declanwmagee

The difference is in the relative scarcity. V.R. Court's survey put the Gouby X at 0.8% of 23m 1911s, where as the scarcer 1944 he found to be 16.6% of 42.6m 1944s. So on the basis of those figures, he reckons 188,000 Gouby Xs produced, against more than 7m of the 1944 variety. So for every Gouby X, there's nearly 38 of the other.

And another.... Normal 3 on the left (like yours), Open 3 in the middle, Slender 3 on the right...

Another comparison photo required for this one, I think. Normal to the left, Accumulators example of the rarity to the right. Yours is in the middle Tracy. It's all in the thumb. On the rarity, the thumb is on the diagonal line, while on the other two, it's much closer to St George's Cross.

Yes, I think it's just someone watching Newly Listed....

No I don't think so either... More like the left than like the right....

can you show us the label, Goom?

See if you can get us a pic of the 3 in 1863, Tracy. There are varieties there where, to all intents and purposes, grade doesn't really matter.

them hippies all look the same to me anyway...

Well, Dave... I don't suppose this is any help at all, but: Currency to the left, Maundy to the right. I suspect the lighting of the two photos is so different because the poor camera was trying to make sense of the "proof-iness" of the Maundy, so squeezed down the aperture a bit. It's the same blue background in both shots (Groom's bronze book!). The Maundy is very mirror-like in the hand. Doesn't quite look like a proper coin, unlike the currency, which just looks like any other high grade silver coin. If you laid out all the Jubilee Head threepences I've got, the Maundy would stick out like a sore thumb.

It's difficult enough with Victoria threepences, Tom! On more than one occasion I've ended up concluding that the UNC 3d I just bought was Maundy when it turned up, which is usually a disappointment.

One word, Tracey, for detail in this area.... Gouby.

Yes, I can see crowns being used as five bob in the 19th century, but in the 1940s? Really? I wonder if there's any research or numbers as to what constituted circulating coinage in a particular era. Now that would be interesting. The Veiled Head crowns were issued for circulation, so they must have been circulating freely at least till the 1920 debasement. They would have been top targets for reclamation by the Mint after that though, you'd have thought.

So can we assume that this blind cobbler can tell a fake from a real coin? I can't tell, and I'm a dab hand with the superglue on a flappy sole.

That'll be Marg then. I notice her feedback recently went private, after she was outed on this very forum...

Do you think they were spent at the time, Dave? For five bob, I mean.

Fair point, Gary! Could be a kosher buyer deciding what to put in his snipe engine. Innocent until proven, etc etc.

Here's the best example of shill bidding I've seen in a while. http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&_trksid=p2047675.l2565&rt=nc&item=350844926622 t***1 probes u***q till he finds his max bid and then STOPS. If I find someone's max bid like that I know I can win it for a few quid extra.

look up cdesteve on eBay. I hear he uses a plastic shovel to pick coins for his bulk lots. That's true, by the way, I was told that by another bulk seller!

I'm with you Stuart. I just bung my bid in the snipe engine and go for a bath. I use Gixen, and I'm very happy with it. I do take careful note of what Dave and others discover though, so *name removed* and Martin are excluded from my saved searches, so I don't even see their coins and the shenanigans going on therein.

I'm used to people pinching my photos, but this joker has copied and pasted my title His: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1870-1d-Victoria-bronze-Bun-Head-Penny-Rare-date-and-very-decent-/251300678426?pt=UK_Coins_BritishMilled_RL&hash=item3a82b00b1a Mine: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=151091809785&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

hmmm, you're going to have to do something about your photography, Tracy. A little tripod for a tenner or so, and an angle poise lamp, and you'll be amazed at what a bog standard digital camera can do.

If you have an eye for this sort of thing, there's plenty of undiscovered treasure to be found Just taking pennies, for instance: 1946, 1940, 1926, 1922, 1916, 1915, 1913, 1911, 1909, 1908, 1903 and 1902 all have scarcer varieties at varying levels of obviousness. If you have a stack of 1921s, see if you can sort them into Obv 2 and Obv 3. There are roughly similar numbers of each.

Hi Tracey. Well done for doing as much research as you have done. These 3 photos are of Obverse 2 (top), Obverse 3 (middle), and your penny (bottom). Look at the spacing of the the A of GRA, the colon, and the B of BRITT. You'll see that the gaps between the letters and the colon are wider on the middle photo. Your penny is, I'm afraid, Obverse 2 (close letters).

It look as if the buckle between DEF and BRIT is off-centre on the fake, but nicely centred on the CGS. Anyone else see that or is it my tired strimming eyes?