that raw coins become near impossible to sell, but I can't see this happening for a long time if ever. And if the US market in british hammered ever rises to the extent that prices become astronomical I guess I'll just slab up and accept my millions!!!

True Rob, but I just ran it off. I think if people want to interpret the question more widely, for example, whether or not they would use such a service, whether they think there would be market support etc that'd be fine. After all, it was just to get a flavour of the 'pulse of Europe' josie asked about!

Why does that make me think of David Dickinson?

Here you go josie! For everyone lese, please see IS THERE A CERTIFICATION COMPANY BASE IN EUROPE thread in Lots of British coin related discussions

Sadly I've never met anyone with enough money that they had all the coins they want! I have found that however excellent a coin you may have, there's a chance there will be a better out there somewhere. Getting hold of it however may not be that easy! Luckily for other Charles I shilling collectors, I quite like my coins to have some evidence of how they were made and that they were actually used as money. For me at least, there is a level above which coins are just 'too perfect' and just become museum specimens. As for grading companies in all the European countries josie, I think you're missing the fact that it would only be worth it if there was a market for such a thing. On the basis of the discussions on this forum it is debatable whether there is any demand outside the United States. Coins are only graded and slabbed because their owners want this. I would suggest that the majority of collectors here don't.

What with scottishmoney and now this Christian, you do get about a bit don't you P?

Sorry. I just couldn't resist!! And here's some for Aidan!!

Lockdales of Ipswich offer slabbed coins so they may know how you'd go about this but I'm not aware of any European services. This is in part because European, or at least British, collectors appear less than keen on 'slabbed' coins. (See several threads on this site). You need to remember that some certification services have much better reputations than others so chosing carefully might pay off. You should also be aware that, at least in the UK, the market for slabbed coins is also different from that for 'numismatic' items. Slabbed coins are pretty much just an investment novelty 'over here'. By the way josie please could you use a bit more punctuation line breaks cos your postings are interesting but it's really difficult to read a streamofconsciousness without any breaks between the various subjects or questions and sometimes I simply lose the thread of where you're going?

You can post images on this site pete. That way more people will get to see it!

That sounds an awful lot like the sin of offering strange fire on the altar of burnt-offering Peter (Leviticus 10:1). I should watch out if I were you or the wrath of MrsPeter won't be the only one you'll have to contend with! !!

Hmm... what happened to 'love thy neighbour' and 'thou shalt not kill' Aidan?

I too used mylar 'sandwiches' when I collected milled coins. It was nice to be able to hand a coin to one of my daughter's sticky fingered friends without fear of damage. But now I like how they look in a cabinet and I only collect hammered. If it was a coin I wanted, a slab wouldn't put me off but neither would it be a bonus. I would no doubt 'release' it so it could join the rest in a tray. If I could afford brilliant examples I might worry about cabinet friction but if you look at the gallery examples from my collection you'll see they aren't likely to be too affected! As for fakes I think if I really couldn't tell them apart I suspect I'd start collecting something else. But right now I doubt there's a single slabber/grader who knows as much about what I collect as I do and if I had doubts I have some much more knowlegeable friends I could consult. To be honest, the sort of thing I (or perhaps Geordie, or Sylvester) collect isn't generally going to be worth slabbing. For example - who would pick this out as worth anything???

Ooh, ooh! Do I get into a discussion of religious 'rights and wrongs' , whether 'an eye for an eye' is ever justified and the acceptability or otherwise of homosexuality? Oh the temptation! But on balance (and 'cos I'm off to work in an hour) I think we'll just have to agree to differ for now. That way maybe you and I can stay friends a bit longer Aidan.

As I had suspected (hoped!), Wybrit confirms that not all US collectors have been bitten by the slab/grade bug. But there do seem to be quite a lot of them! I did wonder why this should be. Is it that there just aren't enough old coins available? I'm sure that per capita (and especially considering the new material detectorists are unearthing daily) there are more coins around in the UK. But we still have 'new' coins, in varying degrees of 'perfection'. Why is it that UK collectors don't seem to be so keen to spend big bucks on such things? Perhaps it's a mindset thing. Or marketing? If you aren't thinking of potential market value then 'perfection' becomes less critical - for most of us 'pleasing condition' will do. But if part of your pleasure comes from the idea of financial worth, it's different. 'Beanie babies' in mint condition / coins in slabs - what's the difference? Will it last? I suspect that like me, quite a few of you will have started collecting by picking the nicest and unusual coin examples out of our change. But gradually, I at least, began to see that the most interesting coins weren't interesting because of what they look like but because of how they came to be made, what they could have bought and the sorts of people that might have owned them. In other words I started to move from being a 'collector' to a 'numismatist'. Now I'm not saying that I no longer would like a good well made example of a coin. But for the above reasons, a new coin, a coin I can't touch, a coin that has no evidence of having ever circulated, is now less interesting to me. I wonder if the US market will, with time, evolve away from aspiring for that perfect '70'. And at the same time perhaps people will start to gain more confidence in their own ability to assess a great coin and no longer delegate that task to the grading services?