oldcopper

They've got an Edward VIII 1937 £5 coming up in a month or two - might go for a bit.

Hey, I hope you're not referring to me saying "finest ever" about the 1696 6d! But you are right about slabbing grades being used to spin the line of "finest known", whereas they mean - "the highest numerical grade assigned to the small cross-section of a certain variety that has been slabbed, as judged, in possibly only a few seconds, by a grader or graders of unknown experience and ability". As often noted, slabbing works better for more modern coins (19th and 20th century coins), but certainly for even modern copper and bronze proofs especially, I suspect or know a fair degree of "enhancement" ie colourisation, that goes on. Though I suppose if you keep it in the slab, it will retain its value, so long as the slabbers don't allow too many through. Absolutely agree that people should look at as many examples of a coin they're interested in; go back through old catalogues with lots of illustrations or on the internet (HA, Noble numismatics, DNW, London Coins, Mark Rasmussen, Sixbid archives etc), see how they're graded and priced (for the time), then compare it to the example you're interested in. This also shows how rare or common it is, as in how many comparable or better ones you can find.

I thought that 1696 2nd bust sixpence in the Spink auction was possibly the finest known for the earlier date.

Some of these coins were one-offs to be fair, the last James II plume shilling on the market that I know of was Spink SNC in the early 80's - £2,500 for a coin in only fair condition if I remember rightly. There might have been another sale since but none I know of. "Conceivably the finest known" is not the case for the 1700 plumes 6d - perhaps "finest known in commerce" might be more accurate, as being a duplicate of the BM's, the BM 's retained one would be better and the Ashmolean has a better one as well:

The lack of overheads for Spink is a factor as well - they don't produce a catalogue, unless it's a special collection, so they can bang out anything on the Internet without much effort. The Viles stuff would never have made it in the catalogue only days. It was more akin to DNW's multiple lots section or "Collector's Corner" in the old SNC; often single figure prices, and mainly lower-grade.

Nothing for me. That Churchill satin crown at $9,500 (= about £9,500 after extras) - not bad for 10 minutes work on the surfaces with some blue tinge. Oh, what a cynic - not that that is my area of expertise! Even that Soviet medal from the late 80's which looked like something out of a toy box circa 1960 made $15,000 hammer. That James II halfcrown also caught my eye - an excellent example of the type, almost full detail. Needless to say, I dropped out very early in the bidding. The fact that Greg Edmonds spent an eternity on many of the lots unfortunately seemed to work in his favour. 45-50 lots/hour is excruciating and some fingers unfortunately must have lost patience, anything to move him on!

Thanks.

Didn't Seaby's close about 1990?

Thanks, well spotted, I missed that. I wonder how the Mint managed to damage all 4 (at the last count) dies for this reverse, presumably in their manufacture? Plus bad E's on Alfnail's type as well.

I've only ever seen the first two dies of F114 you illustrate - the date-flawed one (illustrated in Freeman) and the crack though the N one. Most of the bright ones are from the crack through the N die in my experience. I reckon a group of mint state ones must have been stashed away at some stage. I haven't ever seen the third variety before - presumably it's very rare?

1858 large rose: £1850 - congrats! I presume that's the best one you know.

I think that's DNW'ese for "cleaned". I agree with Rob it's sacriligeous and it's very annoying, especially when a really nice coin is tampered with and ruined this way. Sadly, it may well get slabbed at good grade now. A similar example happened to me recently, where the vendors took a wonderful coin (an 18th century copper proof) and tried to "improve it" before re-slabbing it, which meant it ended up looking like something out of a Christmas cracker (once you knew it had been treated). Idiots, and I was the mug who fell for it. Luckily I got my money back on re-selling it soon after. Not one to keep. Here's one of my "favourites", mainly due to the over-the-top write up from Goldbergs. It's from the Cheshire Collection (still on the web). "Maybe Queen Victoria herself saved this little darling" is how they put it. Well, she'd have had to have been about 185 years old to appreciate the colour as I owned this coin up to a couple of years before this sale, and it was a dullish orange colour then! Ex SNC 2001 with a black and white photo. Talk about Christmas Cracker again......

Did anyone see the 1698 DIE farthing (GVF with some lustre) that CooperCoins had a photo of in the latest Coin News - it was £765. I phoned them up (hadn't even heard of them before) straight away - too late. I hate it when that happens! - There was a lot of interest unsurprisingly.

Well can I just emphasise I am not a nerd - my anorak is festooned with the coolest badges of course. Secondly, shouldn't that be pedant-in-chief?

"overcome with indifference" - I like that oxymoron!

I heard the vendor lost quite a bit of money in that 2004 LCA sale, probably because much of his stuff, eg Nicholson's coins, had been on the market only a few months before. So the fantastic 1685 halfpenny for instance cost him £6,100 and sold for £4,400 hammer, the P.565 was £2,800 Nicholson, went for £2K hammer and so on. It was a good auction to buy stuff at. Nicholson's P.565 resurfaced in the Pywell-Phillips Spink auction in late 2018 - £1,800 hammer. It was erroneously provenanced to Peck - as I joked to Greg, it had been owned by everyone except Peck! A great collection by the way. Dave - sorry I wrote a bit ambiguously - the P.565 was £150 in Colin Cooke's 2006/7 catalogue. I don't know what the Croydon Coins price was.

Yes, amazingly another P.565 does exist, but in bad shape, as sold in CC's Dec 2006/Jan 2007 catalogue item 992. I quote: Heavily corroded but salient details are still visible. Of the highest rarity. Apart from the Nicholson specimen (which realised £2800 and is the photographed coin in the Spink 2005 year book), we know of no other specimen. Bought from CCA #55 13/4/1988. Ex P.W. Laurence £150. I don't think anyone knew there was a second specimen until this one turned up.

Yes it's not in the LCA database.

It started off at A$1400, and came down in increments to A$450 (that's on the archive). I don't know how much further it would have come down if no-one had bid for it - but the vendor was presumably already nursing a big loss if they bought it at Baldwin's, so might have withdrawn it. Call it a gap filler! The last I saw of the Nicholson piece was DNW June 2013 in Andrew Scottern's (?) collection, £1200 hammer. I haven't heard of it in LCA - I'll look that up.

Talking of rarities in awful condition, here's a type coin of similar rarity to the above 1695 DEI GRATIA that cost £280 including extras (ex Noble Numismatics - the price kept coming down every time it didn't sell). And as for the edge lettering.....well I think I may be able to make out one letter....possibly. Anyway, it's ex Weightman and Hoblyn and went for £660 hammer at Baldwin's back in 2007. The reverse is worse but the obverse is of course the important side.

No it hasn't I think was the gist of the last conversation. That is one **** coin for the asking price! Still, interesting there are quite a few out there.

As well as Mark Rasmussen, Nicholson's/Shuttleworth's coin was also in one of the early St James's auctions.

I think unfortunately if Spink view it as a pattern they don't put them in, only in exceptional cases such as the Petition Crown. I don't think they list any copper patterns, and none of the earlier proofs. They go to town on the bronze of course, but they don't list any proofs or patterns there either. The coin at the top of page 2 is the $4700-priced one from memory, probably from the best metal but isn't as detailed as yours, which I hadn't seen until now. So nice one!

Mark might have sold one more recently, but the only one in his archive was the Nicholson example, sold on List 9, so during the middle-to-late 2000's. He sold it for £495. The best known (~GF+) was for sale by an American dealer some years ago. He wanted $4700 for it; too much for me! Great example though.

On paper 32,000 minted, but how many of those were 1859 as was the usual Victorian practice until Grahame (?) the Mintmaster stopped it in the 1860's or 70's. It does look like a makeshift issue, as well as the misaligned dies, the severe die clashing, the lettering isn't good either, for instance the 2 N's of Britanniar are irregular and spindly, and also the blocked date seen on some (but not all) with the bottom of the 6 missing. Though the hair definition on Victoria's head is generally sharp, it is definitely lacking quality control in these other areas, which are not this severe on any other of W. Wyon's pennies as far as I'm aware (though he was long gone by then). Perhaps they had all these blanks left over and a Mint Apprentice was told to get on with it?!