oldcopper

It's all up in the air and c ompletely non-transparent. Say your maximum bid is £800 for a £5-600 estimate. If you get it for £600 you might think they're being honest and you've done well. However, in an open auction you might have got it for £400. Who's to say anyone bid £400 - £550? So who flippin' knows. The fact they're carrying on this blind bidding is a bit worrying as well - it obviously suits them. A lot of the Noble Numismatics copper went for way below estimate, but I don't think LC would allow that to happen. They'll pump it up to at least low estimate if the sole bid maximum is above that.

It's OK, we'll just have to rely on the honesty of the auctioneers! Which is a completely unknown factor behind closed doors. They will have completely free rein to do as they like. So not all bids will win at their maximum of course, that's too obvious, but who's to know how honest their final price is?

I thought the ending was complete rubbish, considering we'd been teased for all those episodes about him escaping. It was just nonsense and none of the built-up expectation they'd stoked up over all those episodes was resolved. Sorry, my one and only comment on the Prisoner!

Oh just shaddapayour face!

Yes they were - both the 1825/6 and the 1853 copper proof 1d to 1/4d's were all seemingly struck with full lustre, a few remain with pretty good lustre as above. Many have toned beautifully, as copper proofs can do. However, the only really full lustre copper proofs extant are from Soho. The James Watt collection (Morton and Eden 2002) had some incredible1806 copper proofs and 1805 Irish copper proofs, definitely a class above the Royal Mint ones. Brilliant fiery mirrored orange red. A set of the 1806 copper penny to farthing (along with the sets of the gilt and bronzed analogues) reappeared on the market a few years ago.

Hey, don't rub it in!

Yes, couldn't resist showing it! - bought Stacks Bowers 2013 for ~£1800. Bought it with the following 1841 colon: https://www.noonans.co.uk/auctions/archive/lot-archive/results/272162/ That only cost about £200, but I sold it to a dealer friend for not much more than that - I had a better example already (the LCA 2009 Roland Harris one) and bought it as it was cheap. He stuck it into DNW and got £850 hammer for it! Both these coins came from the "Demarete" collection, According to Stacks Bowers he bought much of his stuff in London from the mid-50's onwards. Coincidentally Peck's P.1480 was sold in SNC mid-60's and described as having a mark on the face, which this one does as well. So I wonder if both this coin and the stunner 1853 were both ex-Peck, as in the same SNC list was Peck's 1853 copper proof penny (FDC as all his coins were graded in SNC - "all coins FDC unless stated otherwise"). The photo of the proof in Stacks Bower's archive is the same sort of appearance as the Verene specimen, which just shows how flattering the PCGS photography is!

i like this one! The 65RB - takes some time to load the full image. https://www.pcgs.com/valueview/victoria-1838-1901/1853-1d-s-3948-rb/3946?sn=202429&h=pop

I think there are mitigating factors re the copper and bronzed proofs. This is a facet of buying from Noble, for example their silver always photographs well and shows colour, lovely blueishness in many of them,, gold is gold of course, one assumes good brilliance in proofs and the colour is normally not too variable. But the copper photography is in my view understated. Not the definition of course - that's top rate, but the general appearance. As it's Australia, no-one (except Australian buyers near to Sydney) will likely see them in the flesh and thus have anything more to go on than a single photograph taken in incidental light, so the only way to ascertain any colourful toning or brilliance is through the auctioneer's description which will always be subjective to an extent. So are you going to end up with a matt brown dull bronzed proof or a colourful or brilliant example? It's a bit of a lottery unless you know the coin from a previous sale. Interesting how the two coppers to most buck the trend were both copper proof farthings, 1826 and 1853 (erroneously labelled as W.W raised), $1900 and $2600.

I expect those are "educated guesses" - take the proof set issue (known) then add on whatever you think for the individual issues. Unless the Royal Mint has any specific total production records, which I doubt, that's all it will be.

Thanks - very interesting!

I'd love to know why all these temperature readings are taken at busy airports - large amount of hot tarmac, plenty of jet streams providing localised warming. It's almost like they want to get as high a temperature reading as possible. Heathrow and Gatwick (Charlwood). Coningsby is an active RAF base as well. The cynic might wonder if they were deliberately wanting to record as high a temperature as possible. I was reading that higher altitude temperature measuring stations have been closed over the last few decades and most if not all the readings are now obtained in the vicinity of busy airports. If so, there may be a good reason, but I wonder what it is. Any ideas?

Wrong scene!

Thinking about it, two scenarios occur to me; either the copper proofs were made before the bronzed proofs and this die polish line only appeared then, or the toning has hidden the hairline from view.

Strange it's not apparent on the copper proof. Worth further research as they say. My currency has the noticeable fake ribbons as you mention, probably more evident than yours.

Bingo, you can just see it on my specimen's photo from the LCA Roland Harris auction:

Definitely on my currency and the BM's bronzed proof. And also on the bronzed proof sold by Colin Cooke several years ago. I would have thought that as the colon variety is always presumed to be a mono-die variety (after striking the proofs), it should be on all. It may be that yours are later strikings or more worn. It is a very thin hairline.

Yes, nice coins from the proof die - there is a straight hairline from B's arm/trident join to the end of her further away knee on both proof and currency.

Not really relevant. The twin pillars that are going to do in our economy, and are already doing so, are Net Zero and the massive government borrowing/money printing due to lockdowns and furlough, which is devaluing our currency, and inflation was already on a steep upward trajectory before the Ukraine war. Both of the above I'm sure you were and are fully in favour of, and how are our fellow European economies doing - booming? The powerhouse of Europe, Germany in an energy crisis of its own "green" making and about to tip into recession, according to economists.

The Baldwins large-rose example coming up next week, cleaned but eye-catching in the photo, is at £1200 when I looked yesterday.

Spink are always doing that - put a teaser date on a forthcoming auction then either keep on putting it back every few days or don't even bother. It's annoying. Some of these auctions are like their SNC "Collectors Corner" quality (which lasted a couple of years about 20 years ago), selling items for £5 upwards. Junk mainly. Talking of gilding the lily, I like their description of the Northumberland in the Wootton sale. It's got worn gilding, it's low grade and there's an impressively large hole in it. Apart from that it's "a good opportunity for a type collector to source a prohibitively rare type". If you say so!

and the Colin Adams sale (Spink 1/12/2005) had 2 en medaille - ESC 669 and ESC 670 (lots 652 and 654).

DNW sold an ESC 670 en medaille - 4 Oct 2001, lot 385, wt 13.98g.

Well, they quoted the excellence of their website and its exhaustive arichies as a reason for increasing their premium last time, so by that logic looks like they'll have to reduce it now. It never works like that does it.....

I think the key desirability factor in the Medusa if it you can see her face, and this SARC specimen isn't too bad an example of that.