Rob

Peck wrote the bible for British base metal currency and is called English Copper, Tin and Bronze Coins in the British Museum 1558-1958, first published in 1960. Gregory parts 1 & 2 was the Baldwin auction on 2nd May last and is the next Baldwin sale on 25th September.

Aidan. I am fully aware that there is normally no edge inscription on any currrency copper W+M piece and this is why I started this thread. I have examples of most Peck numbers from 602-607 except for the unbarred A's (P604) and no reverse stop (P605) varieties because I haven't found a gVF or better example of either to say unambiguously that they are not due to infilled dies. I also have other unrecorded varieties such as the GV/B featured on Colin Cooke's website a couple of years ago. I also have most designs of Anne patterns. Unfortunately, Spink is useless when it comes to proofs or patterns and Coincraft although it mentions proofs, usually has a note saying that varieties exist. Therefore it is necessary to refer to Peck for detailed info regarding these pieces. It is fair to say that there are more obvious traces of letters on this piece than on my plain edge P712 Anne double obv. which is filed and on a similar type Anne pattern, Gregory lot 509, which also had traces of letters despite of the filing and was noted as such in the catalogue.

Hi Aiden. The piece in question was struck from an obverse die very much like Nicholson 075 which was 0.04g heavier than this piece at 13.51g and also struck on a thick flan but there are slight differences to the obverse in the positioning of the stops after ET and MARIA compared to this piece. The final stop is notably further away from the bust although the letter alignment compares well. I spent a good 20 minutes comparing the two. The Nicholson piece also didn't have any traces of letters. The traces of lettering that are present are very weak, but sufficiently clear to say that it would be a remarkable coincidence to have spurious edge marks with the correct spacing to read M VS* for example. I had a discussion with Colin Cooke about this at the time who was dismissive because it is accepted that they didn't use collars in this period, but I note they did have an edging machine which was subsequently used for the Anne pattern 1/2ds. It therefore remains quite possible that this is genuinely edge inscribed, but as always requires a better example to confirm.

Does anyone on this forum have or know of anything similar to this enigmatic piece of mine? Vital statistics are 28.5mm dia. 2.5mm thick and weighs in at 13.47g or about 208 grains ie. nearly 15% above the upper weight limit in Peck. As you can see from the picture the edge is very sharp which raised the possibility of some form of collar being used, but I have dismissed this due to parts looking too uneven. The puzzle is that there appears to be traces of edge lettering albeit very faint which I can't image using the scanner. According to Peck, there were no examples of edge legend used between the tin issues and the Anne patterns yet this appears to have a trace of parts of a NVMMORVM FAMVLVS edge. Given that the facilities would still be present and being only 2 years after the cessation of tin currency production, the possibility exists of an experiment with the edging equipment using copper flans. Possibly significantly, the thickness of the flan is the same as the edge inscribed tin issue. Occasionally you find thick raised lines going across the edge of halfpennies, presumably from when the blanks were cut out of the sheet, but if this is the answer then they have conveniently joined to form consecutive letters. Has anyone got something similar?

The diameter of halfpennies before the use of steam driven machinery in 1797 varies even for the same date because they were produced on a fly press without a collar. This means there was no constraint on how much the flan spread when the coin was struck. The flans for the George 1st 2nd issue vary (according to Peck) between 27.5 & 30mm diameter so your coin at 29mm diameter is within the normal range for this issue. The other parameter that needs to be considered therefore is the weight. Peck quotes a range of 144 -160 grains or about 9.3 - 10.4grams. As Peck cannot have seen every example in existence, this is the approximate range for a normal piece so it is probably wise to allow a margin of 5-10% either side of this before considering a coin to be particularly heavy or light. Anything significantly outside these limits warrants further examination. The figure of 27 mm is too small for the second issue. All of my 2nd issue pieces are 28mm or greater with the exception of a very worn brockage which comes in at 27.4mm ie. it was almost certainly within the lower 27.5mm limit when struck. All of these measurements should be viewed as applicable to an unworn coin.

1856 PT pennies are scarce but not rare

The weight quoted in Peck would bring the thickness down to less than 1mm, but we don't know the condition of it. If it were worn, then it is possible the thickness was originally 1mm or so thick which is at the bottom end of the farthing flan thickness. It is quite possible that halfpenny sized flans were punched out of a farthing thickness sheet of metal. The thin flan farthing in the Gregory pt.1 sale weighed 3.00g as opposed to a normal piece weighing say 4.75g ish. On this basis, the definition of a very thin flan is therefore approximately 60% of normal. A slightly related piece of info worth noting is as follows. The P778 (1718) silver 1/2d in the May Baldwins sale is 1.5mm thick as opposed to the normal thickness of 2-2.25mm and this is in line with silver proof farthings which are also struck on a thinner flan. For the record, I think the weight given in BMC for the Peck P778 of 157.3 grains is probably a typographical error. The description of the coin ie. worn with 2 file marks fits it as does the diameter. The actual weight is about 7.45-6g or 115 and a bit grains. Given that only a couple of pieces have ever been recorded, it is highly likely that this is the "P" piece. The 1 of the footnote is probably part of the weight that should have been printed, the decimal point having been moved to accommodate the obvious error of 15.73 grains. Just a thought.

Slightly detached from reality 1817 shilling

ww Fine £18, VF £40, EF £150, UNC £275. ww obliterated Fine £35, VF £75, EF £235, UNC £425.

Some "extremely rare" coins in Spink aren't and some coins are priced as if they came up every day whereas in fact they are extremely rare. To further muddy the water, the rarity values assigned in Freeman, Rayner, BMC etc are frequently at odds with the number of pieces seen at sales and are really only an indication of what was considered rare in 1964, 1970, 1972, 1985, 1992 etc. Post a couple of pictures and someone will be able to give an idea of scarcity together with a grade and ballpark value.

I've got an Edward Lee halfpenny in my gallery section. I've also got an Archbishop Warham 1/2d and have had a couple of Thomas Rotherham pennies in the past but have sold them

It looks to me that the top of the six is removed to the greater degree, more of the lower loop of the six remaining and becoming the lower loop of the 'new' number 8. The six is at an angle, leaning to the left and looks to be larger hence showing on both sides. My images are a little bit on the large side to post more than two at once.

Doesn't look like it. The 1858/3 normally has a characteristic flaw running through the bottom of the date and it doesn't show too much of the 3 either. Not very good grade example attached.

Thanks John. These both show a feature that I couldn't reconcile with an underlying 6. Both have an indent to a lesser extent than the overlying 8 but nevertheless a clear indent and that suggests to me an 8. It would have to be deformed a bit, but I have never seen a 6 with this feature. I would expect a 6 to have a straightish trending slightly convex outer border on the left side.

That's because there wasn't anything worth bidding on. It wasn't worth making a 500 mile round trip on the off chance there might be something in the bulk lots

Fine £90, VF £275 & EF £925

I can't see any reason to make it worth £50 either. Maybe the beer has been flowing.

This is a close-up of my 1858/6 half penny

And quickly relisted

Does anyone have an unambiguous 1858/6 halfpenny - Peck 1547. If so, could they post a close-up of the overstrike please. All of the examples so stated that I have seen have not been clearly so, including the 2 Nicholson pieces which I couldn't reconcile as an underlying 6. I have seen quite a few with something in the left hand recess of the 8, but all I would have described as die defects rather than an overstrike. Thanks.

In that case, please see my current listing of approximately 50 of this year and similar. At £8.50 each, that's well over £400 worth of coins, and all for a quid.

FDC- Fully dipped and cleaned?

Still overgrades but not as bad as others. I've had more than the odd not-UNC I wish I had this much money to waste 1863 shilling

Up to 6 months and yes in that order