Peckris 2

I think the answer to that is with halfpennies, where they didn't introduce a modified reverse - I remember collecting in the late 60s, and halfpennies between 1911 and 1924 had reverses that were really badly worn, Poor where the obverse was Fair to Fine.

It was a combination of obverse and reverse. I think the biggest problem at the beginning was the lack of rim on reverse, which caused rapid wear.

Didn't someone have a line about "Caesar's wife"?

I personally think that's the answer. Maybe the experiment was conceived and initial dies prepared in 1914, but by 1916 there was just too much demand on the Mint's resources. That's the first reverse (pre-1914) which often has fewer problems compared to the 1914-1921 reverse; the rim and teeth especially are different.

The row of icons you can click against each post should include , and probably as well.

But it IS a very high grade - it stinks!

Note Britannia's fully struck up breastplate and little sign of ghosting, showing this was a successful experiment that was strangely not continued.

Yup. I also note many late 18C early 19C coppers don't now get a BU value in Spink (unlike 2012) as they're so rarely on the market. Tbh, I haven't seen so many price falls since the 80s. I blame Brexit!

Ice wear bye spell cheque.

You can have that Ernie Wise for a mere £1500!

Not really. Disability allows me just about to wield an iPad, and my Lumix camera in automatic 'snapshot' mode, but that's about it.

I'm afraid this is a typical example of a scan obliterating all that's good about a coin's tone. However, it's the best I could do back then, but it doesn't show the penny's glossy dark blue/green patina.

I only update the values in my database every few years - in fact, the last time was using Spink 2012. I just picked up Spink 2018 for a reasonable price; having an interest in the history of values, I input all values listed in Spink for each coin, not just for the grade I currently own. This is useful when I upgrade coins, for example. But I was in for a shock this time. Very occasionally, even an UNC value has gone down in 6 years, but generally these have increased, sometimes substantially. EF gains are much more modest, if at all. VF is often static, but often too, the values have gone down. But in F, virtually nothing except the highest rarities have shown any increase, but mostly prices have fallen. To give examples, F bun pennies which were £4 or £5 in 2012 had fallen to £2 by 2018. Yet a not unusual bun penny goes from £2 in F to £700 in BU! That's 350 times. However, it's probably true to say that buns before 1883 are at least 350 times as hard to find in BU as in F. The lesson is clear: if all you can afford is a date run in F ... DON'T! At least, not unless you are in it purely for the fun and you don't give a fig about values. The perennial dictum about "buy the highest grade you can afford" has never been more true than now. Fewer coins but in higher grades will do better (and be nicer to look at IMO) than a whole load in F. The market now wants the rarest coins and / or the top grades. Everything else is starting to fall by the wayside.

I have an 1862 penny with a wide rim, glossy almost reflective fields, and a sharp strike. I've always written it off as "not a proof" but I'd be open to it being a specimen.

To get started, you could usefully invest in two inexpensive books (banner ad above): 1. Collectors Coins (predecimal edition) which lists prices from the 18thC onwards but also has a wealth of useful information 2. Grading British Coins which shows pictorial grades from AUnc to Fair for all major types from 1797. otherwise, Welcome!

I don't have a problem with his grade on that, but the price is ridiculous. I'm not sure how you could find "far better condition"?

You're not allowed to use numerical grading? I never heard that before.

Click the Report item button, and select from a list: "Restricted and Prohibited items" > "Stamps, currency, coins" > "Replica coins, [etc]"

Blimey, yes! I went through a hell of a lot of 5/- bags of pennies, but probably still short of £100 worth. One flaw in that argument - the plastic sets were rated much more highly then than now. They were selling for at least a fiver in the late 60s (look at your Coin Monthlies..) which must be near £50 in today's money, but you can pick one up now for less than a tenner. Mind you, for a kid with little pocket money perhaps it was a different story. That's interesting. That makes the 19KN less than half as scarce as the 18KN, and I've always thought it much more scarce when you look at the numbers available for sale, and the numbers found. Mind you, the catalogues never had a 19KN so much more valuable, except perhaps in UNC.

Yes - one 1953, in VF. I didn't find a single 50 or 51, but I have the feeling they were special cases, being imported back from the West Indies. I also found two 1926ME's, but I put that down to two things: 1) the first was change from a bus conductor in early 68 before the craze had hit full swing 2) they were harder to spot (especially for novices!) compared to the other 1926, where the 19KN was easy peasy. I agree that finding a 53 would be difficult, as any in circulation would have had to be 'liberated' from the plastic set, which was the only form they were issued in. None were struck for currency.

I have a few including a replacement blue fiver, but I'd like to keep them.

Well, no I don't. Other repros - like Ed VII, 1933 pennies, and different Vicky coins - are made recognisably different and only a fool or a novice would be taken in. If it's so lifelike, then it's no longer a repro, it's a deliberate fake and designed to deceive.

Yes. I've always thought the 18H and KN weren't much different in terms of rarity. Which makes the 19H very much more common given the comparative rarity of the 19KN and greater mintage overall. That's backed up by my own experience from the late 60s.

Is that the one owned by Tommy Steele?