1949threepence

Which one did you deal with, Michael, or his son Rendell? Not keen on either of them. In my opinion, their stock is overpriced. Although I did get a nice F26 from them, about a year ago. That was a bit overpriced, but a very nice coin, so was willing to splash out on it.

...and probably many of those taken in, won't actually realise for years, sometimes decades..

Call it a type of instinct. I'm now so used to looking at bun pennies that I can detect the slightest difference between normal and fake. Just hits me in the eye immediately. I'd strongly guess that other penny collectors would be the same. I'd easily be taken in by other denominations, which I've little or no experience in.

Looking at these repro pennies, it is absolutely obvious they are fake, just in one glance.

Maybe it's simply because it's a very nice coin, albeit not rare. For reference I was actually the successful bidder on a slabbed MS65 F82 on 31st December 2014, and won at £314.00. It was the one from the Alderley collection, and is definitely ball less, as it were.

In summation: it's not always easy to draw an accurate conclusion on variety, from photographs alone.

Thanks - link to the e bay page here I'll have a closer look tomorrow when I'm a bit sharper. Half asleep at the mo.

Can you link to the seller, zookeeperz? Might give us a bit of an insight.

The base of the bust looks much closer to the toothed border on the second coin, which makes it appear somewhat akin to obverse 3.

Atif hasn't even logged in since May 2008.

Impressive !!!

Not watching it Jon, just flashes in front of my radar every time I scour e bay Victorian pennies.

Same coin, with arguably dubious credentials of uniqueness, has now been on e bay offer since about 2011. Is this a record? link here

Probably the first three. The unintended erection one has often occurred when sitting down with other people around, and just before I have to stand up. I always think about something sombre to try and get rid of it.

Blimey indeed

There's also dedicated bespoke cabinets for slabbed coins now, Richard:-

Very good, if somewhat contradictory points in the two posts above. Obviously we will never know for sure, and can only speculate.

Interesting about the 1862/1. I always thought it was an identical scenario to the 1865/3, where old dies were re-used. In this case the 1861 dies. But Gouby reckons that it's because the repairer forgot that the die would be in reverse order to the coin. Similar to the 1861, 6 over 8, and 8 over 6. He also says the same of the 1882/1. Although reverts back to the good housekeeping theory of using up old dies, as far as the1893/2 is concerned. Is he necessarily right, or just making a convenient assumption because it fits with "one" being the lead number?

Welcome to the forum. My advice would be to collect a specific denomination of coin, not try and collect one of every date and denomination from the Victorian era.That would be a mind bogglingly long project. Pennies are very popular, as there are many varieties, and you can set your own specific parameters as to how far you go in variety specialisation. I 100% agree with the remarks made above about buying higher grade coins - in fact the highest you can afford. You will not regret it, as they are a good investment, and you can always re-sell. Whereas you can't always with lower grade coins. That said, you may well have to take a hit on grade with very rare types, as not only are they extremely expensive in high grade, but in some cases, not ever to be found. Good luck.

Well done, and well spotted, Richard. That has to be the best so far encountered.

Somebody say something? Is that you. Pete?

I've said before, and I'll say again - things should always be made as easy and convenient as humanly possible for the end user. Far too many things these days, seem to be made absurdly complex or even incomprehensible, and this seems a prime example. I haven't registered with them, and maybe just as well. You sound like you've had a frustrating day, chaps .

Yes it was rather decent of them.

Well the above is what I posted on 10th August, and I've finally received a reply. As it happens, it isn't much of a reply, but I thought I would post it anyway. Shown below. An unrelated quote from Ian keeps coming up, when I try to quote my own post, which I can't seem to delete. Never mind. To be fair, the question is very obscure, and realistically, getting a meaningfuul answer was always going to be a long shot, 153 years after the event.

Another monumental piss take