david.bordeaux

By the way, this is the 1887 double florin that I got for free from Spink. I see that I graded it VF as a 15 year old: was I a little harsh?

I won these two double florins at the London Coins Auction this month. The last time I acquired a double florin (the 1887 arabic 1) was in June 1978, and my handwritten note from the time reads "Patrick Finn, Spink & Son, price: £0.00"! This generosity was probably thanks to my late father, who did some of the photography for Dowle & Finn's Guidebook to the Coinage of Ireland (Spink, 1969). My father and I used to do the rounds of Spinks and Seaby's whenever we visited London, and I guess Patrick wanted to encourage a budding collector (I was 15 at the time). Very kind of him! By way of explanation, we lived in Northern Ireland at the time. My father was a founding member of the Numismatic Society of Ireland (Northern Branch) as well as being a keen amateur photographer, and some of the legendary figures in Irish numismatics such as Bill Seaby (director of the Ulster Museum) and Michael Dolley used to visit our home.

There seems to be one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

An examination of the collection at the British Museum revealed one very clear example of "onc": the 1857. This is catalogued as "possibly a proof ? according to D. Fealy" and it undoubtedly has proof-like fields and is in FDC condition. I regard this as further evidence in favour of an error in die preparation (and against the theory of simple die-fill - proofs are not made from worn dies...). As always, any thoughts welcome - and does anyone know anything about "D. Fealy"? Postscript: it is perhaps natural that the opportunity to handle and examine such splendid coins in museum collections initially evokes feelings of envy in the collector. But it soon gives way to the more rational analysis that such specimens are really best off in a public collection that is accessible to all - and not, thank goodness, encapsulated in plastic.

As it happens, I am at the BM coin room today so I was able to look it up. York mint (1642-44) 18458 Halfcrown Type 3. Obv. No ground. Good VF £8

Interesting that there was a trace of the missing bar, as it is completely missing in the examples I found on auction sites. This contrasts with the so-called xxr error in the 1881, where there is almost always a trace of the missing serif. In both cases, I think a broken punch is more likely than die fill, given that only specific letters are affected. Also interesting that florins were being catalogued as "onc" as early as 2005-7. Does anyone know when onc florins were first spotted? All I know is that they are in the 7th edition of ESC (2020) but not in the 4th edition (1974).

I wanted to pick your collective brains on the “onc tenth” florins of 1853-1860, and possible theories on how the error came about. 1. Is it a “c” or an “e” with the oblique bar missing? A comparison of the “e” and “c” on the obverse seems to show a slight difference in the width of the letters. 2. If it’s an “e” with the bar missing, is this due to die fill? The oblique bar is very fine, so this could be a possible explanation. But if so, why does it only affect the “e” in “one” and not that in “tenth” (or the “e” in “One florin”, for that matter)? 3. Whether it’s a “c” or an “e” with a missing bar, could it be that a wrong or faulty puncheon was chosen when sinking the die? But again, why only the “e” in “one”? 4. Is it possible that there were puncheons for the entire word “one”, one of them was faulty, and that this was occasionally used over the course of 7 years when sinking new reverse dies? Each pair of dies produced only around 25,000 coins at the time, so the 1853 florin alone (mintage nearly 4 million) would have required upwards of 150 dies. 5. If 4 is the correct explanation, it could also explain the sudden disappearance of the error in 1860 – the faulty puncheon was detected and destroyed, or it wore out and was discarded. 6. A quick survey of auction archives would suggest that the error is more common than might be inferred from Bull. ESC 7th edition Heritage London Coin Auctions Noonans Spink 1853 “scarce” 2 3 1 1 1854 “4 seen” 1 9 1 1 1855 “5 seen” 1 1856 “7 seen” 1 1857 “6 seen” 1 1858 “4 seen” 1859 Not recorded 1860 “5 seen” 2 2 Number of examples of “onc tenth” florins offered at four auction houses between 2010 and 2023. With the exception of London Coins, most were not catalogued as “onc”. Any thoughts or insight on this would be much appreciated.

And another in Noonan's sale on 10 May, Lot 103. But I'm not entirely convinced that these 1864 florins (all with obverse die no. 64) are fakes. Apart from the strange "n" in tenth, they look absolutely spot on (unless I'm missing something). Could they simply be genuine coins with an error on the reverse die that was paired with obverse die no. 64?

Any thoughts about this 1862 Gothic florin, which went for £360 + BP at today's Noonan's sale? My suspicions were raised by the "leg" instead of "reg" error and the weak strike of the last "i" in the date.

Apart from the size of the gap below the bust and the bottom of the veil, the position of DEI GRATIA is different and the nose, mouth, chin and neck are different: I haven't counted the teeth around the edge (yet!).

Yes, there are two varieties of 1888 florin obverse: ESC 2955 with the large gap below the bust (same as the 1887 obverse) and ESC 2956 with the narrow gap (same as 1889-1892). The bottom of the veil is also slightly different.

I have been looking for a "wide gap" 1888 florin for a while, and finally got one today. Quite a bargain, too, as it cost less than what I paid for the much more common "narrow gap" variety 2 years ago (shown below for comparison).

All my florins from 1912 to 1919 have a weak strike on the upper shield, but in my case the best is the 1915:

And the second from 1980: Dickinson, M. J., 1980.pdf