Sylvester

i knocked the grade down because of the shine

I'd say AVF, there's not much left of them laurels, same with the hair. But the obverse is comfortably above GF. Might get a VF on a good day, but i'd grade it AVF.

It's VF because alot of them looked pretty much like that when struck as far as we can tell. Most are off centre, have lots of flat patches, some are near impossible to identify to any particular mint. I think the reason for this was a number of factors, firstly the Civil War, perhaps moneyors though it better to make the coins hard to identify to a mint, afterall having a coin with Stephen on it was a political statement (just like those that minted Matilda coins), some even blundered the legends so that they could avoid committing themselves to either side. That i think is half the reason for the flat patches, or the fact that the reverse dies are practically always off centre and the mint name is the bit that's off the edge! The other half is that the coinage of the preceeding reign had been deteriorating and i imagine that the monarch and Co were not supplying the tools to make the coins with? If the moneyors are using inadequate worn tools and blanks then the coinage would deteriorate, would it not? So pretty much my example is VF because it was like that when struck, there is no real wear on the portrait as such compared to the flat patches, now the portrait seems to be damaged but that actually is from the minting process, what you can actually see on the obverse is ghosting of the cross on the reverse. Now if it had been struck from defaced dies it would have been worth considerably more. And i know what you mean about hammered coins and the clipping, creasing, missing pieces, it's annoying! I did once come across a gorgeous round groat in EF with a blue grey tone, and an unrecorded varitety!! ... i bought a half guinea instead

Laugh if you will mintmark, but i think it's coming to something when copper's too expensive to make low denomination coins out of, don't you?

Have you tried grading a King Stephen penny? (or a Henry I or II one for that matter, all as bad) Allow me to introduce you to (yet again) to a practically as struck example grading VF or better... (and yes the dealer stated that on the receipt, i for one agree with him on this) For this particular series this is a decent example... But from a milled perspective i bet none of you would ever have graded this as VF!

i wonder why i didn't spot that?

hammered is another language!

Alright it's some way off of a profit for bronze coins then, you'd need £2.80 odd of them for a kilo.

You'll learn... And i don't remember back to 1971, cos i was born in 84, the last of the machin era kids... (sorry William i had to get that in). It was only recently when i found out that the sixpences had escaped the 1971 culling. And silver threepences are also legal tender for 3 new pence, despite the fact that someone at the Royal mint replied telling me they were not. I'm telling you they are... i'm not the only person that says so neither. (it's due to maundy money, which is legal tender in new pence). I don't think any other predecimal coins are still legal tender, other than the ones i've already mentionned. I'm not 100% sure if groats were ever demonetised, but considering they'd only be worth 1 3/4p now, and you'd have to spend them in threes, it wouldn't be much good if they were.

the strike is the thing, you have to take into account the level of technology that was used in making the coins, so if you had a moderately off centre George II shilling it wouldn't be much to write home about, but if it had been a George VI coin it would be. I just feel grading pre 1816 coins is different to grading post 1816 coins, for one grading the former is easier, because they are in higher relief and the designs have much more, design! If you know what i mean? The hair on them is more complex...

I have a feeling i used the quill for that one... it's hard when you're left handed but all the other pens had died.

ah unfortunate!

well that's all very well and good but alot of that is wrong... Brass threepences were still in circulation in 1971. Sixpences were still in circulation as late as 1980. Shillings were still in circulation theoretically in 1990. Florins were still in circulation in 1993, i know that full well cos i remember spending them right up to the end, i even spent a George V florin in the early 90s, so i know. Halfcrowns were demonetised in 1969. Crowns to my knowledge have not been demonetised, neither have double florins. Infact double florins were deemed legal tender for 20p upon decimalisation and still are. Half sovereigns, Sovereign, £2 and £5 coins (the gold ones with St George) are still legal tender for, 50p, £1, £2 and £5 respectively, and you are well within your rights to spend one as such if you so wished.

but for different reasons than you state.

if that's the case does 1968 count as another threshold? Or 1971? Or even 1985? and why not 1998, or 2000? I think you'll find the thresholds are actually 1663 and 1816.

he means, if you look down the drown column it says 1/4 for both sovereign and half soverign, it should be 1/2 for half sovereign.

Your just too clever Scott, you know that.

ME's would be George V no? But trident vareties could be Victoria

too right it is!

i mentioned plumes earlier...

if to copper prices goes up too high what it would mean is that the old ones would be worth more intrinsically than their face value, which means you could make a profit from selling them to scrap merchants. Quite alot of collectors on the US/Canada border are hording Canadian Cents with the same intention. With regards to the bronze coins it's either collectors hording them, or the mint is removing them. How many collectors would hoard battered coins that were minted in the millions? (or billions?) I did it for the simple end in mind of seeing how common they are. When i've done i'll probably dump aload of them back into circulation. But i'd hang onto the 1976 twopences and the 1982 pennies, both are scarcer than catalogues suggest. My i've even got more 1992 'scarce' die variety ten pences than 1976 two pences, same goes for 1988 £1 coins.

not seen Mary Poppins? or Diagnosis Murder? anyway my word is... 'The Duke of Edinburgh'

Dick-Van-Dyke

can't be bothered... i still haven't updated the time either, since the clocks changed.

i know my feelings entirely, i thought they were getting scarcer that's why i started this hoarding to see. Now comparing how many 2002 and 2003 pennies and 2p's i pulled out in just a few months there was a major difference, the newer ones are much more common. My theory is, firstly the copper prices have been going up lately (they have), secondly the 2003 mintage of the low denominations was phenominal, i haven't got any mintage figures yet, but i can say i've never seen so many. My hunch is someone somewhere is removing the older coins as intrinsically they are worth more, it doesn't just go for the machin's either, it also counts for Maklouf's upto 1991... the bronze ones are getting thinner on the ground than the steel ones. I think the machins will be the first to go because they are much more obvious than the Maklouf's, as the latter you'd have to check the date of them.