1949threepence

Went for £5,500, Bob. Perhaps a little less than I expected.

I would have said EF/NEF, personally. Nice, issue free coin.

Indeed. The so called souvenir replica pennies, which are currently flooding e bay, are very far from convincing. Even the ones which have been deliberately made to look circulated.

Obviously, it's not ideal. But in a sealed bag they should at least be free from harmful outside agents. But they are all packed together, which might lead to friction problems. Has anyone ever opened a sealed bag from decades ago, and noted the condition of the coins inside?

Agreed. It looks as though it's been in some machinery, or maybe crushed in something akin to a vice.

1905

Imagine a load of those in your pocket 🚫

As Rob says, both are possible. In successive years, I'd say the same die was more probable than not. But if the same die No was used 10 years apart, it's unlikely to be the same actual die.

Indeed. It's actually a nice coin in itself.

Not for anyone with a reasonable level of experience, such as Lukasz. He would be able to see in an instant, just as we can, that it wasn't a mule.

No, he'd be better going via a proper auction site. Welcome back, Dave.

The grade description definitely is.

It would. I'd also posted a link 6 posts in on the thread.

Thanks for all the helpful advice gents. Much appreciated.

You'd think they would do by now. Not to mention live auctions on the internet.

Always do, Jon. The live auctions are great to listen to.

But if that's the case, then if the last live internet or room bidder bids £1500, then it will come to "fair warning" at what? Won't the £1500 bidder think they are the winner?

Sorry Jon, didn't see your post initially. No you got my point. It was just I'm honestly unsure.

Right, thanks Paddy. I did wonder that, but honestly wasn't sure simply by virtue of the fact that if an exceptionally high bid was made pre auction, then the auctioneer on the day will obviously say something like "£2000 I'm bid", which could unfairly put off other potential bidders who might otherwise have gone for intermediate amounts.

The following is some information on bidding increments from dnw's website:- Would I be correct in assuming that if a given coin had estimates of say £300 - £400, but I bid (for example) £2000, prior to auction, then on the day there were no other bids, I would get the coin for the first increment down from £2k - ie: £1900? Thanks in advance.

Yep, it's the archetypal example of making sure you read the small print. A lousy trick designed to trip up the naive and unwary, but perfectly within the rules. Caveat Emptor.

The obverse toning on the first proof is superb. A thing of beauty.

On the basis of the pics, I'd go for GEF/aUNC. The reverse looks slightly better than the obverse. Nice coin.

Oh sure. Obviously there are coins which you could say without argument, are definitely mules, such as that Jersey Penny. As well as the overwhelming majority of coins, which aren't. The difficulty lies in the grey area in between, and it is that which we will probably never achieve total consensus in. As far as "intent", for me that would have to be officially sanctioned intent. If a die operative on the day inadvertently married up incompatible reverse and obverse dies, then you could argue that his intent was to use the correct dies, but due to a mistake on his part, an erroneous combination was used. The problem with this, of course, is that in most cases you won't know with absolute certainty whether it was a mistake at the sharp end (as it were), or an agreement deliberately arrived at, in the full knowledge of what dies were being used in combination. Another area of possible debate would be at what level an intentional decision was made to use incompatible dies. It could be made at operative, or foreman level where the intended die was broken, but to fulfill targets an incorrect one was used. In real life any number of possibilities rest as a potential, and the reasons will have been lost in the mists of time even by the following weeks of production, let alone 150 plus years later.

We all are.... Let's be honest, in the absence of an overriding definition accepted by all, there's never going to be full consensus on this issue, so, in terms of what is a mule and what isn't, to each his own.