Gary

Thanks for the info Rob. I have never heard of these two overdates. Dracott has no mention of them. Mal Lewendon does mention a 1876 over 6 but from the Pic it seems to be a normal 6 over 6 and not a Farthing 6! So I take it that the dies were prepared without the last two digits of the date, these being added as and when the need arouse?

Churchill Crown could not help reporting this one, £237.................... and graded at Nearly EF!

The whole coin

Freeman mentions two 1861 Halfpennies with 6 over 8 in the date and lists them as F274A Obv5 RevE and F282A, Obv 7 Rev G. Also listed is a 1861 Penny 6 over 8, F30, Obv 6 Rev G. Also reported an 1861 Halfpenny F276 Obv6, RevE 6 over 6 (same die as the F274A) Miceal Gouby reports an 1866 penny first 6 over 8. It has been assumed that the wrong punch was used during a die repair In the case of the halfpenny Rev G was used up until 1873 and the penny Rev G until 1875 what if Dies were prepared in bulk to be used over a period of more than 10 years, this would mean that the last two digits of the date would be added at a later time. This opens the possibility that these coins originate not by an 8 punch but rather by a misplaced 6 as seen in the pic below of an F274 6 over a higher 6. If members have examples of these coins and a few minutes to spare perhaps you could look for traces of the top of the lower six poking out above and post results here.

Obv legend "LUDW CHRIST LAUER NURNBERG MADE IN GERMANY" I think that solves it. As the others said a toy coin made by Lauer in Nurnberg Germany. Collectable but unfortunately not in that condition.

It is, high tide Freemans 148 or Gouby BP1897C I like the description "EXC GRADE COIN LUSTRE VINTAGE" What looks like a dot is going to turn out to be a fleck of dust but a high tide 1897 for £11 is also a result.

not a good pic but looks promising. Good luck. Post a better pic when it arrives.

thanks for that link Peter. Very timely as I am just beginning to branch out into British Empire coins and have been looking for something like this site to identify the silver content of empire coins. Lovely!

That's a nice 1934 Penny for 20p. Nice edges and toning.

It's a good sharp strike with all the details showing and minimal wear to the high points, so I would grade at GEF. For me personally, I would like to see some lustre though many collectors prefer attractive toning over patchy lustre. I think the price achieved was fair for the year and coin. Full lustre examples are going to be £200+, that was a nice 1863 penny and I am one of those collectors that likes nice attractive toning

You may have a few gaps but that is more than made up for by Quality of the coins and the photos. Agreed, we are all far too critical of our own collections

I started off with pennies as do most people. The book from Michael Freeman is probably considered the bible for collectors of bronze coinage as it does not just include pennies but also halfpennies and farthings too. However, the first book came out in 1970 with the second revised edition appearing in 1985. Spinks did do a reprint in 2006 and up until that point a second hand copy of the second edition would sell for around £50 plus. The Spink reprint was just that a reprint and does not have any updated information. Since 1985, 27 years ago there have been other discoveries, Die pairings, errors etc that are not in Freemans. As you can imagine in 1985 the standard of digital photography and printing were not up to todays standards and in my opinion for you as a beginner so to speak a much better buy would be Michael Goubys "The British Bronze Penny 1860-1970" although the print date of this is 1986 and the photos are black and white they are larger and easier to distinguish. He has recently bought out a new one, The Specialised Edition" which is up to date and has good quality photos in colour however it just covers pennies from 1860-1901 and this one cost £50. Freemans costs £35 and the old Gouby costs £22 all available directly from Micheal Gouby . I do have all three and use all of them regularly. If your budget stretches to it then I would get both Freemans and Goubys 1860-1970 and when you really get the bug and you will! invest in the Specialised Edition. Micheal Gouby also has s lot of useful info and picture on his site, just look at his sales list.

They did not "overstamp" existing coins but cut a new date into dies that were still good from previous years. In most cases the last digit of the date was altered as is the case of the 1865 over 3 penny, 1858 over 7 and so on. Dies were very costly to produce so this helped to keep costs down. Many Dies became damaged and letters and numbers were recut to increase the life of the Die. Another reason is a mistake when preparing a new Die ie the 1862 Penny where the 6 has been recut over an 8 which has been incorrectly cut during Die preparation.. I am sure there are other members on here who are more in the know when it comes to Die making.

Could have saved myself the trouble with my pics!! Forgot about Accumulator's homepage. Have a look here for good penny pics Pennies 1860-1869

There are 3 Obv for 1862, Freeman only lists 2. The other 2 obvs both have a signature on or beneath the bust and are extremely rare. If you are after an affordable decent grade 1862 penny then I can offer you this one PM me if your interested. My grade for this one is NEF

The pics a little hazy but I am almost sure its the common obv 6. Heres a close up of the major features on an obv 6 16 Leaves to the wreath, an extra leaf protrudes from the top of the fourth group numbered 13 in the pic. There is no signature on or under the bust and the elongated colon dot and die flaw.

I was watching that one as well, the price rapidly went up to above 300 a couple of days after it was listed. She still has a few nice pennies on ebay.

Excellent book that all Coin collectors/Dealers should have and abide by. I bought this book after collecting for over 20 years and still got useful information from it. Highly recommended ref book.

Thanks to everyone for your time. Very informative. With the info supplied I now have enough for further research.

A friend asked me about some coins and to be honest I have no idea. Can anyone identify these types of coins? I will try to get some more info from him but he did say they are old greek and from Istrien. Istrien as far as I recall is in Croatia so that info may be incorrect. Any info would be appreciated, thanks, Gary.

correct, been there done that. However just yesterday I saw a documentry on the Falkland islands and it is now on a cruise ship route which puts in to Port Stanley so not just down to members of the armd forces anymore.

As long as people are willing to part with good money for these fakes then the practice will flurish! I find it hard to believe that real collectors are being fooled by these! Are the buyers investors who know nothing about the so called coins they are buying thinking they are on to a good thing, we will never know! Here is a link to completed listings from a seller based in china showing the range of fakes and prices that people are willing to pay for them. Hope it works. Completed Listings and those currently on offer Current

I have just looked at my two 1841 and have noticed other slight differences which I thought worthy of mention. I have highlighted them in the pics. Back to the original question as to the rarity of the with colon, I would rate them rarer than the suggested 1:10 ratio. Just do a search through the dealers lists/Auction sites and see if one crops up!

Queen Anne 1711 Sixpence Terrible grading

Hi Garry, Gary here, there are too many Gary's on here! First of all welcome to the forum. That looks like a nice coin and I agree with Peckris comment that it has a similar apperance to mint darkened coins but what the mint can do so can others. I presume the pic that you posted was unedited? If it was then I suspect the camera that you used was on its lowest resolution setting, go into menu and set it to its highest setting. From a previous thread "To have anything workable then the date pics have to be at least 500 pixels in width. If you are using a camera use the largest pic setting and get it as close to the coin as poss, if you are scanning use the highest resolution setting to obtain the largest pic possible. In any photo editing software you have an option to save as .jpeg which will tell you the size of the saved file and allow you to compress it to a given data size ie 150kb. If the quality of the pic is reduced too much by the compression then reduce the size of the original pic (usually under "Image" and then "Size" or "Resize"), say the original is 1000x500 pixels then reduce it to 500x250 this way you reduce the data size by half (not quite true but good enough) and then save as .jpeg." As to the weight issue I have listed my weights for halfpenny from this reign 1902 UNC 5.6g (Low Tide) 1902 UNC 5.6g 1902 UNC 5.5g 1902 UNC 5.62g 1905 EF 5.78g 1906 UNC 5.57g an average weight of 5.61g What is the weight of the 1876H penny on your scales?