Rob

I can feel a large HMRC bill coming on after the recent US sales.

Oi. What about the halfpenny and farthing? Both point to the N with the farthing marginally closer to the centre. So we can categorically state that pennies are the oddballs. Nothing new there then.

There's no VAT on books, so import duty? Wasn't aware of that and certainly hasn't happened to me before.

Provenance, tickets, links to any old illustrations whether named or not, people are going to have to start doing homework. All these will come to the market initially on auction sites such as ebay with a few good copies probably sold to dealers. If they start making copies of valuable Chinese coins, there is just a chance that action will be taken, particularly if a high up party official gets conned.

If I remember, the Adams catalogue showed three distint positions for the colon, with no need to measure with a micrometer.

Not a rare coin but not in a decent condition either, particularly the obverse which is quite flat. This isn't an issue/date/type that is known for forgeries or modern copies, so suggest it is real. At a few Euros buy it, you can't lose.

I can't find the email at present. I'll have to do some gardening as the inbox has 2500 emails in it.

There's a couple hundred in it before costs. I bought the gothic florin.

Did you win it? It was cheap enough at 875.

Later years. Avoid pre 1852. Many 1850s onwards, 2nd head 1860s with die numbers, 3rd head 1872, 1873 & 1874. 4th head 1879, 1883 - 1887. The 1839 (WW on neck) is reasonably common and quite affordable. Yes, but all those dates I listed are the cheapest you will find. There are many dates that are one step up in price leaving aside the acknowledged rarities. 1883 onwards may well be the easiest and cheapest.

I stand corrected Dave - 1922 penny on ebay- meant to bid on this but forgot. Flaw on both neck and ear are in the same postion as those on the 1918KN but this is a different obverse die. Must conclude that this micro variety is in fact a result of clashed dies Yes, it looks right for the folds in the drapery between Britannia's thigh and lower leg. So recessed ear types they are not. The illustrated has die clash earwax too.

What metals are involved and what grade are the coins? Steer clear of plastic coin sleeves for copper irrespective of any claims about their inertness or not. Silver is a bit more forgiving in plastic. If average grade, say around VF, then mylar window 2x2s are ok. If mint state you could use capsules, or do it yourself slabs. You could always get a mahogany cabinet if you want to go up market. Steer clear of Whitman folders as the acid in the card will affect the coins on the rims, plus you often have to push the coins in to fit which provides for finger grease contamination. The fatty acids in the grease will mark the coins. If we are only talking about low grade coins below VF at best, then 2x2 card holders are ok. You can get staple together or self adhesive types.

Later years. Avoid pre 1852. Many 1850s onwards, 2nd head 1860s with die numbers, 3rd head 1872, 1873 & 1874. 4th head 1879, 1883 - 1887.

A whole new grading challenge! A lot of these must have slipped through as 'clipped' I'm thinking. I'm presuming this is a phenomenon consistent over a number of flans, and they've been on the button, weight wise? Could it be that the engravers were expecting larger flans, but the silver was just coming through too thick? There are 3 decent examples of the 1645 F7. Mine (ex-Lockett 2460), Carlyon-Britton (1921) lot 337 and Morrieson 534. All are well centred, but missing the reverse periphery. Attached is a less desirable example off Lloyd's site, which although off centre on the reverse, is still too big.

Morrieson's BNJ articles on the Bristol, Oxford, Shrewsbury, Aberystwyth, Coombe Martin & Lundy. Besly BNJ, York & Truro/Exeter. Allen BNJ, W/SA + Vincent supplementary data. Lockett BNJ, Truro & Exeter. Then combine all these articles with hundreds and hundreds of sales catalogues, sylloges, Bull, Charles I halfcowns etc. Thanks, Rob, I'll be taking a look! Sorry, I also forgot Lyall's Chester article in the 1971 Circular

On the question of diestock diameters being potentially larger than the denomination, this rather desirable Shrewsbury shilling from DNW 79 says it all. The obverse is nearly all on the flan. There is no way the reverse would ever fit on a shilling sized flan, being barely able to fit a halfcrown. But it is definitely a shilling rev. die because of the 3 line declaration. The second coin that sprang to mind was the Oxford 1645 F7 halfcrown. Again, the obverse is full, but the reverse is too big. Neither of these are double struck which would be a potential explanation for off flan detail. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the bar end was a greater diameter than the denomination norm, and was engraved too large in error.

Morrieson's BNJ articles on the Bristol, Oxford, Shrewsbury, Aberystwyth, Coombe Martin & Lundy. Besly BNJ, York & Truro/Exeter. Allen BNJ, W/SA + Vincent supplementary data. Lockett BNJ, Truro & Exeter. Then combine all these articles with hundreds and hundreds of sales catalogues, sylloges, Bull, Charles I halfcowns etc.

This is my 2F halfcrown. You will see a flaw by the 3rd hoof. Spin the picture round and you can see that it is an arm holding a sword. There is also a stop between I & T of BRIT. If the dies were cut on a cylinder, it is unlikely that you would get more than a trace of double striking. You certainly aren't going to get the cylinder jumping out and rotating by 180 degrees. The dies have to be removable, which is why I say the cylinder theory is wrong. The 2F is one of the rarer die combinations.

This will kill a few birds with one stone. Below is my 'Hartlebury'. By the OL of CAROLVS you can see a lion. This only appears on York coinage. To the left of it on the inner circle is the remains of the sword and another example shows the flaw between Charles' foot and the 3rd leg to be a foot and spurs. Clearly this is a York die, and appears to be the 1A die pair, but I can't confirm yet. This creates a problem for Besly's article on the York coinage in the 1984 BNJ where he states that the equipment used at York involved the use of a cylinder press with the dies engraved on the cylinder. The evidence for the shillings is quite compelling with 5 discrete die pairs and 5 pairs which appear to be rotated by one die. The same cannot be said for halfcrowns as my 2F is clearly a re-engraved die (details to follow), coupled with the fact that some die pairs are common whilst others are out and out rare. I suspect the rare ones are recut dies, such as the 2F. There is also evidence that some of the W/SA dies are ex- York dies. Clearly you cannot take a bit of the cylinder, so the assumption must be that the equipment either had some sort of clamping arrangement to hold a number of dies, or they were used as individual pairs. This also throws a spanner in the works regarding the attribution of Hartlebury which is considered to be struck in 1646 as there is no way the dies would havve been removed from York by July 1644 and lain unused for nearly 2 years. Also, the siege at Hartlebury only lasted a day, and Worcester wasn't cut off at this point which isn't favourable for a siege coinage. A somewhat larger spanner is the fact that the 'Hartlebury' dies are recut to form the CHST below the horse Chester issue, whose obverse was recut to form the Chester declaration obverse which is dated 1644. 1646 it ain't. 'Hartlebury' it ain't either. The pear/3 pears marks are I believe, gerbs. The obverse has only one stalk, but the reverse 'pears' have 3 stalks. The pears are lion paw/claw punches as seen at York. I think the HC coins are probably Hawarden Castle, and were struck to pay the troops returning from Ireland in Dec. 1643 because there is documentary evidence that Byron arranged for all these troops to be paid 2/6d for each common soldier (they hadn't been paid for 2 years previously). Hawarden is 4 or 5 miles to the west of Chester on the road from the landing points at Mostyn etc. Anyway, enough spanners for the time being - to the 2F next

I suspect we both had grief from the same place, albeit with me as a buyer when I bought a bulk lot of hammered described as VF-EF, but only one coin had a portrait! So much for the cataloguer's credentials. And another occasion where the error was meticulously described with a 2 line write up, but non-existent!!

Depends on the material. I have used St. James's, Baldwin, Spink, DNW and LC. Lower to mid grade/value items will not suit the first. Baldwins seem to have quite a few unsolds from their general sales, so maybe push the estimates a bit high. They can also drag identical things to those you want to sell out of their basement at the drop of a hat giving unwelcome competition. I've not really had any grief with any of the above, so would only suggest that the items are placed where the best prices are obtained for each category.

I'll sort something out later when I've time.

By definition this must be mutually exclusive. If there are say for example 1% of coins extant that are uncirculated (this is over-optimistic)then any online coin auction could only hope to get the same small percentage of people to use it because most things out there are crap and will always be so, but everyone wants to maximise their return and if this means calling something unc just to get eyeballs, then this is what will be done. It's a free country and not criminal to overgrade in the literal sense, but a combination of ignorance and a moral compass pointing south will ensure that an honest description will never be popular with the masses. I just wish a few more people would open an account with a scrap metal merchant.

So that explains old catalogues with no price for uncirculated. Old Seaby lists and Spink Circulars used FDC for an as struck, well struck currency coin for many years. UNC is a relatively recent description

Hammered coin dies were just a piece of diestock with the design engraved on the end. When a new design was required, all they did was rub down the old one and re-engrave with the new. A die could therefore have many re-incarnations. Sometimes there was sufficient detail remaining from the previous die(s) to work out what it was before, so the Chester declaration reverse die was previously Oxford halfcrown 1643 rev. 23 for example. It also appears to have been one of the small date 1644 dies too, but I'm still working on that one. The obverse die with which the declaration reverse is paired was recut from the CHST below the horse die, but the re-engraving was rotated and displaced from the original, so we can be certain that the die was of a greater diameter than that of a halfcrown because they wouldn't have engraved only half the design with the remainder off the side of the die! Next coin up would be a crown, but equally could have been big enough to accommodate a triple unite or a pound/half-pound. It also explains why some dies are far too big for the denomination on which they are found. A Shrewsbury shilling reverse and Oxford halfcrown 1645 rev.7 immediately spring to mind.