Rob

Thank you Geordie. PS the title said penny

Help please, can't decide whether it is E1 or E2. I think it is class 11a, but want a second opinion. Canterbury mint.

I'm not sure there is one. Serious variety collectors tend to collect one or two denominations at most. The cost of collecting all varieties in all denominations is a bit prohibitive and also coin collectors are a bit secretive. For varieties, you will have to plough through a number of books. Generally speaking, the standard references are Spink and Coincraft as these 2 publications give the broadest coverage for date and variety. However, they are both deficient in various ways. Spink doesn't list enough varieties having only some proofs and a handful of patterns but does cover every currency type. The prices are updated on a yearly basis and are an approximate reflection of the real world if a trifle expensive. Many varieites are simply listed as extremely rare with no price info shown. Coincraft has not been produced since 2000 and so prices are nonsensical, but it does have a better list of varieties and covers 1066 onwards. For more info regarding varieties the standard works for base metal are English Copper, Tin and Bronze coins in the British Museum (otherwise known as Peck - the author) 40 years old but indispensible. The last addition to this was an addendum in the 1967 British Numismatic Journal, so a lot has been discovered since then. Freeman is the other main reference but again is incomplete and only covers bronze pennies, halfpennies and farthings from 1860 onwards plus a few patterns for the proposed decimal currency prior to 1860. Gouby covers pennies in greater detail and there are other older publications such as Batty, Montagu et al but the first 2 are the most important, covering most people's needs. Silver coins are covered by English Silver Coinage since 1649 by Rayner, last revised in 1992 but still with a lot of holes. Davies' - British Silver Coins since 1816 does what it says on the cover and is reasonably complete with varieties. More so than ESC, but rather narrow in date range. Hammered is covered by North and sovereigns etc. are covered by Marsh. Both give good variety info. Other info can be extracted from auction catalogues where reference is frequently made to unrecorded varieties which in the absence of updates to books remain "unrecorded". Most people compile their own list specific to their personal field of interest. Colin Cooke's list of farthings on the website is not complete and he was in the process of compiling a definitive farthing guide before his untimely demise. I think he said it was up to Queen Anne. I have my own list of halfpennies which is now in excess of 1500 varieties and I haven't read all the books yet. I also have a virtually complete list of all known half-crowns. I haven't started on the shillings yet. None of these are on the web or even on computer. It is a case of buying the books and doing it yourself, although there may be some other members of this forum who have computerised lists they may be willing to share.

The double florin (4/-) issued between 1887 and 1890 has never been demonetised and therefore is still legal tender. Theoretically it could be spent today in a shop at face value of 20 pence, though having a value to collectors of many times this, you would be a fool to do so and you would probably get a strange look. Your question is therefore not valid.

Gotta give this one a little credit. Perhaps he is referring to the base-metal content of the crown, which in German would be kuper-nikel. You may have a point there. I suppose I had better apologise fully for any insinuated thoughts. Never mind, there will always be another one along soon.

Now we have gone up-market to a 1953 King's Norton Crown

It gets better. The errors were pointed out and the problem is quote THANKS ROB. BLOODY AUTO LIST MANAGER TOOL. CHANGED TO MANUAL MUCH SAFER. REGARDS RICH Clearly you can't trust computers these days. They insert wrong dates, wrong monarchs, changed George VI's wife's name to Mary or changed William's to George and to cap it all it appears that the coin is now cupro-nickel and a VIP proof!! - with more emphasis on the cupro than the nickel if the washed out colours are anything to go by. Must be the computer's fault. I wonder what the original coin was with the initial description? I don't normally use emoticons, but I wish there was one with a sad look shaking it's head. Do these people really exist or is someone just taking the p***????????????????

Spink 2006 prices are VF 50p, EF £6 and UNC £30, fine is unpriced. These values seem a bit high compared to what is available on various lists. In fine it will be worth pence, though I doubt you could sell it as there is no shortage of low grade 20th century bronze. Suitable references for prices are Spink's annual Standard Catalogue of British Coins and Collector's Coins published by the owner of this forum. There is an on-line price equivalent of these books which although it is not very comprehensive giving just the year and grade for various denominations and doesn't appear at first sight to specify any varieties, could provide some insight. It is written by someone called Tony Clayton. Type in coin prices + UK into Google and it is the 1st or 2nd entry.

Ask Mark Rasmussen for pictures, it was his list 7 cover coin. Alternatively I can scan in an image if required, but I guess you had better ask his permission before using it.

Title has been revised from this. Item: MARY & GEORGE 1694 HALFPENNY GVLIELMVS ERROR (8357295804) to the revised description. Any takers? - or perhaps that is a rhetorical question.

Here's another good one. ebay 1/2d I emailed drivingjames to suggest he may like to consider revising either the title or the pictures and the reply was "Why?". I despair. This one has further to run.

compared to this

Maybe a better approach would be to note at the bottom of each section the major variations found on the issue such as a small picture explaining that the last digit can vary in position between dies such as below and which is not a different reverse design variety together with another similar style picture comparing genuine wide and narrow dates

is this any better?

I knew there was a reason for not using it, but I had forgotten. I have never understood why it doesn't go back the 130 years or so to the start of milled, after all the number of low grade pieces dated prior to 1797 on eBay is testament to the potential market. Everyone knows what a dump halfpenny is and also appears to have one! It doesn't have to be all encompassing, but there is no separate milled or hammered guide available in simplified form.

We are getting into the realms of exponential expansion here. A slight variation in the position of the last digit is just individual die variations. If there were 50 dies, then you have 50 varieties. I don't think you will find too many collectors specialising in Freeman 150 varieties. Errors are a different thing and will always have a relatively large following.

The problem is trying to get scans of varieties. A camera is better but I don't have a good one. However, you can add an 1846/5 shilling to the list. You can make it out in the picture of ebay 8345114858 but it doesn't scan adequately.

I noticed.

1 over inverted 1 in date 1787 with hearts shilling

1817/6 shilling

Most contents policies specifically exclude high value items such as jewellery, coins, stamps, antiques etc. The usual limit is a derisory few hundred pounds which as you say doesn't cover the TV these days. I would suspect the £500 is the total collection as contents insurance tends to only cover items found in 90% or more of all households.

My insurer is Liverpool Victoria and they just treat the collection as an add on to the contents insurance. They do have requirements for a certain level of security, but no electric fences are required. Premiums are about 0.5% of sum insured. They are quite good for normal contents insurance too as my policy automatically covers up to about £150K contents irrespective of the actual value, whereas most insurance companies require you to state a figure so they have a number to adjust in the case of a claim. I have never claimed so don't know how good they would be in that instance, but so far the experience has been OK.

Why would Chris want to buy my 1981 copy of CC on ebay?

Apparently, "The seller ended this listing early because the item was lost or broken." Breaking it must be almost as difficult as finding one, so we must assume it was lost. A great loss to the numismatic community, only a few thousand left. ----------------- Thank god.

London Coins 27th November, lots 923 and 924. Both available to buy if you want them badly enough.