Rob

The rim marks hit you in the face the minute you saw the coin. I didn't look very closely at the fields as the marks on the rim would have been enough to put anybody off on their own. Although not the commonest piece, it certainly isn't rare with a few examples passing through every year, virtually all of which are ok.

It depends on what the coin was in contact with. Looks like rust, and the world isn't short of objects made of mild steel.

Edge marks and polished fields are described, so you might have a job saying not as described, but will probably get away with it as it doesn't say tooled. The tooling scratches are the worst problem, but I wonder why you bought it in the first place with these. I hope you didn't pay too much. Basically, someone has taken an electric polisher with a fine point and attempted to buff up the fields giving the damage seen.

Where did it come from and what was the lot description? Any auction house with a sense of decency would have said tooled at least. With all due respect to Scott, this one is in his territory and budget.

Tooled to b*****y. The wear on the portrait should be indicative of what you would expect the fields to be. Horribly bright with tell-tale gouges to both sides. How was it described? I bet it didn't have a very full or accurate description. This is close to melt value (assuming it is silver). Someone's having a laugh - at your expense.

Happy birthday from me too.

Things can get clipped and the weights of some of the small denominations can vary more so than for the larger pieces. The smaller the coin the larger the spread about the mean. If in doubt, measure the inner circle. The penny will be 11 or 12mm dia, the halfpenny 10mm or a bit less.

I ordered a 69 and got beanshoots I don't know if is the same now because this was 10 years ago, but the Chinese near the Star & Garter at the top of the High St in Wigston, Leicester did it properly. Whilst discussing what we wanted, my friend said he fancied a 69. The menu informed us that was Shrimp & Mushrooms. You couldn't make it up if you tried.

That's just modern crap, the guy's talking out of his bottom. The genuine originals came in a twist of blue wax paper. Another sad old git who remembers them. Those were the days, when salt overload wasn't a requirement for eating crisps. Lets face it, when was the last time you had a choice of salted or unsalted?

An excellent question! I personally have no clue, but will be watching this thread in the hope it's a long one! I have a half ( no pun intended) interest in these myself! I think Peter's right, in that the single, most important, feature, must surely be that the halves and quarters must clearly identify the host coin! I would think this area is begging for a catalogue! Then watch the prices rocket! £££££ It would never work. Hammered coins were never struck on a predetermined die axis. As it could be anything from 0-359 degrees, any cut fraction is a one off. As for prices, a £5K rarity sells for about £500-1K as a cut half depending on what is legible. Fractions of common coins might sell for more than 10%, but are unlikely to exceed 25% of a whole coin in similar grade.

You could add, why is he only selling to the UK only, too? Nobody in their right mind is going to pay more than a quid for this whether slabbed or raw.

It's not asking too much of any program, but it would certainly take some time to adjust each of the layers to ensure that the sizes and rotations are compatible once the distortion has been adjusted. Checking for distortion is easy enough. If you have two coins from the same die which overlay exactly, then there is no distortion. This then becomes the 'standard' against which you compare the variable one. It is just a problem for the first three Chester halfcrowns, as the kit seems to have been either repaired or replaced by the time that the 3 pellets obverse die was introduced.

It does that in paint too, just the image is over 1Mb so can't post easily. It is a case of adjusting the images and overlaying that I need. The level of distortion varies from coin to coin, so I want to be able to overlay images and then adjust the LHS for example of the variable one until they are superimposed. Is that asking too much of any program out there?

Anything will resell instantly - if the price is right. What you really mean is what do I buy which will appreciate more quickly than a second item. Not a good idea, as you are setting the price you are prepared to pay without the necessary knowledge to make an educated judgment. Buying bullion as an investment is a simple matter of trying to anticipate the gold price. Buying coins that cost many multiples of their intrinsic metal value and then sell them at some unspecified date in the future for an even greater multiple requires a crystal ball which you or I don't have. If you are collecting coins as a hobby, then there is some leeway in the price paid as you are doing it for pleasure. But please do not try to combine investment with pleasure, because one will take priority over the other. Don't treat coin collecting like a standing order to a savings account. Read around a bit, find out what appeals, see how much the items are selling for and only when happy should you buy. Information is the key to happy collecting, and I might add, investment.

Sorry, let's get that the right way up! Sod it. Too big. How can a 147K image become 203K when inverted? anyway, you know what I mean from the image.

Attached is the Chester halfcrown with CHST below from the Spink catalogue. As you can see, coin was made on a rocker press showing elongation along one axis which is a feature of the coining method. However, in the case of this issue, the rocker press used was defective, appearing to slip on the obverse to the extent that the dimensions of the inner circle are 29mm top to bottom and 33.5mm left to right. The distortion is clearly on one side only as the I of HIR is about 1.5mm taller than the I of CHRISTO. As the dies will have been made from the same punches at the same time, the distortion on the left hand side is clearest with the letter R. If you use paint you can compress the left side to produce a roughly circular inner circle and sensible letters. All CHST obverses are missing the RHS of the legend, so the obverse die must be travelling through the press at a slower rate than the reverse die. So far so good, but Paint doesn't do overlays with transparency as far as I can make out. I'm trying to establish which die this was in its previous existence which is where the overlays come in. This can also be applied to the declaration issue where I have made far more progress and know both engraver and previous dies due to the greater amount of plain field present. The quantity of detail on the average obverse makes overlaying sheets of A4 a bit difficult, hence the request.

It looks far too mushy for my liking. Edge and thickness would be good as Coinery says.

Sorry folks, this has raised its head again with a twist. A slightly different problem. I have a die which I know is recut from another, which in itself is also a recut die as at least two stages of recutting are seen which tie in with two known dies known to be earlier. I need to be able to superimpose one, or possibly more than one on the other and make the top layers transparent in order to align the various features. The problem is exacerbated by one coin being struck on a faulty rocker press which slips in operation leading to a 10-15% distortion along one axis. So the basic requirements are a program that allows you to stretch or compress along one axis or both and to overlay images. I had a look at the Photoscape link and that is dead. I'm not sure if I have publisher, but presume not. Photoshop costs £389 which I'm not willing to pay, and in any case appears to be Adobe. Paintshop is Corel. I guess I need a microsoft program because that's what my computer uses for its operating software and I don't want any problems with compatibility. Looking for Microsoft image overlay program in google wasn't very helpful. Thanks.

Depends on what is there. I might be interested if they fill a lot of gaps. A list would be useful.

I'm not sure we really need the zoom facility on this one. However, it would 'make a nice addition to your collection'.

It isn't a case of putting down detailed die studies, just that the market for such a volume would be severely limited. Having said that, in this digital age you can produce single copies of a book or as many as you want for very little extra cost over that of materials and stting up costs. Anyone specialising in a narrow field can therefore publish their research quite cheaply with a short print run of 10 books to test the water and thus show the true demand for collecting to this depth. Any price guide would be hopelessly cumbersome if it included recut legends as you would need to illustrate each and every variety to avoid ambiguity. Essentially it would become a definitive guide of all the dies extant in their various states, less those that you didn't track down (of which there will be quite a few). I don't know, nor have I heard of anyone collecting to this level, so it would be a labour of love that is an order of magnitude more analytical than even the tooth pointings of Freeman and Davies etc. Anybody contemplating such a survey will need deep pockets, as even coins at melt in the quantities required will severely impact on the bank account. Even a short run such as George IV shillings would produce a significant tome when all the dies including punched varieties are included. Just think what the task would be like for all those hand punched dies, each and every one of which would be a discrete variety.

Yes and no. Research is always good fun, but have you considered the ramifications of listing all the potential double cut legend varieties in Spink or any other reference volume. Any, and potentially every letter on every coin could have been repunched at some point and in any combination with some recut several times. I suspect the only feasible option when carrying such a volume would be to attend the drive-thru coin fair. It's SO easy to get carried away with all these things, I know! And what's wrong with Spink's cataloging a 5/5 with top bit poking out, and 5/5 with back curve poking out beyond the other back curve, and, and...? These things have to be left to specialists undertaking a die study, and even then you would be hard pressed to find more than a handful of active collectors. I remember on more than one occasion sitting through a sale of sovereigns collected by die number. The tedium is unbelievable.

Yes and no. Research is always good fun, but have you considered the ramifications of listing all the potential double cut legend varieties in Spink or any other reference volume. Any, and potentially every letter on every coin could have been repunched at some point and in any combination with some recut several times. I suspect the only feasible option when carrying such a volume would be to attend the drive-thru coin fair.

But omitted to mention the most obvious fault - the inverted bust on the obverse.

If the underlying digit has a longer more curved tail and the top is straight, it could be a 5/3 just as easily as a 5/5. The first would be interesting, the second not. Thanks Rob. Again, according to Michael, the consensus has been that it is 5/3 but he thinks it is 5/5! When you say 'interesting' if it is 5/3, what is the rarity do you know/think? You would need to see it in hand. If a 5/3 then I've not seen one. Spink or ESC wouldn't list a 5/5 because there's no point, as by extension any reasonably large mintage with have a good number of repaired and reworked dies, all of which would lead to a new variety. People get too tied up with a slightly misaligned set of punches when it is well known that to impress a character requires more than one blow. It's rather more surprising that so many dates and legends are entered without any visible double cutting, particularly so as you are trying to recut a hardened die. That situation frequently leads to a series of offset cuts on account of the greater effort and hence less accuracy, required to make an impression on the die.